Web Poetry Wednesday #5

Every Wednesday, I feature a list of 10 poems that I've found across the web: on blogs, in literary journals, etc. The only real criteria is that the poems must be publicly accessible, meaning that readers don't have to pay any sort of fee to access them, and the writer in question ought to be alive and still writing today. If you're a poet and you'd like to see your work featured in a future Web Poetry Wednesday post, send me a link to ONE (1) poem for consideration: you can submit your links through the site's Contact page, or you can tweet me a link through Twitter.

This week's poems:

• Shopping for Care by S. E. Ingraham
  I'm afraid I'm starting this week off with a heartbreaker -- S.E. Ingraham's "Shopping for Care" contrasts choosing a daycare with choosing a funeral, after a tragic accident.
• A Jar of Honey by Jacob Polley
  Jacob Polley's "A Jar of Honey" is one of the shorter poems I've featured on Web Poetry Wednesday, but I'm absolutely in love with the images in this piece.
• From Ways of the Mind as Subject by Keith MoulAlthough only an excerpt, I like what Keith Moul does in "Ways of the Mind as Subject" -- a multitude of short poems (2-3 lines each) on the topic of the mind. This excerpt is featured in APOCRYPHALTEXT, a poetry journal edited by Alan May, a former coworker of mine.
• Great Granddaughter's Visit by Brenda Warren
  You don't see a lot of sci-fi in contemporary poetry, which is a shame. Brenda Warren's "Great Granddaughter's Visit" touches lightly on the possibilities of future apocalypses, time travel, domed cities.
• A Day By the Numbers by Jennifer Lauck
  I really love Jennifer Lauck's use of numbers in this poem. It injects a language that is often absent from poetry, but is very much a part of our everyday lives.
• Whimsy by Linda Jacobs
  I find the shape of Linda Jacobs' "Whimsy" really interesting. Each stanza follows a pattern of a longer line, followed by two shorter lines that trickle off. It gives the poem a sort of sing-song rhythm that fits with the subject matter, without resorting to end rhymes.
• cinquain by Kate Kohler
  Similarly, I love the use of whitespace in Kate Kohler's "cinquain." I think if the poem were kept in a left-aligned column, the poem would lose something, so jutting the stanzas off to the side now and again lends the poem an interestin animation.
• You Are Too Pure and Free by Dean J. Baker
  "You Are Too Pure and Free" wasn't my favorite poem on Dean J. Baker's site, but I wanted to include it because he does something with this poem that a lot of poets don't -- he includes a video of himself reciting the poem. A video like that is, essentially, the Internet's answer to the poetry reading. Even if you can't attend a live reading, you can see the poet read their work, hear their voice and their inflections, and see their facial expressions, and that's about as close as you can get to the poem as it sounds in the poet's head.
• Casey Avenue Bridge by Jenny Badman
  The setting and subject of Jenny Badman's "Casey Avenue Bridge" are what really make the poem: an older brother giving advice to his little sister on a bridge in the middle of winter. It doesn't seem like quite the place for such a conversation, but it works.
• Take My Heart by M. C. Lubow
  I like M. C. Lubow's use of art in this piece, contrasting Chagall with Kahlo. In my mind, I prefer to ignore the final line, however.

That's it for this week's poems. Next week will be a special edition of Web Poetry Wednesday, with particular focus on poets from DeviantArt -- a site that I feel has a much-overlooked literary community, despite its wealth of talent.