Poetry comes in many forms, which is why it is so beautiful and challenging at the same time. It’s probably safe to say most poets know the most common forms–like haiku, acrostic, sonnet, and limerick–if from nowhere but school. If you like to challenge yourself, however, you’ve probably encountered about 100 or so forms with quick google searches. And while that is quite a bit, there are so many poetry forms from around the world that are missed.
So, I did some digging and found five sites with poetry forms from around the world for your enjoyment. Now, I would go through with these and make my own list of poetry forms for you guys, but to do so would be time-consuming, less effective (as I may not have an example for everyone one of them like some of these websites do), and just plain redundant. So, I’ll just leave these here for you to peruse as you see fit.
Any links to outside sources are strictly for research and reference purposes. I do not represent the site, moderators, owners, or sponsors. Nor am I compensated for referencing or linking to their work/products/services. Review my terms and conditions to learn more.
I don’t think I could gush enough about bookstagram.
Instagram, you mean?
No, not just Instagram, bookstagram. It’s a section of Instagram dedicated to books and their readers. It’s a magical place with millions of pictures of book shelves, libraries, books, recommendations, and everything bookish that you can imagine. It really is amazing.
Now, you can find all your new best friends by following bookstagrammers on Instagram with your current account and be amazed like me. But, if you’re an avid enough reader, you can even start a bookstagram of you own.
Why are you always trying to get us to do more?!
Because as a warrior and advocate of mental health, I believe in having hobbies to help cope naturally with our issues. But, moving on from that…
You can start your own bookstagram with an email, some books, and a camera (your phone one totally works). But, I warn you, if you start a bookstagram, keep these things in mind:
Any links to outside sources are strictly for research and reference purposes. I do not represent the site, moderators, owners, or sponsors. Nor am I compensated for referencing or linking to their work/products/services. Review my terms and conditions to learn more.
Don’t expect to make money from bookstagramming.
Paid advertising on bookstagram is a rarity. Generally these campaigns are only offered to bookstagrammers with a significant amount of followers or who fulfil a particular niche.
from “Way to Become a Bookstagram Influencer” by The Book Family Rogerson
Personally, I wouldn’t recommend starting anything hobby-related with the intentions of making money. While it is possible to do so, it takes a lot of work and if it ends up a failed venture, it can strip the joy from doing what you love. If you want to go into bookstagramming, do it for the community, for the support, for the friends, for the fun, for the book recommendations, for the bookish world. If you’re good at it, your influence will happen naturally, then, who knows if you get any monetary offers. But when starting out, just make it about what you enjoy. Do it for you and your bookish friends, not the money.
Get ready to do photo editing.
Some bookstagrammers are able to create beautiful pages intuitively, but there are simple ways to improve your Bookstagram feed without spending a fortune on editing apps or resorting to complicated techniques.
from “5 Easy Tips for Improving Your Bookstagram Feed” by The Book Family Rogerson
You’ll notice that a lot of bookstagram images look crazy beautiful and professional, but I can almost guarantee you they were done with a phone camera and some free editing apps! It’s gonna take some time and some learning, but you can totally do the same thing with your pictures, too. It’s easy, actually, when you experiment and see what works best for you.
Instagram can be drama.
Full Disclosure: Instagram is also the bane of my existence. It’s a love-hate relationship…Bookstagram drama is for real. People argue over reviews, say intolerant things…Quite frankly, IG can be a huge wast of time and make you feel like garbage. It just depends on how you look at it.
from “How to Start a Beautiful Bookstagram for Beginners” by The Uncorked Librarian
Like any other social media, Instagram can have it’s drama and stress. Between the promotions, and algorithm, and the unfriending, and the trolls–yeah, it can be stressful. But, don’t let it get to you. If you enjoy it, keep on. Personally, I don’t worry about those things and just try to post consistently. People are going to play the “friend/unfriend” game all the time, but if you offer quality content, you’ll get new followers. If you’re posting consistently, the algorithm will acknowledge and help you. If you want to pay to promote something awesome, do it! But, it’s not required. And block the trolls (not that there are many that I have found). If you are positive and do positive things for your page, your experience will mostly be positive.
Prepare to spend time on your project.
To show the Instagram algorithm that you’re involved with their app, you need to invest some time in it. This is one of the basic Bookstagram tips, but it works.
from “How to Grow Your Bookstagram Account and Following” by Yuki Reads
That means doing more than posting. You have to engage your followers with likes and comments, you have to use your story and highlights, you have to use captions and hashtags, and you have to get involved. Luckily, there are programs that can help you plan and post much of this, but you also have to get on there yourself and engage with the app. This can take some time. But, considering you’ll be engaging with like-minded individuals about bookish topics, I don’t see why you wouldn’t enjoy it. My recommendation: set some time aside each day to engage and do it. Maybe over lunch, maybe right before and after you post, maybe right before bed. Whatever you choose to do, make sure you do it and you’re consistent or your influence will go nowhere.
But don’t let these realities about the project drive you away.
If you love books, you’ll love running a bookstagram, from what I understand from others. I want to do it so bad, but I don’t read enough to be a true bookstagrammer and recommend anything for others to read.
If you really want to do it, I’m fully behind you and have found some good articles to help you get started:
So what do you say? Are you going to jump into the bookish community and start sharing your books, too? If so, let us know on Facebook so we can follow you!
What do you love about Bookstagram?
Let us know in the comments below and on social media, too!
As poetry gains a little traction with writers like Rupi Kaur, the market is starting to demand more poetry books that capture the voices of now. In spite of the number of publishers who are accepting poetry manuscripts though, there is very little information out there for how to write a poetry book.
Are you surprised with how little the world values poetry?
Actually, I am! With the amount of information out there about everything else, I would think there would be something more than just how to organize poetry! If we’re going to get serious in the writing community as poets, we need to offer the support and resources that fiction and technical writers offer their pursuers.
Now, I write and self-publish my own poetry chapbooks almost every year. While some people are looking to do this, some people prefer traditional publishers. No matter how you choose to publish, you still have to produce a high-quality, written manuscript for submission.
In my ebook, I lead you through the 6 important steps I had to complete in order to publish my chapbooks, including how to:
Select and organize your poems
Supplement your poetry
Send your manuscript to beta-readers
Revise and edit your manuscript
Finalize and format your manuscript
Publish your book via Amazon’s self-publishing KDP program
You’ll find that the book is quick to read, easy to understand, provides detailed examples, and articles of interest from this very blog!
Whether you’ve been writing manuscripts for awhile, or this is your first one, this ebook is written for you to be successful in providing the world with your voice.
So head on over to Amazon and purchase your copy for only 99 cents today!
Are you ready to start your poetry manuscript? Maybe you finished it and you have some tips for how you made it happen.
If so, let us know in the comments below. And don’t forget to follow me on social media, too, of course.
If you follow my journaling, and hopefully even bought a poetry journal of your own, then you probably have seen a poetry statistic tracker.
Recording your writing and activities can be a source of pride when you’re able to see everything you’ve done all together. While it’s not required, it can give you an idea where you’re excelling and where you’re slacking.
Okay… but, what do you track other than the days you write?
That’s what this post is for! Check it out!
Any links to outside sources are strictly for research and reference purposes. I do not represent the site, moderators, owners, or sponsors. Nor am I compensated for referencing or linking to their work/products/services. Review my terms and conditions to learn more.
Here are different things that I suggest you can track on the statistics tracker, or even a separate one if you wish.
Different forms you’ve written
Times you’ve written a specific form
Different topics you have written (some of us write about the same thing over and over again)
Times you’ve written about a specific topic
Poetry forms you’ve studied (this may not mean you’ve written in this form)
Poets you’ve studied
Poems you’ve read (especially by a particular poet)
Poetry books you own/you’ve read
Favorite poems
Times you’ve been featured
Times you’ve been published
Poems you’ve published (you can publish multiple poems in one instance)
Poems you’ve finished
Poems you haven’t finished
Poems you’ve written
Poems you’ve edited
Poems you’ve shared (especially to a specific place)
Poems you’ve scrapped
Challenges you’ve participated in
Times you’ve used a word
Collaborations you’ve done
Poems with supplements (maybe you have drawings or reflections with your poems)
Contests you’ve entered
Contests you’ve won
As you can see, there are lots of things you can track. And, I’m sure there’s more than what’s listed here. So, get tracking!
What do you track related to your poetry?
Let us know in the comments below, and on social media, of course! If you’re interested in a poetry journal for your tracking pleasures, you can see how I created one here or even buy a pre-done one here.
We make it part of their world and life; we interact with it in non-traditional ways.
from “5 New Year’s Resolutions for the Reader in You”
I would say a good reader does that. Well, at least every good reader I know.
What if we don’t do that?
If you consider yourself a “reader”, not merely someone who “likes to read”, I’m sure you do this is some way. In a previous article about reader resolutions, I explained 5 ways you may make reading part of your life. And, in THIS article, I want to give your 3 MORE ways to interact with reading as a lifestyle and not just an activity. Between the two, I’m sure the reader in you has been participating deeper than you think. If not, it’s not too late to start!
Any links to outside sources are strictly for research and reference purposes. I do not represent the site, moderators, owners, or sponsors. Nor am I compensated for referencing or linking to their work/products/services. Review my terms and conditions to learn more.
I will study common allusions so I may better understand higher-level texts.
Most classic texts and higher-level modern texts will have references to other well-known texts. With that in mind, if you read these kinds of texts (which you should just for the challenge in understanding a more complicated human nature), having studied the 5 most common allusions would be of great help to you in order to better “get it”. If you actually did your reading in Western schools growing up, you probably read and studied a few already.
I will rate and review the stories I read on various sites.
As an indie writer and reader, I have come to understand the importance of ratings and reviews to get work into the hands of others. Reviews are how we share our opinion about a piece and help others decide if they want to invest their brain-power in reading the same one. Beyond marketing, though, reviews are also how we open others’ minds to different perspectives they may not have considered about a text. Considering we include part of our interpretation of the text in a good review, others have a chance to contemplate another side that will affect their decision to read it.
There are many places that books are posted, but the most popular that I have found people check for reader reviews is Amazon and Goodreads.
I will complement fiction and non-fiction readings so I can better understand both.
Most good books will expose you to something with which you aren’t familiar. With classic literature, it’s easy to find lots of things to research outside of the text to better help you contextualize it. But, what about modern reads, like romance, dystopia, fantasy, etc? I can almost guarantee that there is something deeper in every text you read. You may not need to research it to understand the story–like the sport in a sports romance, or the government structure in a dystopia–but I’m sure doing so won’t hurt. Expand your mind every chance you get; this is another chance to do so.
Being a reader means a lot more than just reading books; I’m learning that more and more as I immerse myself in the scholar and bookstagram communities. And, even if you aren’t involved with a club or community, when you have a true love of reading, you’ll do more than just finish book after book. It will become a way for you to understand and interact with the world through a more “experienced” lens. And it’s those “experiences” that make us better people.
What have been your reader goals so far this year? Have you done any of these or the other five?
Let us know in the comments below and on social media, of course!
