For those of you that have been living under a rock for the past couple of years, Pinterest is a visual discovery engine for finding ideas like recipes, home and style inspiration, and more. Everyone and their mother has a Pinterest account nowadays. In this article, we show you how you can use Pinterest to gain more traction for your poetry work.
Read MoreIf you are looking for a collection of poems that allows your heart to indulge in the glistening simplicities around you, The Colour Of Hope does so through an original and gorgeous method. Collated as poems that are specifically written for friends of hers, Jen Feroze cleverly includes personalised imagery to spark joy for both the recipient and the reader. Written during the pandemic, it guaranteed to ignite lost hope, whilst providing scintillating reminders of the beautiful world around us. Despite us moving on from lockdowns and isolations, Feroze has designed the collection in such a way that it can be adored in any era.
Read MoreAbout 10 years ago I came down with a highly contagious infection that what we in the UK call 'Mumps'. I had been vaccinated against it as a child so my case was rare; I was asked to send a saliva sample in the post so the NHS could track the number of diagnoses. Suffice to say, waking up in the middle of the night to a feeling much akin to having been punched in the side of the head and - upon looking in the mirror - seeing that your face is three times its normal size does not spark joy.
Read MoreOnce, when I was a little girl, we were renovating the flooring in our house and I gathered the leftover parquet pieces; I glued them together so that I’d make furniture for my doll house. My doll house was an empty cupboard in my room. Limits make you creative, clever and skilful; they expand your imagination to go beyond the boundaries of your current reality.
Read MoreJai M Louissen is a Scottish-born poet, now living via London in the coastal natural beauty of The Netherlands. Having spent time composing songs and music as a singer, recording artist and performer, her work began as a longing to be closer to her own inner world.
Read MoreA hard rain falls,
turning sunlight
into a prismatic shower.
As time loses its axis,
every step
is imbued with history,
every hole in the glass
becomes a galaxy,
every widened pupil
a black hole—
echoing:
Only a decade ago, poetry was not meant to bring in money. If you were in a creative writing class 10 or 15 years back, every professor of poetry would have told you the same story, “You do not write poetry to earn money.” Whether art was for art’s sake or it was aimed at teaching and delighting people, it was not supposed to be a replacement of a profession for earning a livelihood.
Read MoreKaci Skiles Laws wrote her first haiku in third grade about a giraffe. Years later, she wrote her first accomplished poem about her barn cat, Tinkerbell, who later died after getting attacked by her brother’s Jack Russell. The day her mom came to tell her the news she already knew. At the time, she didn’t understand she had the gift of clair cognizance, sometimes referred to as a sixth sense. As a little girl she was perceptive and sensitive in ways her mom respected as true insight, while other, insensitive people didn’t believe her or called her dramatic.
Read MoreIf you are reading this, then most probably you have been writing poetry for a while now and feel kind of ready to bring your collection together. But how to decide which poems go into it and which don’t? And how many poems are enough? These are important questions and I will try to answer them below based mostly on my own experience as a self-published poetess.
Read MoreChristina Hennemann is a writer and teacher based in the beautiful West of Ireland. She grew up in Germany and started writing her first English poems at the age of six with the help of a dictionary. Since moving to Ireland, she has been writing professionally. Her work has appeared in orangepeel, Anti-Heroin Chic, Goats Milk, Free Verse Revolution Lit, Tír na nÒg and elsewhere.
Christina writes about the subconscious mind, trauma, the healing power of nature and spirituality and relationships.
Read MoreSean Tierney is a poet and solar etched printmaker currently based in Florida. Born and raised in New England, Sean developed a love for nature that permeates nearly all of his written works. In 2009, he became involved with Ra Press of Vermont and released six collections of poetry in the Green Mountain and Adirondack regions. In 2018 and 2019 he was a contest judge for the Poetry Society of South Carolina.
Read MoreAfter all the hard work of writing and publishing your precious book, you may be asking yourself, do I really need a copyright page? Will it be the end of the world if I don’t include one? Truthfully, you don’t NEED one. These days it is a formality. From the moment your fingers hit the keys, or your pen hits the page, you own the copyright to your work. Whether you include a formal note of copyright, you own the right to your art. That being said, here are some reasons you may want to create a copyright for your book. We will discuss them in this article.
Read MoreA friend of mine who just started out her own lndie press showed me some cool designed slides that read ‘why we don’t publish our books on Amazon.’ It wasn't the first time I came across one of these. And with good reason. I will never ever deny Amazon is evil. It is. It's a destroyer of bookshops, of rainforests, of our ozone layer. I have written many a poem about its CEO Jeff Bezos, whom, together with Elon Musk, I regard as one of the horsemen of the Apocalypse.
But, and don't take out your pitchforks yet, (I would love to have a constructive discussion about this in the comments), isn't avoiding Amazon with your small press nothing more than an absolute fucking privilege not all of us have?
Read MoreJude Raed is a Palestinian-Jordanian poet, writer and language enthusiast. She likes labaneh with mint on toast, collecting books and sci-fi movies. Her socks never match, and she finds it very weird talking about herself in the third person.
Read MoreSallyanne Rock’s debut pamphlet published on April 7th reminds me of what walking across hot coal on a summer day would feel like. It’s unapologetically raw, a strong punch in the gut, a visual diary of domestic abuse, going through trauma and navigating the crisis of identity. It reminds me of what Emily Dickinson claims about poetry—after reading Rock’s work, you feel like your head has been chopped off because of being thrown in emotional turmoil and unnerving questions that peel your skin and bones off bit by bit.
Read MoreThe dream of many writers is to be published by one of the Big 5 publishers, such as Penguin Random House and Harper Collins. But the world of publishing is much richer and vaster than the big, billion-dollar publishing houses. Many small presses operate outside the elite bubble, pulling far less than ten figures a year. However, through curating a unique brand identity, they foster a loyal audience among authors and readers alike. Indie darlings, with their sophisticated and imaginative books, are suited for the coveted coffee table displays, unlike the top 20 books you can find in airport bookstands.
Read MoreAfi Koasi is a Ghanaian writer who through poetry has found a passionate outlet of self-expression. Her poems reflect the very essence of word power, exposing the reality of stories written beautifully. She’s a writer determined to be heard, writing away her deepest thoughts as experienced and observed. Afi is a lover of art, music and chocolates.
Read MoreAs you release a poem into the fruitful world of poetry, you never know who might read it, how it might resonate with others, and what critiques might be made. It is an incredibly vulnerable position to be in as a poet. But there is a secret to using this vulnerability to claim your voice, which will lead to deeper fulfilment from writing and from life itself.
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