poetsquib.com

There are so many wonderful words in Dr Johnson’s Dictionary that don’t get the attention they deserve. Let’s dust them off and bring them back
vaticide. n.s. A murderer of poets.
This is a bit of a strange one because the modern meaning of the word is ‘the murder or murderer of a prophet’ so I […]

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Yes, who can forget Sky-Byte, that incredible metal shark beast-poet from The Transformers

His motto may well have been ‘I’ll tear my enemies to shreds’ but let’s not forget his soft marshmallowly side. Like so many of history’s great psychopaths, Sky-Byte was also a bit of a poet
Who can forget this fine piece of jingoistic verse?
Who’s […]

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Apparently after 340 years, the astounding idea has emerged that maybe, just maybe the next Poet Laureate should be a woman (of which I am one). This position used to last a lifetime but that was when people only lived for ten years. Now the rules have changed and the position lasts for ten years. […]

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I was intrigued by the Gumball Poetry Movement in the US which dispenses poems through gumball machines, instead of gumballs
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they expanded on this concept? What if they replaced everything in vending machines with poems? And they didn’t tell people? And people put their coins in and went to reach for […]

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Queen of the Wits by Norma Clarke is a biography of Laetitia Pilkington (1709-1750), an Irish poet who somehow survived scandal (of the worse kind!), poverty, prison, a sort of poetry and theatre writing sweatshop, and a most terrible kind of husband. I was so absorbed by the end that I was in tears
This provides […]

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What a beautiful collection this is. As I’m a contributor you’d expect me to say that, right? Nonetheless this really is a superb selection of poems on parenting from a wide range of writers, including luminaries such as Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney, and Les Murray
Published by Random House (NZ) this collection has been edited […]

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It’s true, I’m the first person to point out your typo or your grammatical error and I even belong to a Facebook Group called ”If You Can’t Differentiate Between “Your” and “You’re” You Deserve To Die” but the sad truth is I am a pedantic hypocrite.  
Here are some words I still spell wrong: eppitamy, photoes, […]

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Who can forget the great works of this small blue poet? The wonderful thing about Poet Smurf is he looked the part, carrying his quill pen and parchment about with him. Critics called him pretentious but the proof is in the pudding
I still marvel at his fine verse, and the way he found inspiration from […]

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I was telling a friend how doomed I am re: glossophobia and poetry slams (see poetry clam).
Friend: Poetry slams? They’re very popular now, aren’t they? That’s so funny how things that were popular in the US about 10 or 20 years ago take all that time to trickle down to Australia. You know, like now you […]

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Years ago, one of my poems was published in an Iranian booklet (I can’t remember the name of the university involved and the front cover only has La Tour D’Eiffel on it). This booklet has always been a beautiful little mystery to me because the only poem in it that I can read is my […]

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