National Poetry Month 2013: Debbie Levy's Ode to the Dictionary App

Today's Poetry Friday host is Laura Purdie Salas!
Stop by Writing the World for Kids for this week's poetry links.

Can you believe that it's the last Poetry Friday of National Poetry Month 2013? We have a few more days to spend in the TechnoVerse -- the intersection between poetry and technology.

(You can read the full list of posts in the "Welcome to the TechnoVerse" series here.)

Today, Maryland-based poet and children's author Debbie Levy (IMPERFECT SPIRAL) is here with an ode to a post about her favorite app: the Merriam-Webster's dictionary (here's the web  version).

Buy it at IndieBound.

Feel free to put your dusty old word-tomes on the floor. Those obsolete reference books make great door-stops.

You Want This App!

by Debbie Levy

Although I was a fairly late adapter to smartphones, I was, and am, an enthusiastic one. And there is one smartphone app that I’ve embraced as a reader, writer, and human being who communicates with words: the Merriam-Webster dictionary app. I turn to it all the time. How do I love it? Let me count the ways:

1. For definitions. Duh—but, really, think of all the words we use that we couldn’t precisely define if someone asked. My American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language is also perfect for this—but it’s big and heavy and not with me all the time. Life is better when I look up definitions.

2. For comparing nuances between similar words. A few weeks ago, I couldn’t decide: “prattle” or “prate”? Thanks to the app, I decided the question turned on whether I wanted to “utter or make meaningless sounds suggestive of the chatter of children” or “talk long and idly.” I’m not sure I went on to make the correct choice, but it was an informed choice.

3. For synonyms. Babble, blab, cackle, chatter, gab, gabble, jabber, jaw, natter, patter, rattle, twitter. . . . I could go on, but I would be prattling.


 Talking Babble Ball for Dogs talks and makes exciting animal sounds
when touched, according to ValleyVet.Com.

 

 

4. For pronunciations. Next to each word, there’s a little speaker icon. Push it and a woman or man utters the word for you. The voice in the app is, I’m pretty sure, a blood relation of the woman or man in your MapQuest or Google Maps app, only not so disapproving, which is nice.

 

5. For words that I’ve looked up recently (and possibly already forgotten), there’s the app’s “Recent” function. You don’t have to do a thing; it compiles the list from your previous look-ups. It’s like a little journal. My “Recent” list includes “omphalos” and “millrace.” I have no idea why. And “riffle” and “rifle,” because I wanted to make sure the character going through the mail in the page proofs of my new novel was doing the right thing in “riffling” rather than “rifling” through it. He was. And “chartreuse” because sometimes I have a mental block in which I mix it up with “magenta.” What, you’ve never blanked out on your non-primary colors?

 

“Aphorism” and “apothegm” are on the list—who wouldn’t want to know the difference? “Valence” and “valance”—okay, there is no way I will remember what a “valence” is but I will not confuse it with “valance.” “Negativism.” “Pessimism.” I’m sure I had very good reasons for examining those words. “Banal.” Don’t ask. (But see above, my use of the “How do I love thee” trope instead of coming up with something fresher.)

 

Finally, one more reason to love the app: the word of the day. As I write this, that word is “nepenthe.” 

 

 

I didn’t know this word. The app defines “nepenthe” as:

“1: a potion used by the ancients to induce forgetfulness of pain or sorrow

“2: something capable of causing oblivion of grief or suffering.”

An atomizer for your nepenthe, from Graphics Fairy.

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What a great word for a writer!

 

And now I read further down the screen: “‘Nepenthe’ and its ancestors have long been popular with poets. Homer used the Greek grandparent of ‘nepenthe’. . . . The term was a tonic to Edmund Spenser. . . .Edgar Allan Poe sought to ‘Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore.’” (Who is Lenore? Click this link and you will be confused nevermore.)

 

How do I call myself a writer and not know this word?!

 

I should not let an iPhone app make me feel bad about myself. So I won’t. Moving on.

 

I love my Merriam-Webster dictionary app. There is one down side: The app has led me away from daily use not only of my American Heritage dictionary but also my thesaurus. I have a beat-up, coffee-stained edition of Roget’s given and inscribed to me in 1970 by Mrs. Sporn, my sixth-grade teacher at Montgomery Knolls Elementary School in Silver Spring, Maryland. 

 

 

 

 

 

She presented it to me on the occasion of my bat mitzvah. I used to consult it almost every day that I wrote. I don’t anymore. Progress has its costs.

 

Debbie Levy’s latest book is Imperfect Spiral, a novel for young adults. Yes, it is this book that presented her with the “riffle” vs. “rifle” choice that the Merriam-Webster app helped her determine, and it will be published in July by Bloomsbury/Walker.

 

She’s also the author of The Year of Goodbyes, a true story, told in free verse, that stemmed from the discovery of the autograph book her mother kept when she was a girl living in Germany in 1938. Among other honors, The Year of Goodbyes is a Kirkus Best Book of 2010, 2011 Sydney Taylor Notable Book, and a VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates) Nonfiction Honor List 2010 selection.

 

A former newspaper editor and lawyer, Debbie is a graduate of the University of Virginia and the University of Michigan Law School. She lives in Maryland with her husband. Stop on by at www.debbielevybooks.com.\

 

Speaking of history, Debbie, I am off to Maryland History Day tomorrow, judging in the performance category. The state level winners will come to University of Maryland in May/June for National History Day. I can't wait to see what the students have created for their projects!

National Poetry Month 2013: Writing Prompts at Poets Online

When I was first starting to send my poetry out, I needed a journal or e-zine that felt safe. Somewhere that I could submit work to without feeling too much pressure about being rejected or accepted.

Poet and educator Ken Ronkowitz, who I knew through the Dodge Poetry Program in New Jersey, had the perfect place. He was starting up a poetry website called Poets Online. The site had a new writing prompt based on a model poem every two weeks. I used the site -- writing response poems, sending them in, and occasionally seeing my work posted alongside other poets and poems.

Fifteen years later, Ken is still managing Poets Online. It's my go-to TechnoVerse site for great poetry prompts.

POETS ONLINE is a website that offers monthly writing prompts and offers you the opportunity to submit your resulting poem for online publication.

The site started in 1998 as an e-mail exchange amongst four poets. At a writing workshop that summer, I asked three other poets if they wanted to continue exchanging poems by email beyond the workshop. After a few weeks, we decided to take turns suggesting a writing prompt idea. In that first iteration, we gave ourselves a week and then e-mailed our poems to each other.

As more poet friends of the group wanted to join in, it became awkward using email. So, I created a website where the poems could be posted and I became the person who received the poems from participants. I titled the site Poets Online.

The idea of poets being online in 1998 was very new. The site grew in number only by word-of-mouth and poets who stumbled upon it in a web search.

The one week deadline proved to be too short for most people and too much compiling for me, so we moved to once a month.

In early 1999, I added a mailing list to remind people to check on the latest prompt and poems. The list still exists and now has over 500 "subscribers."
The site was originally located on a free web server service (Geocities), but when I was told in 2001 that "Your web pages have exceeded your account's total data transferred quota," I knew that popularity was forcing me to rebuild the site elsewhere.


I bought the domain poetsonline.org and redid the site and it has continued to grow for these fifteen years.

The intent has always been to provide inspiration through a writing prompt that remains open for about a month. Poets can try the prompt and submit that poem for possible online publication. I've had emails from lots of people who try the prompts but don't want their poems online.  A number of teachers from elementary level through college have told me they use the archive of prompts (more than 200) with their students and use the poems archived online as models.

The site has remained pretty much a one-man operation with me doing all the web work and just asking a few poet friends to read through the submissions.
We try to accept as many poems that respond to the current prompt in a serious way as space allows. We realize that we receive poems from poets of varying ages and experience. We receive poems every month that "appear" to be written by young people, but if they address the prompt in an interesting way, they have a good chance of being posted.

It has been very encouraging to receive mail from poets around the world saying that this was their first publication or letting me know that their poem in is a print journal or even that their first book has been published. I know of at least a dozen poets who submitted in years past that now have more than one book out in the world.

This, like many poetry efforts, is certainly a non-profit operation. We include Amazon links to books and poets featured and if in a year the referral fees from that cancel out the cost of the domain and online hosting, it has been a good year.


For anyone submitting poems to Poets Online or any other publication on or offline, a few rules apply. First, read some of the poems they have published recently and see if your poem fits the selections. This especially applies to most print journals. Haiku have a much better chance in a haiku journal (or for one of our haiku prompts).

Second, read the submission guidelines. Every publication has something like our submissions page which gives you information about formatting, deadlines and genre preferences. We only want to receive one poem in response to the current prompt. When a group of 8 arrive, none will be read. 

Third, know your rights. Some journals purchase the first rights to your work and some retain further rights for republication. Can your work appear in other places simultaneously? How long do they retain those rights? Our page on copyright is a good start in your author education. PoetsOnline.org  retains first electronic rights at time of publication, after which all rights revert back to the author.

A fourth rule applies very much to Poets Online. In the fifteen years of offering prompts and reading poems, we have rejected more poems than we have accepted for one reason. They don't address the prompt.  No matter what the prompt says, there are always submissions that have nothing to do with it.
Many of the poems that are off-prompt are ones I would consider for publication if we just accepted poems on any topic or in any form. Love poems, religious and political poetry comes in every month even if the prompt was for poems about opposition or a call for odes or for poems about where we find our inspiration. 

Unfortunately, we can not respond personally to every poem submitted, acknowledge every submission except for an auto-response, or offer critiques of your work. Subscribing to our mailing list will notify you of when new poems appear.

Which doesn't mean that I never correspond with poets who submit. You have the option to have your name linked to an email address or your own website and a number of poets have connected via the site. Occasionally, I will email poets with some encouraging rejection note. (Yes, there is a such a thing. I have received them myself.) Sometimes we suspect that it is a young poet in age or experience. Rejection is tough on poets.

We added a blog in 2005 so that we could continue the poetic conversations all month and expand upon the prompts. It also allowed poets to comment on the poems and prompts.

And Poets Online went social early on when Facebook first allowed groups to have pages. We have an official page on Facebook and also a group page where anyone can post and comment on poems, prompts or things poetic.
We also have a Twitter feed @poetsonline for daily bursts of poetry news, a Pinterest site for things visual, a GoodReads page to share what we are reading and we publish a Poet & Writer Evening News online daily.

You still have time to submit to our April prompt on the prose poem which features poems by Louis Jenkins and Jim Harrison.  The current prompt is always the one open for your submissions, but there are plenty in the archive to keep you busy.

Want more Ken? Check out his website on poetry, education and technology. Ken once featured a poem of mine, "Tomorrow is Going to Be Normal," as a Poets Online model for inspiration. You can read that prompt and the response poems here.


We are having a rough week at the Shovan house. Miss J has been out of school all week with the stomach flu. The teen left this morning at 4 AM (meaning, I got up at 3 to drive him to school). He is on his way to California for a Robotics competition. All the drama has put me behind on our TechnoVerse schedule. I hope to be caught up before this week's Poetry Friday. 

Our next tour guide in the TechnoVerse will be poet Moira Egan of Rome. Moira, co-editor of the anthology Hot Sonnets, is taking the classic form high tech in her post.

National Poetry Month: April Halprin Wayland Introduces Us to RhymeWeaver

Poetry Friday is party time in the TechnoVerse! Today's guest DJ is children's poet April Halprin Wayland, who blogs at Teaching Authors.

(What is the TechnoVerse? Read a description here.)

April's got some RhymeWeaver on her poetry turntable. I'll let her start this party off on the right track:

Okay, Campers…say you want to write a book in rhyme.  But there's just one problem:
you're a teeny tiny bit fuzzy about poetic meter and rhyme.  As in: HUH?

So…where to start?

You might start with the RhymeWeaver website www.RhymeWeaver.com

which claims that it will explain "some fairly complicated stuff in a really simple way."

…A massive understatement. 

I asked Rhyme Weaver's birth mother, author Lane Fredrickson, to meet me here for a chat.

Thanks for stopping by, Lane!  What compelled you to share your knowledge about poetry in this way?

The children’s writing community is one of the kindest, safest places to experiment with your creativity. But I felt like the rhyme and meter rules were muddled in that community.  There were a lot of question marks and none of us really knew the answers, so the conclusion was “Don’t write in Rhyme!” 

But a lot of children’s writers still feel compelled to do it. 

Academia is the vault where the rules are kept and I went to school looking for answers. When I finished my BA in English, I felt like I could explain rhyme and meter differently than I had ever seen it done. 

I have a strong background in developmental psychology.  Experimental psychologists study how people learn and grow, they research cognition and neural encoding.  I know that images augment learning so I wanted my site to be image based.  I wanted to work from the bottom up and make every component part of a system.  Depicting a concept as a system augments neural encoding and ultimately how thoroughly we understand integrated ideas.

STOMP slip.

Who designed your site?

I designed and built RhymeWeaver myself. I designed the simple graphics myself, but bought the illustrations from Shutterstock.  A professional graphic artist at DigitalCrayon.com designed the home page. 

What was the most difficult part?

Organizing the content.  I had all this information that I thought was relevant, but there was no blueprint for how to present it and I needed it to be integrated, a system. 

For example, I have never actually heard anyone break down meter into three constituent components: stressed and unstressed syllables, metrical feet, and metrical lines.  I learned it backwards, myself, by examining different meters, but I don’t think that’s the best way. 

I also had never heard anyone specify that all rhymes must contain a parallel stressed syllable.  It was hard to decide if that particular fact belonged under rhyme or meter.  But I needed to integrate the relevance of meter to rhyme.

Tell us about your first book (and congratulations!)

Watch Your Tongue,Cecily Beasley, illustrated by Jon Davis, (Sterling) is a cautionary tale.  It’s about a girl with poor manners who suddenly realizes that her behavior can be hurtful. 

I wanted to write about a less-than-perfect kid because I wasn’t exactly a parent’s dream when I was little.  I always loved books where the kid was kind of naughty, but still loved and still good at heart.  I was pretty much Max of The Wild Things, except I was a girl, which is why Cecily had to be a girl.  Boys-will-be-boys is a totally unfair rationalization.

And finally, quick! What are three of your favorite-sounding words? 
(I blindly stole this question from PF blogger Robyn Hood Black)

Parsnip (probably because it sounds like its getting cut off just as it's getting started), Hrothgar (from Beowulf because it sounds like you're coughing it up as you're saying it)

and gorgonzola.  No reason.

April Halprin Wayland’s books include Scholastic's Best Seller, ToRabbittown a free-verse picture book, Knopf's It'sNot My Turn To Look For Grandma! (recommended on PBS's "Storytime"), the Sydney Taylor Gold Award-winner New Year at the Pier, and the multi-award-winning Girl ComingIn For A Landing—an illustrated novel in poems for teens (Knopf).  Her CD/MP3 of stories and poems (http://www.aprilwayland.com/books-cds/cd-17-poems-and-5-stories/ ) won the National Parenting Publications Gold Medal for storytelling; her poetry appears in numerous anthologies, and she's a seven-time recipient of SCBWI'S Magazine Merit Award for Poetry.  April has taught in over 400 schools across America, in England, Italy, Germany, France and Poland.  She blogs with five other children's authors who also teach writing on TeachingAuthors.com is a founding member The Children's Authors Network and has been an instructor with the Writers’ Program of UCLA Extension for over a decade. Her website? www.AprilWayland.com  where you'll discover she's ½ author, ½ poet, ½ not good at fractions.

I'm taking a break for the weekend to attend Baltimore's CityLit Festival. Monday, another Poetry Friday regular is joining us in the TechnoVerse. Amy LV of the Poem Farm is going to tell us about SoundCloud and Pinterest.

Our Poetry Friday host is Diane Mayr. Stop by her blog, Random Noodling, for more poetry posts. And come back here on April 23, when Diane takes over the TechnoVerse!

National Poetry Month 2013: Welcome to the TechnoVerse

It's National Poetry Month!

This year's theme: postcards.

Every year, Author Amok celebrates NPM with a month-long project. We've toured the 50 states poet laureate (2010), featured Maryland poets (2011), and looked at 30 Habits of Highly Effective Poets (2012).

This year, adventuresome poets, we are exploring the TechnoVerse--that place in cyberspace where poetry and technology intersect.

To start us off, here is slam poet Kurt Ikeda's poem "iTeacher."



As a teacher, and the parent of two tech-culture immersed teens, I tip my hat to Kurt. "iTeacher" is an honest look at the pros and cons of teaching (and sometimes competing) with technology.

It takes an iVillage to seek out new forms and new iterations of poetry. We'll be looking at apps, programs, websites, and tools for writers. Here is a list of this month's guest bloggers.

Monday, April 1: Laura's Invitation to the TechnoVerse

Tuesday, April 2: Gloson Teh compares poetry to writing code

Wednesday, April 3: Linda Baie's apps for inspiration

Thursday, April 4: Barbara Morrison on Scrivener

Friday, April 5: Scott Slaby tries a text sonnet

Are books ancient history?

Monday, April 8: Danuta Hinc shares favorite poetry websites

Tuesday, April 9: Carol Munro writes poetry with a friend via email

Wednesday, April 10: Dennis Kirschbaum has a surprise for us

Thursday, April 11: Regina Sokas on global connections

Friday, April 12: April Halprin Wayland on RhymeWeaver.Com

You've come a long way, Poetry.

Monday, April 15: Amy Ludwig VanDerwater on SoundCloud

     (or Pinterest!)

Tuesday, April 16: Ken Ronkowitz of Poets Online

Wednesday, April 17: Moira Egan on Tech Sonnets

Thursday, April 18: Gregory Luce takes us on

     the Poetry Foundation’s Walking Tour of DC Poetry 

Friday, April 19: Christine Hurley has a tech based poetry projects

     for kids

Ancient Egyptian scribe from Wikipedia.

Monday, April 22: Irene Latham's Progressive Poem is here

Tuesday, April 23: Diane Mayr explains Archive.Org

Wednesday, April 24: Kay Weeks tests out a random poem generator

Thursday, April 25: Clarinda Harriss uses texting errors

     to compose a poem

Friday, April 26: Debbie Levy replaces her Roget's

     with Dictionary App

Library of Congress

Monday, April 29: SPECIAL GUEST POET!

Tuesday, April 30: National Poetry Month wrap-up

Thanks to Tagxedo.Com for Author Amok's technology-produced and totally spiffy new nameplate.

Okay, everyone. Put your space suits on, fire your engines and let's blast off!

Remember to breathe.

30 Habits of Highly Effective Poets #30: Amy Ludwig Vanderwater on Revision

Today is the final day of National Poetry Month 2012. It's been a whirlwind. All this month, we have looked at writing habits of poets.

Children's poet and educator Amy Ludwig Vanderwater (of The Poem Farm) gets the last word. Appropriately, Amy's post is about the joys of revising drafts. She is also sharing a poem from one of her poem-a-day marathons.

Here is Amy:

A long time ago, I thought I loved writing.  But really, I loved the idea of writing more than I loved the work of writing.  I loved carrying a notebook, and I loved looking at my infrequent entries in that notebook.  I did not love revision.

Now, revision is my best friend, and I love her.  Revision means I have something to work with, words to tune, meters to tap, magic to find.  Today, each poem I send out or share goes through these few revision checks:

1.     LITTLE WORD CHECK – Cross out extra little words, words like and or the. Often, eliminating these will help a poem breathe. (Thank you, LBH!)

2.     SYLLABLE CHECK – Count and number the syllables in each line. Decide if the poem is or should be written in a regular meter.  Tap the table with my fingertips.

3.     VERB CHECK – If any verbs feel like weak handshakes, substitute beefier relatives.

4.     CLICHÉ  & METAPHOR CHECK – If a phrase sounds too familiar, Google it to see if it’s a cliché, a well-known metaphor, or just too-good-to-be-original.

5.     ALLITERATION CHECK – Change words where possible to give the poem more of a repetitive sound.

6.     ENDING CHECK – Reread the ending, and decide if it will leave a reader hungry or confused.  If so, write a few different endings and pick one of those instead.

7.     OTHER PERSON CHECK – Ask someone (preferably a child) to read the poem aloud without commenting.  Rework any lines which trip up this reader.

8.     MAGIC CHECK – If the technical qualities are strong, reread the poem looking for a flash of enchantment.  If there’s a hint of magic, grin.  If not, decide whether it will be allowed to go out into the world or if it needs to age a wee bit more!

You can ready Amy's accompanying post here.

Amy's National Poetry Month blog project was a dictionary hike, covering the 26 letters of the alphabet. If you visit Amy's blog today, all of the dictionary hike poems will be up.

And here is the recap of the poets and topics we covered in the "30 Habits of Highly Effective Poets" series.

April 1: Laura Shovan on Drinking Tea (and Laura's April Fool's Post)

April 2: Laura Purdie Salas on Relaxation

April 3: Allan Roy Andrews on Dreaming

April 4: Justine Rowden on Paying Attention

April 5: Liz Moser on Anchoring

April 6: Diane Mayr on Tubular Vision

April 7: William Wordsworth on Involving Your Pets

April 8: Nicole Schultheis on Food

April 9: Lisa Vihos on Practicing

April 10: Melanie Hope Greenberg on Inspiration + Drive

April 11: Jacqueline Jules on Finding Writing Time

April 12: Dennis Kirschbaum on Writer's Block

April 13: Robyn Hood Black on Haiku Mind

April 14: Kay Ryan on Reading

April 15: Leslie Rzeznik on Recording Yourself

April 16: Michael Tims on the Scientific Method

April 17: Charles Waters on a Training Regimen

April 18: Betsy Franco on "Bed Head"

April 19: Irene Latham on the 1:1 Ratio

April 20: Tabatha Yeatts Lonske on Seeing Patterns

April 21: William Stafford on Being the Early Bard

April 22: Laura Shovan on Reiki vs. Rekey

April 23: Kathy Figueroa on Chores

April 24: Barbara Westwood Diehl on Googling

April 25: Antonio Blunda on Music

April 26: On Fun

April 27: Jeannine Atkins on Multi-tasking

April 28: Nikki Giovanni on Personifying Poems

April 29: Honey Novick on Ars Poetica

April 30: Amy Ludwig Vanderwater on Revision

Beginning tomorrow, I'll be posting poems from my two recent elementary school residencies. Look for some great third grade Fibs.

30 Habits of Highly Effective Poets: Honey Novick on Ars Poetica

Many poets have an "ars poetica." The term refers to a self-reflective poem, in which the author uses poetic form to examine or define the nature of poetry.

For instance, Archibald MacLeish's poem, "Ars Poetica," concludes with the oft-quoted lines:

A poem should not mean

But be.

You can read the whole poem at The Academy of American Poets.

Writing an ars poetica is a useful exercise and I am fascinated with the variety of voices these poems produce. Another one of my favorites is "How Poetry Comes to Me" by Gary Snyder. Jane Hirschfield has a poem (wish I could remember the title!) about a nameless woman in another country, sitting down to write a poem.

Here is Ontario poet Honey Novick, with her ars poetica.

WHY I WRITE

by Honey Novick

(Inspired by my friend Lillian Allen)

As I age, writing connects my present to my future.
Placing pen to paper, I seek
all thoughts, experiences, expectations.
When vocalizing with others,
I ask them to tell me a story about their names,
that story is vocal expression.
Writing expresses a voice, my voice.

When I tell you that I love maple syrup,
I’m telling you more than a simple statement of fact,
more than a prosaic like or dislike,

I’m telling you that the historical, majestic maple tree
loses its foliage every autumn,
yet inside that defoliated maple tree entities are alive.
Those entities endure the harshness of winter
and when least expected but most needed,
they form little buds on the branch
an omen of hope
signalling that soon the time will come to drill a hole
into the bark of the tree,
or tap an existing spout,
awaiting the flow
of the warmest, tastiest, life-affirming sap
one can ever imagine tasting.

That is why I write.
I tell you who I am,
why I like what I like
what things mean to me.

Through writing I can share something with you.
Even if you don’t write, you can share something with me.
What you value, what you see,
What is it that makes you happy?

Do you love to dance,
take a chance,
do you think life is just happenstance?

Do you value independence,
or people telling you what to do,
letting someone else make up your mind for you?

Is your opinion important?
Do you want to be heard?

Having dialogue
is more that the noise of sounds chirred.

This why I write,
conversation, connection
daring to go beyond personal introspection.

Have you written an ars poetica? If so, did you set out to write one? I once read my poem "Driving Home from the Poetry Festival, 1996" at an event.  I was surprised when a poet came up to me and said it was an ars poetica. So maybe, like me,  you have written a poem about the act of writing poetry and didn't realize it.

My poem refers to the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, which takes place every other year in New Jersey. It's happening again in October!