In "The Making of a Poem", authors Mark Strand and Eavan Boland call the pantoum, like the villanelle and sestina, "game-like forms that circle in on themselves, changing the event as they narrate it" (53). The pantoum requires repetition, as do the...

As for poetry, I suppose Im a cynic. One of the standouts of my undergraduate career is the poetry class I took. My classmates and I had a real comradery, bumping into each other in the coffee shop and comparing notes about how long since either of...

I suppose it's still a work in progress, but moving toward a villanelle. "No Espresso Bathed Salon Created Writer" No espresso bathed salon created writer; Cliches beget us nothing but cliches. No double tall. No fireside guitar. If inspiration comes...

The short story Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the movie The Stepford Wives directed by Frank Oz (from the book by Ira Levin, author of Rosemarys Baby) utilize gender reversal to explore sex roles in society. Never mind the improbable...

In On Writing, Earnest Hemingway says, I try always to do the thing by three-cushion shots rather than by words or direct statements. But maybe we must have direct statements too. E.B. White is often quoted with, Be obscure clearly. The three-cushion...