Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri in 1902 but was raised primarily by his grandmother, Mary Langston, after his parents separated. When not living with his grandmother, he traveled with his mother from town to town and lived in such places as Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Indiana and New York. He also lived part of [...]

Poetry they say is an extension of your soul, a pouring of your spirit. All that is within you is expressed in words, be it love, pain, sorrow, care, etc. It is a great way to express oneself, if you have the talent to do so. There is a great difference between writers and poets. [...]

I’m often asked this question at symposiums and writers’ conferences. It also pops up constantly in email queries. The answer, of course, is yes and no. From the poet’s point of view, the answer is a qualified yes, for the simple reason that in America alone there are well over 200 major contests that offer [...]

Poetry is an art form and in order to understand the concepts of writing a good poem, you must know the essentials of writing. Now of course as with any art form, one person’s list of essentials may be different than another’s but in the end it all adds up to some good poetry.

One of [...]

How is great poetry created? This is one of the first questions I address in my poetry class. There are probably as many answers to that question as there are poets in the world, but for me it starts with this:
Lets start with our sense of sight. Is that just a tree in the front [...]