“The time has come the walrus said
To talk of many things,
Of shoes and ships and ceiling wax
RESOURCES and such things.” (with apologies to Lewis Carroll)
Yes, kiddies, RESOURCES. You know, those things that you go to, like dictionaries, encyclopedias, your mother, and such when you don’t know a bloody thing yourself, so that you can get the answers and then sort of toss them off, casual-like, apropos of nothing, like there’s just no END to the esoteric things you know, you’re such a smarty-pants.
From time to time others emulers such as Les, and Hugh Clary, Stephen Fryer and many others (who because of my ignorance at not being able to call their names to mind shall have to go unlauded, though not unappreciated) have layed helpful links for this and that and another thing in our laps. And so in that spirit, I will proffer a few of my own specific to poetry and writing in general that you may use, as I do, to hornswoggle your peers into believing that you actually know whereof you speak. And if YOU have any (let’s restrict this SOLELY to resources relating to writing, lest it get really crazy), perhaps you will send them along for the benefit of all.
On line:
[www.bartleby.com] This is simply an incredible literary resource featuring The Columbia Encyclopedia, The American Heritage Dictionary, Roget’s II: The New Thesaurus, The American Heritage Book of English Usage, The Columbia World of Quotations, Simpson’s Contemporary Quotations, Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, The King James Bible, Oxford Shakepeare, Gray’s Anatomy, Strunk’s Elements of Style, World Factbook, Columbia Gazeteer, The Complete Harvard Classics, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch’s Antholology of English Verse—and reference, fiction, verse, and non-fiction books up the ying yang—and all free! Check it out—you’ll see what I mean.
[www.google.com] What list of resources would be complete without Google. Got a snippet of a song or a poem in your head, or you have the title and want the lyrics. Just type it in—and let Google search over 3,000,000,000! web sites for you in a matter of seconds. In fact, I knew that I had used a parody I had written on the mnemonic ‘Thirty days Hath September’ somewhere within Lucifer’s Lexicon under a particular devilition, but couldn’t remember where. I typed in “Dirty haze hath September” and—voila!—up popped the devil!
[bartleby.com] The American Heritage Dictionary (part of the above site) Tip: when you are writing, open another window (if already on line) and call up this site. You’ll have the entire dictionary right on your desktop. Got that? Good—now don’t let me see anyone take five minutes to write and ask me or anyone else what a word means and expect THEM to take another five or more minutes to answer, when, in the words of the inimitable Casey Stengel, “you could look it up” in a minute or so.
[rhyme.lycos.com] />
A great Rhyming Dictionary. Want to know what rhymes with ‘month’ (nothing)? Go here.
Books:
Roget’s Thesaurus
The Chicago Manual of Style
The McGraw-Hill Handbook of English
The Complete Rhyming Dictionary
The Thesaurus of Slang
Proverb Wit and Wisdom
The Oxford Book of Quotations
Random House Word Menu
Descriptionary: A Thematic Dictionary
The Holy Bible
Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (to know who and where the devil things are)
French/ Spanish/ Italian/ German/ Latin/ Yiddish/ Chinese/ Japanese/English dictionaries
These, to a greater and lesser extent, are the heretofore closely guarded secrets responsible for making me the “World’s Most Famous Unknown Poet,” which resources I use to impress the hell out of you. There are probably others which I have overlooked, and, if I think of any more, I’ll add them later via post-edit.
In the meantime, these will be more than enough to sink your poetasting teeth into—especially Bartleby—really! I mean CHECK IT OUT! You’ll be gabberflasted!
And again, if you have any RELEVANT recommendations pass them along here, to Resource Central.
Solo fono.
[tinyurl.com] />
[tinyurl.com] />
[tinyurl.com] />
[tinyurl.com] />
[tinyurl.com] />
[tinyurl.com] />
[tinyurl.com] />
[tinyurl.com] />
[tinyurl.com] />
[tinyurl.com]
David I think this is a great idea. I hope our writers find it helpful. Let me say at the outset that I am a generalist. My prinicipal proficiency is probably navigating the web. There are some basic resources which our writers (and readers) should know about.
The first is Ask Jeeves. Crazy as it sounds, this search engine can often find topics that are not listed first on Google. This is especially true of topics which are not primarily American in origin.
[www.ask.com] />
Believe it or not, this topic of resources has been discussed before. A few months ago a reader asked which sites do you use most often? Here is a link to that discussion:
[tinyurl.com] />
A very important resource for students is the Information Please Almanac.
[www.infoplease.com] />
To find out about people alive or dead go to this biography megasite:
[www.multcolib.org] />
To find out practically anything you need to know about grammar and a lot of things you probably don't need to know go here:
[ccc.commnet.edu] />
To find many poems not listed by e-mule go here:
[www.cs.rice.edu] />
Or here:
[eir.library.utoronto.ca] />
If you can't think of another word for stupid, go here:
[humanities.uchicago.edu] />
Anyone out there want to find out about the U. S. A. go here:
[usinfo.state.gov] />
These are just some of the resources available to students on the WWW. By asking specific questions in the Homework section of this website we can usually get you headed in the right direction. From writing term papers, to finding the lyrics to the latest P. O. D. song, we may be able to help you. Just don't be afraid to ask.
Les
Here are a few of my favorites, that aren't already listed:
Obscure Words - [phrontistery.50megs.com]
Mythology Characters and Lore - [www.wikipedia.org] />
Song Lyrics, from 1930- 1999 - Retrievable by title, artist, year, Very user friendly - [www.ntl.matrix.com.br] />
Literature - [www.pinkmonkey.com] />
Modern Poets - [www.english.uiuc.edu] />
Cliche Finder - [www.westegg.com] />
Classic Literature Online (Free) - [www.classicreader.com] />
Thank you one and all.
I still find "The Elements of Style" by Strunk and White to be a valuable resource; the definitions and examples are easily understood and illustrate the rules very well.
joet
Thanks, Hugh, Les, Christy, and Joe for all of the many terrific links. I haven't had time to check them all out yet but the ones that I have I found to be really great. Language lovers, those wishing to be better writers, or simply be moved by others who are will find an almost inexhaustible wealth herein. As for me, I've heard they go very well with eggs, and I'm hoping some one or another of you out there (gangbangers need not apply) can tell me the best way to prepare them.
Anyone else?
Final tip: paste these into a document for future reference. Sooner or later you'll have need of one or more, and you won't have to go on a fishing expedition trying to find this thread.
Post Edited (09-30-03 01:31)
Here is one Chesil posted a while back: [sunsite.sut.ac.jp] />
Art instead of literature, but an interesting ride anyway.
Forgot this one earlier:
[www.archive.org]
How could we forget Shakespeare:
The sonnets:
[www.shakespeares-sonnets.com] />
The plays:
[the-tech.mit.edu] />
Les
bump, for Gwydion
Looks like Amazon has a Search Inside the Book feature now:
[www.amazon.com]
Trouble sleeping?
[www.bl.uk]
David,
Many thanks for beginning this great thread on resources, there is a wealth of information here. To all of you who added to it...thank you as well.
jhs
Hate to stay current? Still living in the past? Here is an ancient encyclopedia:
[80.1911encyclopedia.org] />
Interesting notes on Shakspere, among others.
For anyone doing scholarly research these two sites are very helpful:
[owl.english.purdue.edu] />
[owl.english.purdue.edu] />
Les
Roget's 1911 Thesaurus:
[www.ai.mit.edu]
For paintings this is the site I use:
[www.abcgallery.com] />
Debutant
And for really old dictionary words. [www.global-language.com] />
Requires a plug-in.
pam
Pam, that's #4 on Hugh's list of curly cues. I wish he would have given us an index to those. Might save some time.
Les
My bad.
What word in the English language is the most ambiguous?
[rec-puzzles.org] />
Dictionary of Rhetoric
[humanities.byu.edu] />
Probert Encyclopedia
[www.fas.org] />
Century (like OED) Dictionary - click JPG to avoid downloading the viewer
[www.global-language.com] />
Teachers' aids
[www.teacherxpress.com] />
Perseus Greek/Latin classics library
[www.perseus.tufts.edu] />
Online Books
[www.digital.library.upenn.edu]
ABC Gallery is good. Here is another one that Chesil found a while back:
[sunsite.sut.ac.jp]
Links for Writers
[www.internet-resources.com] />
<[www.internet-resources.com];
Poets interviewed on BBC:
[www.bbc.co.uk]
Recommended reading for youth of all ages. Also, fills in the gaps in our own education:
[www.cde.ca.gov] />
Les
Bad link above, at least for my browser. What was the search?
Here is one you may enjoy:
[yourdictionary.com] />
Yours truly,
Chester Drawers
Here you go Hugh, I don't know why the other one won't work. With this one you will need to define the parameters of your search. I. e. 9-12, or K-3, reading levels:
[www.cde.ca.gov] />
Les
hA HAHA...........rESOURCES are nice, but if I took the time to read just half of all of these..........I would just be one that reads, not one that writes. Alot of these should be of great help.........thanks....
Well, at least read this one, to learn what an ellipsis is:
[www.onelook.com] />
Next you can work on capitalization, spelling and grammar.
[web.uvic.ca]
And if you are tired and looking for fantasy and inspiration have a look at this:
[vallejo.ural.net] />
Post Edited (01-12-04 18:43)
[www.harvestfields.netfirms.com] />
1811 dictionary of vulgar words. You won't find the F word here, but the C word does appear, with asterisks. What un con Miege is, I can only speculate. Doesn't seem to be another spelling of minge.
I found it interesting to Search for ** on their pages, just to see which words were too foul to spell out, then try to guess the missing terms. For some reason the S word has dashes instead of asterisks, as do others, such as t--d. Looks like today's bollocks used to be ballocks. Many other such oddities are also to be found.
More on Google services, an embedded calculator, even:
[www.google.com]
this is good, like a fat kid loves cake, this is how much i love this work of artistic tranquility.
Here is another free rhyming dictionary, for use on line, or download:
[rhyme.sourceforge.net]
Bored with tiny urls?
[www.hugeurl.com] />
Try this one, for example:
[www.emule.com]
Hugh, how do we make the fonts in color? A couple of kids posted in red, green, and blue. How can we do that? I know that somehow the letters OOFFOO come into play, but how do you actually format that on the page?
Les
Well, looking at the Source of this page, for example, it looks like they use a < FONT color > or a < bgcolor > code, but I don't know if they will work correctly or not, since trying other such codes (like bold and italics) have failed for me in the past.
Kevin said they are in compliance with
<[www.emule.com] />
but that was a while back and things may have changed.
For the whole megillah, see:
[www.w3.org]
Now if you need a flower or shrub to rhyme with your poem, try this:
[aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu] />
To be exact:
[aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu] />
or
[www.ces.ncsu.edu] />
Post Edited (01-31-04 14:49)
I don't know if this of any use to you folk, or if it has already been posted:
The Phrase Finder
[phrases.shu.ac.uk] />
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. (Aristotle)
If this hasn't already been posted, you can try RhymeZone, a free rhyming dictionary and thesarus, if you're stuck for an inspired rhyme:
[www.rhymezone.com]
Here is the index for Gwydion's link:
[phrases.shu.ac.uk]
Thanks Hugh
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. (Aristotle)
Lots of poetry stuff here:
[www2.eng.cam.ac.uk]
Looking for just the right rude response when someone posts a question like, "How can I find works by British poets?"
Caution, rude language:
[tinyurl.com]
[windpub.com] />
[windpub.com]
Worst poetry contests? Drat! You mean my classic limeraiku,
A haiku-type lim
Is slim, with a beat so sweet,
I'm taken by them.
is not really the finest example of the form ever created? They are only trying to scam me into buying their books!? I'm crushed. Crushed, do you hear me.
How about this site:
[www.proquest.com] />
Is anyone familiar with it? Post the password/user name here if it is of value.
Also - where is David Madison anyway? My satireday stuff is not being delivered as usual.
Hugh, I am intimately familiar with it, however it is subscription-based, and as such I'm not sure if you'd be able to come upon a UN/PW combo for it.
- Bob
Poetry trivia quiz:
[www.wvup.edu] />
242 questions - no I'm not telling how many I got right, forget it.
Let's hope you didn't miss number 14.
pam
13. In the Old English epic poem Beowulf, why is the story of Hygelac’s raid
on the Frisians important?
a. It is one of the most beautiful passages in Old English poetry.
b. It’s ending is so unbelievable as to defy credibility.
c. It is one of the most violent stories in English literature.
d. It has been historically confirmed.
e. It is the only poorly written part of the entire poem.
14. In which Old English poem do we read about a monster who raids Hrothgar’s
court and kills his warriors but has its own huge arm torn from its body?
a. The Wife’s Lament
b. Deor’s Lament
c. The Seafarer
d. Beowulf
e. Dream of the Rood
Deor’s Lament, right?
Strange that there are thousands of quotes from Beowulf on the web, but I could not find a single excerpt from Deor's Lament.
Maybe we could do the test as a competition between poetry sites- the eMule team, the plagiarist.com team........ Kind of like Academic Decathlon.
pam
Do these questions seem to easy, hard, or what? Any suggestions as to how I could improve on them?
1. What poem begins “Five years have past…”?
a. Ulysses
b. In Memoriam
c. Lines composed above Tintern Abbey
d. Elegiac Stanzas
2. Which poem talks about the turn of fortune?
a. The Holy Grail
b. Idylls of the King
c. The Splendor Falls
d. Ulysses
3. Which was written by Thomas Hardy?
a. The Road Less Traveled
b. In Memoriam
c. The Man He Killed
d. I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died
4. Who wrote Jabberwocky?
a. Robert Burns
b. Lewis Carrol
c. Ogden Nash
d. Oscar Wilde
5. Who wrote Carrion Comfort?
a. Emily Dickinson
b. Edgar Allen Poe
c. Gerard Manley Hopkins
d. Alfred Tennyson
6. Who wrote The Bells?
a. Edgar Allen Poe
b. Anne Bradstreet
c. John Service
d. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
7. Who wrote tales of Arabia?
a. Mary Shelley
b. John Donne
c. John Milton
d. Robert Louis Stevenson
8. How does sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare begin?
a. If my dear love were but the child of state,
b. My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
c. From you have I been absent in the spring,
d. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
9. “The road was a ribbon of moonlight looping the purple moor…” is a quote from:
a. The Raven
b. To Night
c. Meeting at Night
d. The Highwayman
10. Who wrote Death Be Not Proud?
a. Emily Dickinson
b. Sir Walter Scott
c. Walt Whitman
d. John Donne
Les
Do these questions seem to easy, hard, or what? Any suggestions ...
Depends on to whom they are given. Too easy for college honors students, too hard for high school freshmen. The choices seem well thought out. I missed 'turn of fortune' and had to think hard about 'five years have past' with Ulysses as the first choice. (Anyway, shouldn't it be five years have passed, Will?) Lewis Carroll has two L's. Tales should be capitalized.
Hugh, here's the poem. If you got 80-90 per cent, I think the rest of us would
do worse. I was concerned about how reasonable the answer choices were.
Thanks for the input. I could easily come up with a hundred of these for a counter challenge to the folks listed above. Here's a link to the poem you asked about in your post.
[www.emule.com] />
Les
Hi everyone;
wow! you guys have quite a list of sites there!
I just wanted to introduce a writing site/forum.
[www.arcane-artistry.net] />
It's a great writing community that is great for feedback.
check it out.
Bootleg Books has some interesting sections, including online books & poetry, plus a dictionary of phrase & fable:
[www.bootlegbooks.com]
I found a gem!. See and hear Maya Angelou recites her poem!. There is Maya's readings at the end of the video. Click view entire film option.
[www.roland-collection.com] />
Post Edited (03-17-04 08:31)
Straight Dope has some interesting articles:
[www.straightdope.com]
More online books:
[www.knowledgerush.com]
Here is an online guide to grammar and writing, with quizzes, even.
Probably not as complete as some others like Bartleby, but interesting nevertheless (I did not see appostrophes for proper names like "Yeats's poems" mentioned, for example).
[ccc.commnet.edu]
Hmmmm. Why is Conjunction Junction suddenly running through my head?
pam
Mrs. Malaprop should visit this section:
[ccc.commnet.edu] />
She would be going up and down like a metronome.
There's one of the Nero Wolfe books, Gambit, where it opens with Wolfe burning a dictionary. Why? It said that you could use 'infer' and 'imply' interchangeably.
pam
HAROLD'S PLANET
(There is poetry in animation, yes!?)
[www.haroldsplanet.com] />
PIDE OF MANCHESTER
(Celebrating poetry in the Rock'n'Goal Capital of the World!)
[www.unitedmanchester.com] />
PRIVATE EYE
(Private Eye - selected.)
[www.private-eye.co.uk] />
RETORT MAGAZINE
(Electronic journal of art and literature)
[www.retortmagazine.com] />
From Leicky
oops!
HAROLD'S PLANET
(There is poetry in animation, yes!?)
[www.haroldsplanet.com] />
PRIDE OF MANCHESTER
(Celebrating poetry in the Rock'n'Goal Capital of the World!)
[www.unitedmanchester.com] />
PRIVATE EYE
(Private Eye - selected.)
[www.private-eye.co.uk] />
RETORT MAGAZINE
(Electronic journal of art and literature)
[www.retortmagazine.com] />
From Leicky
The Blake Archive is a good place to meander around when you have the time:
[www.blakearchive.org]
COLOUR/COLOR THEORY
[www.bway.net] />
... interesting.
Wanna get published? 200 bucks gets you 100 copies:
[www.instantpublisher.com] />
Will they just steal your money? I dunno.
Project Gutenberg's copyright guidelines:
[www.gutenberg.net]
Making of America and Univ. Michigan Digital Text collections:
[www.hti.umich.edu] />
[tinyurl.com]
EC BROWN
[www.kittyspit.net] />
... weird!!, from a link offa link offa link off one of Hugh's ... um links.
Thought I 'd share.
Leicky
bump for les
Stephen
Les, it may be too late for thoughts about your multiple-choice questions, but here's one anyway:
1. I know SOME STUFF about Shakespeare's sonnets but I have never even TRIED to remember which NUMBER goes with which sonnet. It just doesn't seem important to me, and I don't think it reflects anything worth testing.
2. Multiple choice is a very tricky format. I took Honors Exams on Shakespeare, lo these two decades ago and more... and I was really surprised to see multiple choice and mix-n-match questions on the exam. But it turned out to be very hard work matching 20 lines to the plays they came from. We did not necessarily need to RECALL all 20 lines; they were chosen so that we could do a certain amount of elimination ("That sounds like Timon... but I'm pretty sure there's no mention of Athens in Henry V"). CREATING that puzzle must have been much harder than solving it.
3. If you dare... replace #4 (too easy) with this one:
Who wrote Jabberwocky?
a. Robert Burns
b. Arthur Sullivan
c. Charles Dodgson
d. Oscar Wilde
Who wrote JABBERWOCKY?
Terry Gilliam wrote jabberwocky !
Can I add a reference book to David Madison's list, even though this thread is almost exclusively internet sources? It's Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, which has lots of sources and explanations for sayings and names we use and don't know why - loike Gordon Bennet! for example. It hasn't got everything in, but it's pretty good and a great browse.
Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable is great.
AND it's one of the resources hooked up to Bartleby, so sometimes if you do a search in Bartleby you get an answer from Brewer's.
Or, go to it directly on Bartleby:
[www.bartleby.com]
If you need a QUICK DIP into Shakespeare --
for example, if you're in a hurry and you just need to know whether its the First or Second Murderer who uses the phrase "dregs of conscience" in R3 --
I find recommend this site:
[www.cs.usyd.edu.au] />
That page has a list of all the plays. Click on a title and you go VERY QUICKLY to the act/scene you want (if you know it), OR a plain text of the entire play.
(It's the Second Murderer.)
Poetry tips:
[www.firesides.net]
I thought Hugh might be leading us down a gardenish path, but BY GOLLY, THOSE ARE GOOD POETRY TIPS!
Refdesk:
[www.refdesk.com]
The Wayback Machine:
[] />
[] />
I wonder if this works when Google gives you the 'expired page' error.
Having been away from eMule's discussion forum for several years, I was delighted to drop by tonight and find it alive and well with a few familiar names (Kislecki, is that you?).
Here is one of my favorite sites. It is the Listening Booth of The Academy of American Poets. You can hear poets (Frost, Thomas, Hughes, Yeats to name a few) read their own works. It's a great resource to use with students. Forgive me if it has already been mentioned.
[www.poets.org]
Melissa
More interesting links:
Read lots of poetry,
[www.firesides.net] />
Lessons,
[www.alsopreview.com] />
Blurbs of Wisdom,
[tinyurl.com] />
Instant poetry critique,
[www.eosdev.com]
Here's one response from the Poetry Critique site.
pam
Sonnet 18
The Infallible Critic's Honest Opinion
This was better than anything I've ever read, William Shakespeare! You must be the spiritual twin of Samuel Beckett. He is another of my favorite writers, though your work is far more meticulous.
I am awed by your full-blooded juggling of transcendent language and restrained alliteration. From your poem's engrossing beginning to its superlative summation, you have shown me that the simple things in life really are what's important. Without a doubt, "by William Shakespeare..." is quite possibly the answer to all of life's big questions. Sonnet 18 is definitely engaging, and I will work on my own poetry, hoping someday I might write something half as noteworthy as this.
(By the way, I must say that your voice is more melodious than Beethoven's symphonies. I'm sure you hear that all the time; I hope you don't mind me mentioning it.)
Please do come back and see me soon. I can't wait to read your next poem. Each one lets me experience reality in ways I never imagined. You make me proud to be human.
Odes of Horace and meters used:
[www.stoa.org] />
[www.stoa.org] />
Recalls Chesil's earlier post on one of Auden's accentual asclepiads.
[tinyurl.com]
hoo sez? Not the Annotated Alice. Gotta watch out for what is disseminated on the internet, they tells me.
Thought I should contribute, well, here is my offering: Automated Alice (for the unconverted)http://www.spikemagazine.com/1196noon.htm
Toi23
Of the two, Roger Dean's work is considered to be less pornographic:
[www.rogerdean.com]
Who says what, Peter? There are almost 90 posts in this thread, none of which mentions the Annotated Alice, that I can see.
Had me confused too, Hugh. There is, however, a new post that makes reference to Automated Alice.
It seems to be a response to Johnny Sansculo's post that Terry Gilliam wrote Jabberwocky. It's linked in the Threaded View.
pam
Thank you Pam....didnt make sense, even to me, until you splained it !
It's linked in the Threaded View.
Cool! I did not realize the system worked that way, thanks.
Back to the thread's topic, some essays on poetry:
[tinablue.homestead.com]
Ali G translator
[www.disbealig.com]
David Madison wrote:
“The time has come the walrus said
To talk of many things,
Of shoes and ships and ceiling wax
RESOURCES and such things.” (with apologies to Lewis Carroll)
Yes, kiddies, RESOURCES. You know, those things that you go to,
like dictionaries, encyclopedias, your mother, and such when
you don’t know a bloody thing yourself, so that you can get the
answers and then sort of toss them off, casual-like, apropos of
nothing, like there’s just no END to the esoteric things you
know, you’re such a smarty-pants.
From time to time others emulers such as Les, and Hugh Clary,
Stephen Fryer and many others (who because of my ignorance at
not being able to call their names to mind shall have to go
unlauded, though not unappreciated) have layed helpful links
for this and that and another thing in our laps. And so in that
spirit, I will proffer a few of my own specific to poetry and
writing in general that you may use, as I do, to hornswoggle
your peers into believing that you actually know whereof you
speak. And if YOU have any (let’s restrict this SOLELY to
resources relating to writing, lest it get really crazy),
perhaps you will send them along for the benefit of all.
On line:
[www.bartleby.com] This is simply an incredible
literary resource featuring The Columbia Encyclopedia, The
American Heritage Dictionary, Roget’s II: The New Thesaurus,
The American Heritage Book of English Usage, The Columbia World
of Quotations, Simpson’s Contemporary Quotations, Bartlett’s
Familiar Quotations, The King James Bible, Oxford Shakepeare,
Gray’s Anatomy, Strunk’s Elements of Style, World Factbook,
Columbia Gazeteer, The Complete Harvard Classics, Sir Arthur
Quiller-Couch’s Antholology of English Verse—and reference,
fiction, verse, and non-fiction books up the ying yang—and all
free! Check it out—you’ll see what I mean.
[www.google.com] What list of resources would be
complete without Google. Got a snippet of a song or a poem in
your head, or you have the title and want the lyrics. Just type
it in—and let Google search over 3,000,000,000! web sites for
you in a matter of seconds. In fact, I knew that I had used a
parody I had written on the mnemonic ‘Thirty days Hath
September’ somewhere within Lucifer’s Lexicon under a
particular devilition, but couldn’t remember where. I typed in
“Dirty haze hath September” and—voila!—up popped the devil!
[bartleby.com] The American Heritage
Dictionary (part of the above site) Tip: when you are writing,
open another window (if already on line) and call up this site.
You’ll have the entire dictionary right on your desktop. Got
that? Good—now don’t let me see anyone take five minutes to
write and ask me or anyone else what a word means and expect
THEM to take another five or more minutes to answer, when, in
the words of the inimitable Casey Stengel, “you could look it
up” in a minute or so.
[rhyme.lycos.com] /> A great Rhyming Dictionary. Want to know what rhymes with
‘month’ (nothing)? Go here.
Books:
Roget’s Thesaurus
The Chicago Manual of Style
The McGraw-Hill Handbook of English
The Complete Rhyming Dictionary
The Thesaurus of Slang
Proverb Wit and Wisdom
The Oxford Book of Quotations
Random House Word Menu
Descriptionary: A Thematic Dictionary
The Holy Bible
Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (to know who and
where the devil things are)
French/ Spanish/ Italian/ German/ Latin/ Yiddish/ Chinese/
Japanese/English dictionaries
These, to a greater and lesser extent, are the heretofore
closely guarded secrets responsible for making me the “World’s
Most Famous Unknown Poet,” which resources I use to impress the
hell out of you. There are probably others which I have
overlooked, and, if I think of any more, I’ll add them later
via post-edit.
In the meantime, these will be more than enough to sink your
poetasting teeth into—especially Bartleby—really! I mean CHECK
IT OUT! You’ll be gabberflasted!
And again, if you have any RELEVANT recommendations pass them
along here, to Resource Central.
Solo fono.
Like King Midas, you must be a Phrygian idiot, ramon.