National Poetry Month 2013: Teens in the TechnoVerse

It's the last day of April and I'm saying TGIM. (Thank God It's May.) I should have known when I began a series on the TechnoVerse that life would go into Warp Drive this month.

When April 2013 began, my family was in Florida for spring break. In the last 30 days, we have:

visited The Wizarding World of Harry Potter;

On line for Olivander's.

celebrated a first birthday;

sent one kid off to California for a robotics world championship;

taught poetry in two elementary schools;

Fifth graders writing portrait poems in response to fine art.

got sick and missed a week of middle school, but

the show must go on (stage managed "The Little Mermaid" at said middle school);

sent Dad off to Nashville for a business trip;

various and sundry other joys and minor disasters.

As I am learning, this is a typical month when you have two teenage children. My teens are tech-buffs. They do their homework on laptops, watch anime in their spare time, and spend too much time on Reddit.

For them, and for the teens in your life, here is a great teen-focused poetry website.

http://www.powerpoetry.org/

PowerPoetry.Org -- "Write Your Own Life Story" bills itself as the largest mobile teen poetry community in the TechnoVerse.

A lovely lady, Alyce Myatta, from the NEA (which sponsors another great teen poetry program, Poetry Out Loud) tipped me off about this site. This is a place for young poets to upload and share their original writing. They are encouraged to browse through their peers' poetry and vote or leave comments.

There are great inspiration resources at PowerPoetry such as "5 Tips for Writing and Ode Poem" and "6 Tips for Writing about Music." Kids can learn how to make a multimedia poem, get hooked up with the local slam scene, even find an adult poet to be their online mentor.

But I especially love what comes up when I click a tab entitled "Why Write a Poem": 

"Every one of us has a story that is completely our own by virtue of the fact that each of us is unique and has an ever expanding collection of experience that are particular to the lives we lead.

"Simply put, no one is like you.

"Poetry is the means which we can express ourselves, it’s a way to vent, and to make sense of the world, to tell our stories in our own words."

Quoted from PowerPoetry.Org

Teachers, there is a spot on this site for you, too. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on EDUCATORS. You'll find out how to start a PowerPoetry group at your school.

Despite all the drama at home, I've had a great month exploring the TechnoVerse with all of you. Kudos to our excellent guest bloggers! You have all expanded my tech-tools and my thinking about how I can use technology to be a better, more organized writer. (Yes, even you, Dennis Kirschbaum.)

This month, I've experimented with SoundCloud, downloaded Scrivener, felt overwhelmed by Pinterest, revisited an email poem about seamonkeys in my underpants (it's a long story).

If you're not ready to say goodbye to the TechnoVerse yet, here is a full list of the posts in this series:

Invitation to the TechnoVerse (Monday 4/1)

Gloson Teh Compares Writing Poetry with Writing Code (Tuesday 4/2)

Linda Baie apps for inspiration  (Wednesday 4/3)

Barbara Morrison on Scrivener (Thursday 4/4)

Scott Slaby advises students with a text sonnet (Friday 4/5)

Danuta Hinc compares online poetry translations (Monday 4/8)

Carol Munro writes poetry with a friend via email (Tuesday 4/9)

Dennis Kirschbaum is a lovable Luddite (Wednesday 4/10)

Regina Sokas on global connections (Thursday 4/11)

April Halprin Wayland on RhymeWeaver.Com (Friday 4/12)

Amy Ludwig Vanderwater on SoundCloud& Pinterest (Monday 4/15)

Ken Ronkowitz  of Poets Online (Tuesday 4/16)

Moira Egan looks at the tech side of Sonnets (Wednesday 4/17)

Gregory Luce on Poetry Foundation’s Walking Tour of DC Poetry (Thursday 4/18)

Christine Amyot Hurley on tech based poetry projects for kids (Friday 4/19)

Irene Latham's Progressive Poem stops at Author Amok (Monday 4/22)

Diane Mayr explains Archive.Org (Tuesday 4/23)

Kay Weeks tests out a random poetry generator (Wednesday 4/24)

Clarinda Harriss uses texting errors to compose poems (Thursday 4/25)

Debbie Levy replaces her Roget's with Dictionary App (Friday 4/26)

Ann Bracken takes us to Tweetspeak Poetry (Monday 4/29)

TechnoVerse wrap up & PowerPoetry.Org for teens (Tuesday 4/30)

I am happily powering down the warp engines, everyone. If you'd like, leave a comment about the recommended apps, websites and programs you've tried as a result of our series.

Good luck as your school years wind down. It's been one for the yearbooks!

http://science.howstuffworks.com/warp-speed3.htm

National Poetry Month 2013: Tweetspeaking with Ann Bracken

It's our final two days in the TechnoVerse -- that place where technology and poetry intersect. It's time for me to made a confession. I like technology. Like. Not love.

A full list of TechnoVerse posts is here.

I draft new work on my laptop. I have a smart phone. There are two of me on Facebook: Laura the poet and literary community activist, and Laura who posts pictures of the kids for friends and family. For me, technology is definitely more of a tool than a love affair.

My 13-year-old daughter has been trying to teach me a "new" social media platform, Google Plus. The layout doesn't feel compatible with my brain. Isn't having two Facebook accounts being social enough? Retreating from online socializing is probably the reason I have never tried Twitter.

"Listen to me, don't listen to me!"
(Twittery lyrics from David Bowie.)

Today, my dear friend Ann Bracken shares one of her favorite poetry blogs: Tweetspeak Poetry. I won't be scared off by the title. According to Ann, there is no tweeting required at the Tweetspeak blog. It's a friendly site with great poetry & technology resources.

Tweetspeak Poetry: the best in poetry and poetic things

http://www.tweetspeakpoetry.com/

Contributed by: Ann Bracken

Why would someone who doesn’t even have a Twitter account be drawn to a blog called Tweetspeak Poetry?  That’s the question I had to ask myself when a good friend of mine sent me a link to the site a few months ago. But I trust this friend who is an inspired poet—I knew she must be on to something, so I clicked on the link in the email and entered the serene poetic space called Tweetspeak. Unlike the hurried tweets I often hear on the radio, this site beckons you to slow down and tempts you to linger while you browse its array of resources.  Grab a cup of java, snuggle in your favorite chair, and I’ll take you on a tour of this week’s featured posts.

Poetry (by T.S. Eliot) from This Day in Quotes.

Where does poetry fit into your workday? Most people would shake their heads at the juxtaposition of poetry and work, but Tweetspeak has an entire feature section called Poetry at Work.  This week’s topic—The Poetry of an Organizational Chart—seemed to spring from the creativity game of finding two things that are unrelated and then  imagining all the possible connections they could share.  The author, Glynn Young, remembers when he worked for two large corporations that each employed over 30,000 people. He remembers the organizational charts that were part of every employee’s handbook because they held the secrets of the corporate hierarchy. Like a well-structured poem, “…organization charts followed rules, patterns and accepted practice. They had an interior rationale; they made sense for both themselves and the organization.” Although I only vaguely remember seeing an organizational chart at one of my early jobs, I resonate with the poetic concepts of internal structure, form, and order. Young goes on to compare the formal organizational structures of business in the late 20^th century to the “free verse” that is the networked environment of the 21^st century, both of which have esteemed places in the world of poetry.  As with any change, the challenge we face at work seems to be defined by how deftly we weave the best of the old with the best of the new.

After I explored poetry at work, I look a look at this month’s book club selection because it features one of my favorite books on poetry writing, Poemcrazy by Susan Wooldridge. 

Read about it at Goodreads.

I decided to read the post on following words—the daily practice that Wooldridge recommends—where you spend some time each day focusing on all the details of a particular activity or object. What is written on those slips of paper stuck in your journal? How do your fingertips look after you dig in the rich soil of early spring? What does the smoke from the fire smell like? She reminds us that the feelings in a poem come alive because of the poet’s focus on the details. Wooldridge urges us to play with words every day, to dive into the “wordpool,” collections of words borrowed from “poems, books, and conversations.”  When we play in the “wordpool,” we can make up words, juxtapose interesting combinations of words and free ourselves from the worry of making sense. Wooldridge concludes by confessing, “And I don’t worry about whether or not I’m writing “a poem.” Word pool. World pool, wild pool, whippoorwill, swing.”  I’m inspired to find my box of word tickets and play this weekend.

           

Besides the Poetry at Work and Book Club sections, Tweetspeak’s current features include The Top 10 Poetic Pics, The Poetry Classroom, 7 Fun Shakespeare Resources, and Carry a Shield: Ten Good Books About Dragons.  Make sure you scroll to the bottom of the page for the very last drop of inspiration-The Video Pick of the Week, featuring a video montage tribute to Vincent Van Gogh with Jane Olive singing “Starry Night.”  

Buy this Celtic dragon shield at Etsy.

Ann Bracken is a writer, poet, educator, and expressive arts consultant whose poetry, essays, and interviews have appeared in Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence, Reckless Writing Anthology: Emerging Poets of the 21^st Century, Little Patuxent Review, Life in Me Like Grass on Fire: Love Poems, Praxilla, The Museletter, and The Gunpowder Review. Her company, The Possibility Project, offers expressive arts programs for women of all ages. Ann was nominated for the 2014 Pushcart Prize and she is a lecturer in the Professional Writing Program at the University of Maryland.

I've got one last poetry website to share as we wrap up National Poetry Month 2013 in the TechnoVerse. We'll be checking out a site where teen poets can share their work in multiple platforms. Until then, happy writing.

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: A-Mused by Auto Correct

First, a warning. This post (at least my introduction) is not exactly kid-friendly. Because we are going to talk about texting and the joys of Auto-Correct, which -- more often than not -- should be called Auto-Incorrect.

Today's exploit in the TechnoVerse begins with a story. In that story, there is a photograph of me, resembling Cher circa 1980. 

My brother-in-law, nephew (in Luke Skywalker wig),
me (Cher wig, don't ask) and niece hamming it up.

My brother shared this gem on Facebook with the comment: "I'd post the 'If I could Turn Back Time' video but it's super no appro pro."

That would be the Cher video in which she performs for sailors on a Navy destroyer. You remember. She is gyrating on the guns wearing a see-through black costume with not much more than a black maxi-pad over parts we'd rather not see.

(If you absolutely insist on refreshing your memory: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsKbwR7WXN4.)

Of course, my brother posted a link to the video after some goading. I watched the whole scary thing and replied from my phone: "That's the one. The shots from the back are...disturbing." By shots, I was referring to the camera angles that show Cher's almost bare, skinny rear end.

However, Auto-Correct does not know about music videos and camera angles. It had a different idea. So, what I actually posted to Facebook from my phone was this: "That's the one. The shits from the back are...disturbing." Which sent my sister-in-law into hysterics, which made me go back to re-read what I had posted. I was laughing so hard, I fell up the stairs. For real.

Good times, Auto-Correct.

But Auto-Correct isn't all shits and giggles, people. It has purpose, even when it gets things wrong. Here is one of Baltimore's best-loved poets and poetry cheerleaders, Clarinda Harriss, to tell us how she is making poetry from Auto-Correct's faux-pas.

Auto-Correct, you're stirring up trouble again. (Thanks, Mashable.com)

Auto-Correct as Poet and Muse

Sometimes I call him Otto. Other times I call her Ada. I am ambivalent about the gender of Auto-Correct, s/he of startling intrusions upon one’s effort to write via iPhone, iPad, or “real computer.”  S/he is a hardheaded, softhearted creature, and I find I resort to standard gender stereotypes when ascribing his/her efforts to one of his/her genders. I shall shamelessly resort to such stereotypes in this discussion of Auto-Correct: Poet and Muse.

The nine muses of Greek mythology. I believe that is Otto
cavorting in the blue toga. Ada is in green, on her tip toes.

Consider my theory that Otto/Ada is/are indeed a poet. Observe, with me, that Otto/Ada takes the ordinary and makes it strange again. (Which famous human poet said that was the role of poetry?) 

Witness what I regard as his/her finest effort: changing my text-message attempt at brevity—“tx dear heart” (tx standing for thanks, of course) to “Taxed at heart.” The poet in him/her not only came up with a stunning and original phrase, to do with what s/he will, but also provided me with the start and direction of a whole series of my own poems.

Ada is sensitive to my moods. She often changes a hurried closing,

                                Best,

                                Clarinda

to something much closer to my reality at the time:

                                Beset,

                                Clarinda.

Otto is hardheaded and stubbornly old-fashioned. You all know this side of Otto. He insists that each new line of a poem start with a capital letter, something most poets gave up around 1950. You have to go back and forth with him three times before he will grudgingly let you de-capitalize, and he never gives up; he’ll do the same thing with every poem you write. According to some, you can go over his head to his employer, Word, and force him to accept your more modern approach to lineation; however, I myself have never succeeded in changing his somewhat calcified mind. Otto knows his Freud. I suspect that they actually knew one another personally.

Otto dreams of making Freudian slips of your typos.

When I jot down notes toward a poem using my iPhone or iPad, I may write something like this: “I know what u feel.” Otto changes it to “I know what I feel.” My essential self-centeredness is exposed. A dear and brilliant poet friend of mine once claimed that he believed all poems are love poems and that most are self-love poems. Otto’s with him on this.

Ada, in fact, shares with Otto a general distaste for the inelegance of text abbreviations. For example, “Tx!” is always “Tax!” Thus a simple, prosaic “Tx for everything!” becomes the much more poetic, albeit quite political, “Tax for everything!” Again, she is both poet and muse.

As I mentioned before, Otto/Ada have started me on a series, perhaps even an entire chapbook, to be called simply “Mistakes.” I am inspired by mistakes. One of my favorite recent poems is called “Thank you, Gentopia,” a tribute to the wondrous misreadings my particular eye problem affords me. (Not all inspiring mistakes are Otto/Ada’s doing.)  This series is barely begun, but my auto-correct poet/muses did leave a haiku in my typewriter.

Tax for everything

Taxed at heart, beset,

Meaning to feel what you feel

I feel what I feel.

by Clarinda Harriss, posted with permission

Otto disguised as Uncle Sam.

Check out Otto’s capitalization—and his correct syllable count. Note that Ada sly added a few by giving the haiku a title. Feel what Ada and I are feeling.

Clarinda Harriss, co-editor of Hot Sonnets: An Anthology, is a professor emerita of Towson University, where she taught for decades and chaired the English Department for one of those. Recently CityLit (Baltimore) instituted the Harriss Prize for Poetry in her honor.  She directs BrickHouse Books, Inc., Maryland's oldest literary press. In her continuing work with prison writers, she has done as much jail time as many felons; several BhB books have come out of that work. Her own most recent books are Air Travel, Mortmain, and Dirty Blue Voice. A chapbook working titled Old Stolen Car is in the works; a collection of her prizewinning short fiction will come out in 2013.  

Tomorrow in the TechnoVerse, children's author Debbie Levy shows us a dictionary app. We might need it to decipher Auto-Correct's "translations" of our poetry.

National Poetry Month 2013: Random Poetry Generators with Kay Weeks

Some days, I'm too wrapped up in teaching and parenting to make time for writing. But even when I'm short on time, I could "write" a poem. How? With a random poetry generator.

Poetry magnets from the Huffington Post.
Follow the link to an article is about a random
Williams Carlos Williams poem generator.

Random poetry generators are more for fun than they are for serious craft. However, sometimes poetry robots manage to create a line or an idea worth saving for later.

Poet Kay Weeks, who lives near me in historic Ellicott City, Maryland, tested out one such generator for us for today's visit to the TechnoVerse. Kay blogs poetry, travel and photography at A Walk into the Past.

Historic Ellicott City dates to pre-Colonial America.

I directed Kay to check out an old Author Amok post which includes a list of several such generators. Kay and I had an interesting email conversation about the poetry generators, which I've included in the post.

First, Kay wrote:

I looked up techno-poetry and found... instructions on using the computer to write a poem, or add bells and whistles. It made my jaw drop.

Poetry is not easy to write—it’s a craft and probably one of the most difficult. I do not think this use of the computer gets at feelings, but could be fun.

 

Then, Kay found that one of the generators actually worked for her! I wrote back to say:

"That's great, Kay. My favorite line is 'never pull a moon.' That could be its own jumping off point for a poem."

Kay responded:

Thanks, Laura. I tried many combinations until I found one I liked.  

Kay's Twitter account photo!

And here is Kay's guest post:

I’ve written poetry since I was about ten years old, so using a techno-generator was a bit fearful (is that the word?) or, rather, foreign. My first thought was negative because the creative aspect of writing poetry—from nothing to something—is why I write, but mostly, the need to express a feeling, then share it with others for the connectivity that is so important to me. “Have you felt that? Then, we are not alone…or crazy!”

This short poem was created randomly using ThinkZone. At first I didn’t understand how it worked, but then, just relaxed and several poems appeared…I said “No” to myself, and kept trying until this one came up. 

Interestingly, it represents me. I have written about sun, gulls, love and/or resistance to it, and the moon. The first line, questioning, is perfect. My own poetry would be more logical, so I like random quality because it is NOT me, but I could probably benefit from being more NOT me at times.  The poem seems to be about control, or the lack of it. As far as the lads go, that line made me smile, then laugh out loud.  I have learned something by wiggling my toes in the techno-waters.

Where is the warm sun?

Never command a gull.

All lads desire old, warm sharks.

Never pull a moon.

by Kay Weeks, via ThinkZone's Random Poetry Generator

Thank you for sharing the poem and your beautiful photograph, Kay. Are those fancy tulips? They look almost like peonies.

Keith's ThinkZone is an awesome site to share with kids. There are sections for math, science and language tech-play. I can't wait to check out the gibberish generator.

Tomorrow, Baltimore poet Clarinda Harriss uses texting errors for poetic inspiration. Just thinking about some of the phone-fail typos I've made gets me laughing. Good thing my frenzy friends have a sense of human humor.

For now, here is a robot reciting random poetry:

National Poetry Month 2013: Digital Poetry Archives with Diane Mayr

Librarians can be a writers' best friend. Are you doing research for your  next book? A librarian can help you refine your search and find the resources you need.

Just remember, librarians are now known as Media Specialists -- and for good reason. Helping patrons find books is just a fraction of their skill set. Media specialists assist people in how to find and consume information. And in 2013, information often equals technology.

Today, librarian(!) and Poetry Friday blogger Diane Mayr introduces us to Archive.Org, a great TechnoVerse resource for all things poetic.

The Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public.

You may already know about the Internet Archive if you've done research for writing projects, but, you may not know about all the poetry you can find.

"Like what?" you might ask.

Like an audio of a class on writing poetry conducted by Allen Ginsberg back in 1984. It's the next best thing to being in a classroom.

Later in life, Ginsberg often played
musical instruments during readings.

Or, recordings of twenty-three different readers reading Robert Frost's "Fire and Ice." Why would you want to hear so many versions? Perhaps you have to read your work aloud--listening might give you insights into how you should perform.

You can get to know a writer like May Sarton through a video recorded interview with her.

Find a page of Sarton quotes at Rugu.Com.

Through its "Open Library," The Internet Archive provides many books of poetry, which are in the public domain. Some of the titles are not available through other sites such as Gutenberg.Org, so if you're looking for something that's out of print, make sure to try The Internet Archive.

Or, do a general search using keywords such as "children's poetry," and you may come across something like Schnick Schnack: Trifles for the Little-Ones, published in 1867. It is not to be missed! Its poems for kids are delightful, as well as cautionary, and are accompanied by full color illustrations. (I never realized such lush illustrations appeared in books back then.)

Old volumes of Poetry magazine, starting with volume one: 1912-1913, are also available.  The first volume included a short piece, "The Motive of the Magazine."  Here's part of it:

If you're not looking for anything in particular, I recommend doing a search on a contemporary poet like Billy Collins or Rita Dove.  Leave the drop-down box on "All Media Types," and click "GO!"  I guarantee you'll be kept busy for hours!  Have fun, and let us know what you find.

Thank you for guest blogging in the TechnoVerse today, Diane. I am already having fun with this amazing resource. I spotted a tab entitled "Wayback Machine" at Archive.Org. How enticing!

Diane was kind enough to contribute a Media Specialist tanka for today's post:

another cup

of coffee while
fingers fly
from link to link seeking 
cures for curiosity

By Diane Mayr

Posted with permission of the author.

Diane Mayr is a public librarian in New Hampshire.  She is also the author of several books. Last November, her picture book, Run, Turkey, Run! was turned into a children's musical theater production!  [see photo]  Diane is a big fan of haiku, haiga (illustrated haiku), and other short form poetry.  Visit her blog, www.randomnoodling.com, to learn more.

Tomorrow, a poet from  my neighborhood -- Kay Weeks of Howard County, Maryland -- tests out a random poetry generator. Want to try one now? How about Vogon poetry?