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Poetry isn't just sweet sonnets and other lines about love and nature -- it's actually a potent way to convey the whole range of human experience. The Web is a wonderful place to go when you want to wax poetic. Especially when it's National Poetry Month!

You may want to start by visiting the Academy of American Poets website, where you'll find "exhibits" about the likes of e.e. cummings and Gwendolyn Brooks, pointers to online chats with other notable poets, RealAudio readings of works by their authors, and forums where

you can discuss your favorite poems or books, get help identifying a poem for which you only remember a few lines, or even contribute your poetic efforts.

There's also Bookwire, with interviews and quizzes, a 'zine called Bold Type, editors' tips on why poems are published or perished, literary links to such places as the Boston Review and the University of Buffalo's Electronic Poetry Center, and a tribute to the late, great Allen Ginsberg.

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness...." And thus Allen Ginsberg launched into Howl, the powerful poem whose onslaught of beautiful and horrible images, the fast and furious torrent of words, set the Beat Generation in motion. When Ginsberg died in April 1998, he left behind many remarkable works and a profound influence on generations of young writers who would never look at the English language the same way again. Levi Asher devotes his Literary Kicks Web page to Ginsberg and fellow Beats such as Jack Kerouac.

The Internet Poetry Archive is another place to get to know some of this century's most influential wordsmiths. The University of North Carolina launched the project to bring the work of contemporary poets to new audiences. You'll find biographies, bibliographies, poems, audio file readings and comments from Nobel Prize winners Seamus Heaney and Czeslaw Milosz, as well as Philip Levine who, musing about his "M. Degas Teaches Art & Science at Durfee Intermediate School -- Detroit, 1942," says that although his last two books won all kinds of prizes, "I really like the older ones better -- they seem more imaginative and daring to me. I wish I could get back to that. I think I was loonier...or something."

Columbia University's Project Bartleby is giving the same kind of exposure to works of poetry and prose in the public domain. Famous -- and not so famous -- poems from the likes of Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost and Edna St. Vincent Millay have found a home here. But what about less-exalted poets -- like yourself?

Your Own Poetry

Bad Teen Angst Poetry: We've all written some. Now's the time to pull that tear-stained, scribbled-over notebook out from the back of the closet and air your words for all the Web to see. The site's creators say it's the only way to free yourself from the shame of having created such dreck. But don't feel too bad: no matter how low you've sunk in the artistic depths, there's always worse. Visiting the Sea Monkey Worship Page's poetry collections and The Cheesiest Poems in the Universe might just give you enough confidence to share some of your verse with the creative types at The Academy of American Poets. If that's too intimidating, start small by submitting to the Net Poets' Society or Poetry Slam. You don't have to rhyme, but be prepared for critiques from site visitors and fellow poets.

Need some help putting pen to paper? Sites such as the Glossary of Poetic Terms and the Semantic Rhyming Dictionary will help turn you into a poet laureate -- at least of your own neighborhood. Good luck!