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[jjhunter]

Modeled after (read: blatantly copied from) that of poetry, which can be read here. Important changes from those guidelines will be emphasized in bold. PLEASE NOTE THAT YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE A DREAMWIDTH USER TO SIGN UP FOR BEING A POETRY HOST; you can email material to be posted to jjhunter24 at g mail & I'll post on your behalf. If you'd like to become a Dreamwidth user to participate more easily in the comm, just email me or comment with another way to contact you and I'll send you an invitation code.


* Sign up (by leaving a comment to this entry) saying that you're interested in taking a week of posting poetry.

* I'll contact you when it's your turn in the rotation (going down the list of who signs up) and ask you if you're able to take the next week. If you are, that week is 'yours', and you'll be the Poetry Host that week. (If it's not a good week, no worries, just say so and we'll move you down the list.)

* During your week, you'll post at least three poems spread out during the week (no more than one every 12 hours or so, so people can have a chance to really engage with the poem when it's posted instead of consuming it quickly and moving on to the next). (If, like, your world ends and you can't get to all three, s'okay, no big deal, but please do think whether you'll be able to reasonably commit to the week when you're asked.)

* Weeks will run Monday - Sunday. Expect to be contacted by the Friday before. Once you've finished out your week, feel free to comment again and say you'd like to do it again.

* This will not stop freeform posting. If you see a poem you want to share and it's not your week, share it anyway. (Likewise, you don't ever have to sign up to be the host of the week if you're more in tune with the freeform thing, but note that this will prevent you from sharing your own work.)

* Poetry can be of any era, type, language, structure, etc. (If it isn't written in English, we'd like a translation, whether yours or someone else's.) When you're hosting, your poems do not have to be on a particular theme, but if you'd like to make them themed, please feel free.

* A quick note about formatting: when posting poems over thirty lines long, please pick a cutoff point near or before the thirtieth line & stick the remainder of the poem under a cut tag. It makes navigation of the comm a little more user-friendly, and streamlines the way entries appear on people's Reading Pages.


If you'd like to host a future week, please comment here! I won't take signups for a particular week -- that would get messy fast -- but if your week rolls around and you can't take it due to life explosion, you can postpone.


ETA: on ysabetwordsmith's suggestion, Poetry Hosts are encouraged--though not certainly not required--to write a short meta post in addition to sharing poems. Meta can be about poetry in general, the act of writing or reading poetry, specific poems, specific poets, or anything they consider relevant to their posting that week. Alternately, the Poetry Host can pose a question to the audience.

So why do we need yet another poetry comm? or: 'Poetree': not just a bad pun

[jjhunter]

I love poetry. I love its variety, with poets spanning from contemporary to classic, languages from Medieval Icelandic to Jamaican Patois, themes and types and tastes as diverse as the number of people choosing them. I love that there are three times as many poems by Margaret Atwood posted there so far as by William Shakespeare. I love the quality of the selections, the care with which people choose them. It is, in my biased opinion, the best of its kind I've ever found.


So why do we need another poetry comm?


There's one type of poetry (besides song lyrics) poetry explicitly doesn't take, and that's the poetry written by the poster. Less explicitly, there is a bias toward poetry that has been published on paper as opposed to posted online or shared through other more unorthodox channels.

Let's celebrate the poets here on Dreamwidth, on Livejournal, on blogs and in bathrooms and out and about in the world. Let's celebrate and share poetry that hasn't been published commercially, but maybe one day will be, or maybe never will be. I believe we can do so respectfully and ethically (see comm guidelines about licenses and permissions). To encourage posting of poems by a variety of poets, I ask that poets wait to share their own poetry until a week when they are named Poetry Host. Posters may post others' poetry at any time.


Signup post for being Poetry Host

(n.b. that the commitment is three, not five, poems, and that not all poems must be by same author; also, you do not have to be a poet to be Poetry Host)


Anonymous paper sculpture of a 'poetree' left at the Scottish Poetry Library.

First week of posting starts 10/10

[jjhunter]

Stay tuned...