Ideas for Poetry Booklets

Make poetry booklets that are attractive and rewarding to read.

Whether you're preparing booklets of poetry to hand out in a class or making them up for your own enjoyment, you can create interesting, attractive documents that offer literary value without requiring great expense. All it takes is some research into the public domain and you'll find poems and graphics you can use without paying to print them.

What Is Public Domain?

It's easiest to define creative work in the public domain by stipulating what it is not: copyrighted work whose creators must be paid a fee each time someone reproduces it. Typically, public-domain works date back long enough ago that their creators no longer are living. That doesn't mean their work has no value, however. Robert Frost, Walt Whitman and John Keats are among the poets whose writing is in the public domain, and they stand as giants of great literature whose works are studied in classrooms around the world. Along with works whose copyright has expired, you'll also find poems whose authors explicitly place them in the public domain at the time they write them. If you choose the poems for your booklets from these resources, you can use literary masterpieces at no cost.

What About Public-Domain Artwork?

Just as poetry can enter the public domain, so can drawings, paintings and other works of art. To add visual interest to your poetry booklets, look for public-domain art you can use to decorate your pages and accompany your poems with interesting, relevant illustrations. If you're preparing booklets to hand out in a classroom, plan to offer your students insights into the artwork as well as the poems. You might also consider using the art as a starting point for a writing assignment, giving students the inspiration for some poetry of their own.

Creating Your Booklets

You can prepare your booklets in a word processor, page-layout application or any software that lets you design your pages, typeset your poems and incorporate your artwork. Choose colors and typefaces wisely, and sparingly, to complement your text and art without overwhelming it. If you make your booklets four pages long, all you'll have to do is set them up as two landscape pages and print them on the front and back sides of one sheet of paper. Your desktop printer will do a fine job of serving up crisp, attractive output. Just fold each sheet and you're ready to go.

More Ideas for Your Creativity

If you'd like to branch out and build poetry booklets featuring your own poems and artwork, you can create completely original works you can give to friends and family as gifts, send out instead of greeting cards and use to highlight special occasions. Mother's Day, Father's Day, Valentine's Day, Christmas, birthdays and more can be subjects for poetry or occasions on which to publish it. Because it celebrates special occasions, this kind of poetry is called just that: occasional poetry. You can draw your artwork on your computer, scan it in or even capture it with your digital camera, then create booklets that are wholly your own creative expression.

References

• Public Domain Poems: Selected Public Domain Poetry from the Great Public Domain Poets
• Open Directory -- Arts: Literature: Poetry: Electronic Text Archives
• Utmost Christian Writers: Christian Poetry in the Public Domain
• Incredible Art Stuff: Incredible Clip Art & Images
• Public Domain Clip Art
• Open Directory -- Computers: Graphics: Clip Art: Public Domain