link: 10 elements of craft good writers should steal from The Hunger Games

"Most of us would be lying if we said we didn’t want the same kind of vast and passionate audience that Ms. Collins enjoys.  Here are ten elements of craft that writers should consider stealing from the Hunger Games trilogy:...... read more here......"

Poetic Closure

X. J. Kennedy provides a simple criterion for testing closure: “A long poem--how well is it put together?  Easy to tell.  A simple test: Do you need to turn the page to know you’ve come to its end?” On the other hand, some poets don’t want their poems to click shut, preferring a less definite sense of closure.

( Barbara Daniels)

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editing your short stories

Michelle Seaton offers a great lesson on The Review Review on line-editing your short stories; read it { Here }

"Is your poetry manuscript ready? - Part 1"

Our manuscripts are always ready. Sometimes they are ready for us to work on them some more. Sometimes they are ready for a month-long nap in a drawer to take a break from us. Sometimes they are ready for us to stop obsessing and relineating and to send them to try their luck with real life readers.
Sometimes the trouble is that we, the poets, have difficulties recognizing when our manuscripts are ready or not. I believe there are several signs we can look for...[ KEEP READING]

The Marks of Oft-Rejected Poems

The Indiana Review editors reveal 5 marks of a poems they typically reject--a must-read if you are interested in submitting there!

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Stephen Dobyns, on Revision

"When I was much younger, I would write a poem in the morning, work on it through the day, and then go to bed with a sense of accomplishment. The poem seemed finished. However, when I looked at it the next morning, all was changed. What had seemed graceful now looked clumsy; what seemed intelligent was now vague, while the formal qualities I had admired were a mishmash of inexact barrowings. My first sense, though I knew it wasn’t true, was that someone had entered my apartment in the night and wrecked my poem."

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