Language is a Virus Site Map
Languageisavirus.com exists to cure writer's block and inspire creativity. You can choose from a multitude of writing games, gizmos, generators, writing prompts and exercises, tips, experiments and manifestoes from infamous avante garde writers and how-to articles on fiction writing and poetry.
Choose a section:
Writing Games |
Writing Exercises |
Writing Techniques |
Text Manipulation |
Text Generators |
Name Generators |
Haiku Generators |
Poetry |
Poetry Games |
Poem Generators |
In-depth Guide to Poetry |
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Charles Baudelaire |
May Sarton |
Donna Tartt |
Writing Tools |
Fun |
Creative Writing in the News
Writing Games
Writing Exercises
- Writing Prompts
- Cure Writer's Block
- Should You Be Writing Right Now?
- Writing Prompt & Author Quote Pinboard
- 16 Writing Experiments by Jonathan Mahew
- 82 Writing Experiments by Bernadette Mayer
- Cut-up Spellcheck
- 66 Writing Experiments by Charles Bernstein
- Essay Writing Experiments
- Lexical translation
- Creative Writing Inspiration & Writing Prompts Pinboard
- Visual Inspiration: Paris
- Fairy Tale Writing Prompts Inspiration
- Writing Exercise: Square Poem
- Writing Prompts via Twitter
- How to Host a Writing Party
- Blind Finish-the-Story writing game
- Keeping a Dream Journal
- Ants: Finding Big Inspiration in Little Things
Writing Techniques
- Rimbaud's Systematic Derangement of the Senses
- Ginsberg's Mind Writing Slogans
- The Cut-Up Method of Brion Gysin
- Jack Kerouac's Essentials of Spontaneous Prose
- Kerouac's Belief and Technique for Modern Prose
- William S. Burroughs Cut-ups
- Salvador Dali's Paranoiac-Critical Method
- The Collage Technique of Anaïs Nin
- Dadaism
- Surrealism
- Automatic Writing
- History of Experimental Literature
- Hakim Bey's Poetic Terrorism and Wild Children
- Ezra Pound on Language in Poetry
- Film-makers use jump cuts, freeze frames, slow motion.
- Origins of a Dub Fiction
- Cobralingus Engine - Metamorphiction Process
- How to make a modern novel
- Free Association, Active Imagination, Twilight Imaging
- Isidore Ducasse ( Comte de Lautréamont )
- The Creative Act by Marcel Duchamp
- Poetic Techniques: Chance Operations
- Poetic Form: Found Poem
- OULIPO
- Asemic Writing
- Haibun, the Japanese Essay
- Poetic Forms Glossary
Text Manipulation
Text Generators
- Word Play
- Dictionary Cut Up
- Poetry Generator
- Shakespearean Sonnet Generator
- Interactive Poetry Generator
- Poem Engine
- Jabberwocky : Gibberish Generator
- Palindrome Generator
- Diastic Poem Generator
- Automatic Square Poem Generator
- Rhyme Generator
- Random Line Generator
- Title-o-Matic
- Surrealist Definition Generator
- My Word Play
- Filler Text
Name Generators
Haiku Generators
Poetry
Poetry Games
Poetry Generators
Electronic Poetry
- Antonin Artaud
- Charles Baudelaire
- Francesca Lia Block
- Andre Breton
- Poppy Z. Brite
- Charles Bukowski
- William S. Burroughs
- Angela Carter
- ee cummings
- Hilda Doolittle
- Brett Easton Ellis
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Allen Ginsberg
- Ernest Hemingway
- Jack Kerouac
- Stephen King
- Comte de Lautreamont
- The Smiths
- Anais Nin
- Flannery O'Connor
- Sylvia Plath
- Edgar Allen Poe
- Marcel Proust
- Anne Rice
- Arthur Rimbaud
- J.D. Salinger
- Robert Smith
- Gertrude Stein
- Donna Tartt
- Michelle Tea
- Tristan Tzara
- Oscar Wilde
Poetry Guide
- Poetry
- Acatalectic
- Accent
- Accentual Verse
- Acephalous Line
- Acrostic
- Action Poetry
- Aisling
- Provençal - Alba
- Alexandrine
- Alliterative verse
- Amphibrach
- Anacreontics
- Anacrusis
- Anapaest
- Ancient Poetry
- Anglo-Welsh Poetry
- Antistrophe
- Arabic Poetry
- Asclepiad
- Assonance
- Aubade
- Augustan Poetry
- Australian Poetry
- Awdl
- Ballad
- Ballad Meter
- Ballade
- Ballata
- Beher
- Bengali Poetry
- Biblical Poetry
- Black Mountain Poets
- Blank verse
- British Poetry
- Burmese Poetry
- Bylina
- Cæsura
- Canadian Poetry
- Cantiga de Amigo
- Catalectic
- Caudate sonnet
- Chain Rhyme
- Chansons de Geste
- Chant Royal
- Chastushka
- Chinese Poetry
- Choliambic Verse
- Choriamb
- Choriambic Verse
- Christian Poetry
- Ci
- Cinquain
- Classification of Rhymes
- Clerihew
- Closed Couplet
- Common Metre
- Concrete Poetry
- Confessionalism
- Couplet
- Cowboy Poetry
- Crown of sonnets
- Curtal sonnet
- Cynghanedd
- Dactyl
- Dactylic Hexameter
- Death Poem
- Decasyllable
- Décima
- Deep Image
- Digital Poetry
- Dimeter/Couplet
- Dissonance
- Dodecasyllable
- Dodoitsu
- Doggerel
- Double Dactyl
- Dub Poetry
- Ukrainian - Duma
- Eclogue
- Edda
- Elegiac
- Elegiac couplet
- Elegy
- End-stopping
- English Poetry
- Englyn
- Envoi
- Epic
- Epigram
- Epitah
- Epithalamium
- Epode
- Epyllion
- Erasure Poetry
- Ethnopoetics
- Eye Rhyme
- Feminine Ending
- Feminine Rhyme
- Fescennine Verses
- Foot
- Found Poetry
- Free verse
- French Poetry
- Ghazal
- Lao - Glawn
- Glyconic
- Gnomic Poetry
- Grook
- Habbie Stanza
- Haiku
- Half Rhyme
- Hebrew and Jewish Epic Poetry
- Hendecasyllabic
- Hendecasyllable
- Heptameter
- Heroic Couplets
- Heroic Verse
- Hexameter
- Holorime
- Hudibrastic
- Iamb
- Iambic Heptameter
- Iambic Pentameter
- Iambic Trimeter
- Ideogramme
- Ideogrammic method
- Idyll
- Indian Epic Poetry
- Internal Rhyme
- Irish Poetry
- Italian Poetry
- Japanese Poetry
- Jazz Poetry
- Kannada Poetry
- Kennings
- Kimo
- Korean Poetry
- Tamil - Kural
- Kyrielle
- Lament
- Libel
- Light Poetry
- Limerick Poetry
- Line
- Vietnamese - Luc Bat
- Lyric poetry
- Maqta
- Mares Eat Oats
- Martian Poetry
- McWhirtle
- Medieval Poetry
- Meter
- Mock-heroic
- Modernist Poetry
- Monometer
- Monostich
- Muwashshah
- Narrative Poetry
- National Epic
- National Poetry
- National Poets
- Nature of Poetry
- Nonet
- Nonsense Verse
- Nursery Rhyme
- Octameter
- Octave
- Ode
- Old English Poetry
- Old Norse Poetry
- Onegin Stanza
- Ottava Rima
- Palinode
- Pantoum
- Malay - Pantun
- Paradelle
- Pararhyme
- Partimen
- Cambodian - Pathya vat
- Pentameter
- Performance Poetry
- Periods
- Petrarchan sonnet
- Poem and Song
- Poesybeat
- Poets
- Poet Laureat
- Poetaster
- Poète maudit
- Poetess
- Poetic closure
- Poetic diction
- Poetry Analysis
- Groups and Movements
- Poetry Prizes and Awards
- Poetry Reading
- Poulter's Measure
- Prose Poetry
- Pruning Poem
- Pyrrhic
- Qaafiyaa
- Quatorzain
- Quatrain
- Radif
- Renga
- Reverdie
- Rhyme
- Rhyme Royal
- Rhyme Scheme
- Romantic Poetry
- Rondeau
- Rondelet
- Roses are red
- Roundelay
- Rune Poems
- Russian Poetry
- Sapphics
- Saturnian
- Schools of Poetry
- SciFaiku
- Scrypt
- Senryu
- Serbian Epic Poetry
- Sestet
- Sestina
- Shakespearean sonnet
- Shi
- Shichigon-zekku
- Sicilian octave
- Sijo
- Slam Poetry
- Solage
- Song Thất Lục Bát
- Sonnet
- Sonnet cycle
- Sound Poetry
- Spanish American Poetry
- Spanish Poetry
- Spenserian sonnet
- Spenserian Stanza
- Spondee
- Sprung Rhythm
- Stanza
- Stichomythia
- Strophe
- Structural elements
- Styles
- Syllabic Verse
- Symbolist Poetry
- Filipino - Tanaga
- Technical means
- Tercet
- Terza rima
- Terzanelle
- Tetrameter
- Than-Bauk
- Anglo-Saxon
- Tribrach
- Trimeter
- Triolet
- Tristubh
- Trochee
- Urdu Poetry
- American Poetry
- Vedic meter
- Vers de Société
- Verse
- Dramatic poetry
- Verse Paragraph
- Villanelle
- Virelai
- Virelai ancien
- Virelai nouveau
- Virelay
- Waka
- War Poets
- Welsh Poetry
- World Folk-epics
- World Poetry Day
- Ya-Du
- Yue fu
Read
- Quotes
- The Poems and Prose Poems of Charles Baudelaire
- Short Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Poetry by Donna Tartt
- Howl by Allen Ginsberg
- The Poems of May Sarton
- A Retrospect by ezra pound
- Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll, from Through the Looking Glass
- Les Chants de Maldoror by Le Comte de Lautréamont
- Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
- Shakespeare's Sonnets
- Sacred Emily by Gertrude Stein
- Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein
- The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism by Hakim Bey
Charles Baudelaire
- Charles Baudelaire
- Charles Baudelaire by James Huneker
- The Flowers of Evil
- The Dance of Death
- The Beacons
- The Sadness of the Moon
- Exotic Perfume
- Beauty
- The Balcony
- The Sick Muse
- The Venal Muse
- The Evil Monk
- The Temptation
- The Irreparable
- A Former Life
- Don Juan in Hades
- The Living Flame
- Correspondences
- The Flask
- Reversibility
- The Eyes of Beauty
- Sonnet of Autumn
- The Remorse of the Dead
- The Ghost
- To a Madonna
- The Sky
- Spleen
- The Owls
- Bien Loin D'Ici
- Music
- Contemplation
- To a Brown Beggar-maid
- The Swan
- The Seven Old Men
- The Little Old Women
- A Madrigal of Sorrow
- The Ideal
- Mist and Rain
- Sunset
- The Corpse
- An Allegory
- The Accursed
- La Beatrice
- The Soul of Wine
- The Wine of Lovers
- The Death of Lovers
- The Death of The Poor
- The Benediction
- Gypsies Travelling
- Franciscæ Meæ Laudes
- Robed in a Silken Robe
- A Landscape
- The Voyage
- Little Poems in Prose
- The Stranger
- Every Man His Chimæra
- Venus and the Fool
- Intoxication
- The Gifts of the Moon
- The Invitation to the Voyage
- What Is Truth?
- Already!
- The Double Chamber
- At One O'clock in the Morning
- The Confiteor of the Artist
- The Thyrsus
- The Marksman
- THe Shooting-range and the Cemetery
- The Desire to Paint
- The Glass-Vendor
- The Widows
- The Temptations; or, Eros, Plutus, and Glory
Donna Tartt
- About
- Leave A Note to Donna
- Books
- Bibliography
- Interviews
- Translations
- Reviews
- Writing
- A Garter Snake (short fiction)
- The Ambush (short fiction)
- A Christmas Pageant (short fiction)
- True Crime (short fiction)
- My friend, my mentor, my inspiration, Remembering Willie, 2000 (non-fiction)
- Team spirit: Memories of Being a Freshman Cheerleader for the Basketball Team (non-fiction)
- This much I know (Donna Tartt, Author, 39, Stockholm) (non-fiction)
- Donna Tartt on True Grit (non-fiction)
- Basketball Season (non-fiction)
- Sleepytown: A Southern Gothic Childhood, with Codeine (non-fiction)
- True Crime (non-fiction)
- The Goldfinch
- The Little Friend
- The Secret History ›
- The Secret History › Camilla Macaulay
- The Secret History › Charles Macaulay
- The Secret History › Edmund Bunny Corcoran
- The Secret History › Francis Abernathy
- The Secret History › Henry Winter
- The Secret History › Julian Morrow
- The Secret History › Richard Papen
- Donna Tartt Pictures
- The Secret History Covers
- The Little Friend Covers
- The Goldfinch Covers
May Sarton
- Read
- On The Writer
- On The Writing
- Favorite Quotes
- Photos
- Film and Audio
- Order Books
- 1997 New Year's Greeting
- The Action of the Beautiful
- All Souls
- August Third
- Autumn Sonnets
- The Cage Bird
- Charleston Plantations
- The Concentration Camps
- The Cosset Lamb (plus earlier drafts)
- Dialogue
- Divorce of Lovers (excerpt)
- A Durable Fire
- Eine Kleine Snailmusik
- First Snow
- Fur Person (excerpt)
- Gestalt At Sixty
- Happy The Man
- In Time Like Air
- Invocation
- The Invocation To Kali (excerpt)
- Leaves Before The Wind
- Letter of May Sarton to Juliette Huxley 1939 (excerpt)
- The Lion And The Rose
- Love
- May Sarton's Well (excerpt)
- Mrs Stevens Hears The Mermaids Singing (excerpt)
- New Year Resolve
- Nostalgia For India
- Now I Become Myself
- Now Voyager
- An Observation
- Of Molluscs
- Pages From A Journal
- The Phoenix Again
- A Prayer
- Prayer Before Work
- Proteus
- The Sleeping God
- The Snow Light
- Somersault
- The Ten Commandments of the Gentleman Cat
- The Waves
- We Sat Smoking At A Table
- Who Knows Where The Joy Goes
- Who Wakes Up
- Wilderness Lost