National Poetry Month: Your Questions Answered

Here we are, midway through National Poetry Month, and so far, no posts from me about the best 30 days of the year. But, I know what you're about to ask: What are some great poetry sites on the web to help be celebrate National Poetry Month with both panache and alacrity?

What a fantastic question! As it happens, there are a number of standard options and others that will be new to some of you. Here is a short list:

- San Francisco's own The Rumpus is publishing a new poem every day in April for National Poetry Month.
- Poets.org. This is the site of the Academy of American Poets, and it is the best first stop on the Web for all things poetry.
- Verse Daily and Poetry Daily. Both are fantastic sites. The former is run out of Mountain View, California, and it, like its brother, highlights a new poem every day.
- Poetry Bear. Nothing on the web is better.
- Poetry Magazine. This portal for the venerable literary magazine lets you peruse past issues back to 1912, provides information about the magazine, and has links to its very good Harriet Blog.
- Poem of the Week, not surprisingly, highlights a different poem (or selection of poems) by a single author every week. It is run by Los Angeles poet and professor Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum. Another great weekly poetry feature is the one by Sharkforum.

- There are also dozens of excellent blogs about poetry, too many to keep up with, really, but here are a few of my favorites:
Ron Silliman's Blog: Probably the most influential poetry blog.
The Best American Poetry Blog: (also influential and very cool).
The The Poetry Blog: Great reviews; smart writing.
Eyewear: The best British poetry blog.
Chicks Dig Poetry: Enough said.

- An increasing number of online publications feature poetry or publish only poetry. The list of good ones would be far too long, but here are some to consider: DMQ Review, Slope, Failbetter, Linebreak, 32 Poems, and La Petite Zine just to name a few. Two new journals from the upper Midwest, Jet Fuel Review and Wake, promise to make a splash as well.

- Readers interested in specific writers can access a lot of poems and other documents on particular sites devoted to those poets. There are some great sites devoted to Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Wallace Stevens, and others.

- For those interested in hearing emerging poets, check out the fabulous From the Fishouse. One of the founders is San Francisco poet Camille Dungy.