Edie Roones

Free Verse is like Jazz on Steroids. What is Jazz?  Well, here's a sample of the best:   Ella Fitzgerald riffing with "Blue Skies" The key to jazz is to present the melody then go everywhere else in play.  Like Dave Brubeck's "Take Fire", giving each musician an opportunity:   Equal Opportunity Music Free Verse does that.  It presumes the reader is familiar with regular poetry (Pure Verse), so it begins its riff immediately. I like Free Verse more than the other two methods:  Pure and Blank.  The best (think e.e.cummings) is highly experimental and an intellectual challenge to work out. It's Pure Verse that we encounter most often.  You know, those songs that rhyme.  Rhyme helps us remember. Blank Verse is the most "intellectual" (said with rounded snobbish tones). Free Verse is experimental. People have a tendency to think Free Verse is simple;  it's not.  Believe me, it is certainly FAR from easy.  It's actual...

We're hosting Emily Dunn of Writers Ink Services as she works through a yearlong series of blogs on Poetry! Even though people spend time with poetry everyday, they have a tendency to view poetry as something intimidating.  I fault Language Arts teachers for this, especially middle school and high school teachers.  Poetry in school becomes a matter of analyzing and picking out things rather than simply enjoying what the poet has to say. How do we spend time with poetry everyday?  Poetry is song.  The music you have words for :: that's poetry.  We don't look at it that way.  We should. We sing the catchy little tunes along with our favorite singers, we soar out with the power ballads from great movies, we cry at lost loves, we're motivated by the choruses we sing along with our congregations. Handle Me with Care:   Traveling Wilburys My Heart Will Go On:  Celine Dion's greatest power ballad That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be:...

Why do writers change great covers for books?  M.A. Lee presents the reason behind her change of the first three covers for her Hearts in Hazards romantic suspense series set in Regency England. Come over here to check it out:  click The 2015 cover The new cover for 2017