Do you have a writing pledge for 2008? Stop by Fallen Words if you want to share it with the world.

Do you haiku?

The blog One Deep Breath posts a prompt each week that is meant to inspire a haiku, tanka or haibun poem. To learn how to participate within this community, visit this page.


To learn more about the traditional Japanese form of poetry, read Haiku Form by Joan Zimmerman.

Blogsboro Poetry Club

Billy the Blogging Poet has started a new exciting poetry based site that aims to highlight a snippet of different poets poems, thus allowing readers to decide if they would like to click on a link and read the rest of the poem at the poet's own blog.

To find out how to take part in The Blogsboro Poetry Club, go here.

The Great American Poetry Show, a serial poetry anthology, is now accepting submissions for their second volume. The address to submit is

The Great American Poetry Show
P.O. Box 69506
West Hollywood, California 90069

You can also submit online at info@tgaps.net
The poem must be in attachment form, not in the body of the email.


Please check out their website if you need more information.

The Library of Congress Poetry at Noon series is seeking submissions. The poem must be on the subject of Fathers and Daughters, and the poet must be able to present their work to a live audience on March 18, 2008 in Washington, DC. The deadline to get your poem in is December 31, 2007.

To learn more visit here. Or call 1- 202-707-5394. If you decide to submit then mail your poem to Patricia Gray, Poetry and Literature Center, 101 Independence Ave. SE, Washington, D.C. 20540-4861.

Contest News

You have only a few days left if you want to enter your work in The Dream Quest One Poetry & Writing Contest. The poem must be less than 30 lines and submitted by the end of the year. To find out all the details head on over to Got Poetry.com

Time to Party!

Hello, poets, I need some help. On January 5th, 2008 Poets Who Blog will turn one year old. Though I have never celebrated the anniversary of any blog before I think this one is special enough to warrant it.

I ask that you write a poem or post on the subject What Poetry Means to Me

Send me the link at IlovetowriteSMP@yahoo.com before Jan. 4th. Then on the 5th I will put up a post with all the links.

Plus I will post the start of a new group poem that you can add lines to. You can only add a line on Jan 5th so make sure you are here to take part. We will also have a PWB Blogroll Scavenger Hunt. The prize is only bragging rights but it should be fun.



Running this blog in its first year online has been a wonderful experience for me. I hope you have enjoyed your time here and will stop by to party with us on Jan. 5th, 2008.

The Twelve Days of Poetry

The last nearly two weeks have rushed by, as it tends to do at this time of year, and now we come to the end of our Twelve Days of Poetry.

Big thanks to all that donated a link to their work,all that stopped by to read the poems and everyone who commented. You make PWB work, and me proud to be able to work for you and with you to spread poetry throughout the blogosphere.

The last poet to be featured is UL from Typing Away. Her poem is short but full of life, joy, and light.

Please click here to read Beauty of a Kind by UL. Thank you for your support of Poets Who Blog.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it. May you and all your loved ones be blessed.

Your Blog Manager,

Sara
IlovetowriteSMP@yahoo.com

Here is Chicago, the snow is falling. We're snuggling in with fires blazing in the fireplaces, but down in Atlanta I am sure southern poet Mariacristina is enjoying a much warmer holiday season.

For our Eleventh day of poetry, Poets Who Blog is proud to be able to showcase a poem that is an airy dance of words, a true delight for the soul.

Please click here to read Winter Solstice by Mariacristina and leave a comment for the poet.

It's the tenth day of poetry and I'm thrilled to be able to feature a man who has done a tremendous amount of work to promote poetry in the blogosphere. Billy the Blogging Poet organzies the longest running traveling poetry carnival online, The Ringing of the Bards. He also has a poetry search engine to make finding poetry blogs easier at Poetsarus.com

Encourging artistic written expression online is a gift to the world. Thank you, Billy, for taking the time.

Please click here to read his poem Christmas in Nashville and leave a comment for the poet.

On our ninth day of poetry, I am pleased to be able to share with you the work of Jodi Barone from Vines. She mixes together the written and visual arts to create gorgeous and unique works of art. To visit her site is akin to stepping into an art gallery, with images to delight your eyes at every turn.

Please click here to read A Guide for Winter by Jodi Barone and then leave a comment for the poet.

All around the world, bells will ring on December 25th. From the pubs in London to the cathedrals in Rome to the shores of Gwynn's Island in Virginia, where today's poet calls home, there will be people celebrating the birth of a baby born over two thousand years ago.

On our eighth day of poetry, Poets Who Blog is honored to be able to share with you Scott Clawson’s poem The Reason for the Season. In the last line of this poem lays the true meaning of this holiday season for many people. We celebrate because we are saved from our sins and ourselves.

May this holiday be a blessed one for all of you.

Please click here to read the poem and leave a comment for the poet.

Sliegh bells ringing, voices singing, family gathered around, Santa in every mall,all these things evoke the spirit of this season.

For our seventh day of poetry, Anna from Free Poems offers us a gift. She has complied five different holiday based poems for you by various poets, imagine them under a virtual Christmas tree all wrapped with a lovely bow.

May this holiday season bring you joy, peace, and moments that inspire poems for years to come.

Please click here to check out today's offering, and leave a comment for the poets.

As we reflect upon the last year gone by, as this one comes to its end, it is a good time to count our blessings for not all people in this world are safe and warm and with their loved ones tonight.

In the poem Daydreamer offers for our sixth day of Poetry, he remembers those who have sacrificed their own time, desires,and safety for the sake of thier compatriots.

Even far from home, and far from safe, may they find some moments of peace during this season of joy. Please click here to read This Christmas Day by Daydreamer, and leave a comment telling the poet what you think.

The holiday season is a time of year that is unlike any other, it stands apart, and the same can be said for the poet who shares his work with us today. You won't read another poet's work who mimics his, for he is a true original.

On the fifth day of Poetry, I ask that you feast your eyes upon the work of the incomparable Skakir Hasnain. Please click here to read The Weatherman, and then leave the poet a comment.

Celebrating this season is just not about what happens this year but what has happened in all our seasons past. The magic and wonder of Christmas thumps through the hearts of children all around the world, and through the memory of adults.

On the fourth day of Poetry, Black-eyed Susan's poem paints a wonderful picture of a joyous Christmas morning. Please Click here to read her poem and then leave her a comment.

One of the great things about our blogroll is it brings together writers from all over the world. Through the words they write we all get to experience a taste of what it is like to live where they live, think what they think, breath the air they breathe, see the stars they see.

Wander with me to Arizona, in the south west of the United States of America, with its mountains and deserts, home of the Grand Canyon, the Mongollon Rim, and Jack, who blogs at MonkeyBoy.

On the third day of Poetry, Poets Who Blog offers you the poem Seasonal by Jack.
Please click here to read his poem and then leave him a comment.

On the second day of poetry, Poets Who Blog gives to thee.....something short and sweet.

Today we visit Brian from Brief Poems. Brevity is his forte but within the few words he chooses lay a wealth of meaning. His work can be light and funny, or stunningly deep and thought provoking. Often I find myself reading his poems several times as I reinterpret them different ways, gaining a deeper appreciation with each reading.

Click here to visit Brian at Brief Poems, and leave a comment letting him know what you think about his poem.

Today begins our Twelve Days of Poetry, which will end on Christmas Eve. This is our uniquely poetic way to celebrate this season. So make a cup of hot chocolate, grab a Christmas cookie, and enjoy the first poet to be kind enough to take part in this project.


Qualcosa di Bello blogs at Write Away posting poems that possess, in my opinion, an intimate tone that evokes a hushed reverence for the subjects described. Reading them I found myself imagining the poet whispering each line in my ear.

The first poem I present to you is by Qualcosa di Bello
Please click here to read it, then leave a comment for the poet.


*** Remember if you have signed up to take part in this project to send the link to your poem to IlovetowriteSMP@yahoo. com

Please get your submissions in as soon as possible so that I can continue to bring you a new poet's work each day.

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Send an email to poetswhoblog@yahoo.com with the word SUBSCRIBE in the subject line.

Seeking Submissions

The online journal, Asphalt Sky, is seeking submissions for it first issue. Guidelines are here.

Today I added a new site to our blogroll. The aim of Artists and Poets is to explore the melding of words and images together to create art.

To read the prompt for thier first project head on over to Artists and Poets.

Between December 13th and December 24th, I will feature one poet per day and direct readers to head to their site to read a poem about winter or the holidays.

Welcome, friends, today I invite you to set upon a world journey with me as I visit poets near and far, spending some time soaking in their local flavor and embracing their poetic gifts.

This is my fictional virtual trip around the world with poetry:

I jump in a cab, tell the driver to get me to O'Hare and make it quick. The Dan Ryan expressway is thick with traffic and, as always, there is construction. By the time I'm at the airport, I'm in need of a something to relax me. While sipping a cappuccino, I jot down a quick poem.

I fall asleep during the flight and when I wake up I'm across the pond in cheery old England, on my way to visit a Sweet Talking Guy in Manchester. We head down to his local watering hole and he tells me the sad tale that inspired his poem titled She dumped me. But Danny Wise can't be kept down for long and by the time he drove me back to Heathrow he was cracking me up with jokes about the best rejection notes he ever recieved from publishers.

Another plane ride, another nap, then I'm in Japan to meet Traveler. He takes me to the Akibasan Ryougaku-in Temple for the Hibuse Festival where we enjoy rice cakes and watch mountain priests give thanks for fire and water by lighting fires. Traveler shares with me his love of reading classical literature and writing poetry. I marvel at the way he creates a vivid, camera sharp picture with his words in the poem World Music.

After a ride on Tokyo's thrilling Shinkansen,
the bullet train, and taking in the views Mount Fuji, I head back to the airport to grab my flight to Vienna,home of the remarkably unique poet Shakir Hasnain.

In Austria, we spend the day catching up, discussing art and literature, joy and pain, life and death while walking around The Innere Stadt. He gives me a copy of his poem, on the way to the wizard's dwelling, which I read in the cab as I'm wisked back to the Vienna International Airport, bound to leave Europe behind for America once more.

The next stop for me is Massachusetts to see Sister AE. She cooks me a great meal and we talk about politics, religon and why we both hate doing stomach crunches. She seems like a kindred spirit, making me grateful I got the chance to stop in and read her poem, American Loire Song.

I've had more than enough of flying, coach no less- it seems writing poetry doesn't bring in the big bucks like you might think- so I hop on Amtrack to head across the country to see the last poet on my itinerary.

Jack meets me at the Phoenix Union Station in Arizona. He takes me to the Greater Phoenix Poetry Slam at The Paper Heart. After the show, he drives me back to the train station, and we discuss what inspired his screen name, Monkey boy, plus he explains what the term Ming Yun means. I almost don't make my train because I am enthralled with hearing about his time in the Phillipines and how that inspired his poem, Tagalo(n)g.

I'm exhausted when I crawl into my seat on the train, soon my eyes drift down and I dream of the beautiful lands and words I've experienced on this poetic vacation. When I'm back in Chicago, I head over to Navy Pier, stare out onto the placid, peaceful waters of Lake Michigan and mentally began to compose a new poem

As wonderful as it was to see the world through poetry, its nice to finally be back home.

Thanks for traveling with me.
Your Blog Manager,

Sara

December Column

I'm excited to announce that someone has taken me up on my offer to be a guest columinst at Poets Who Blog.

I'm honored to introduce Ceridwen. Not only is Ceridwen's work engrossing but this poet also works tirelessly to encourage the creation of poetry in the blogosphere.A great big thank you to Ceridwen for sharing these thoughts, advice and poetry with our readers.

The following article is all in Ceridwen's words:

Get Your Poetry Collaboration On

I spend a lot of my time right here in my study, looking out the window now and again, then back at my monitor. On a typical day, I type a little, stop and think, then review what I’ve written before writing a little more. On a stellar day, I type like there’s no tomorrow. But one thing is constant: Day after day, I write alone because this is my writing practice, and these hours are what I’ve committed myself to. This is my writing life.

When we commit to living as poets, we commit to spending huge amounts of time alone. There’s no getting around it — writing is a lonely business. It is, after all, a solitary act, a form of meditation or prayer, one that involves only us and the page (or the computer), right?

Maybe not as much as we like to think. None of us lives, or writes, in a vacuum, and there’s a lot more to writing than just sitting down and doing it. Even when we are alone, we are not alone. The work of other writers is, or should be, joggling about in our heads. We are, or should be, in constant communication with those voices — responding to them, challenging them, riffing off them and moving them in new directions by adding our own details and by fine-tuning our own authentic voices.

Even when we are alone, writing is a kind of collaboration, is it not, with all those voices that have come before us? It is no accident that the best writers also happen to be insatiable readers. It is also no accident that, for writers, reading leads to more (and more and more) writing.

What does all this have to do with collaboration?

Collaboration seems to be a natural extension of that interplay between the poet and the work of other poets and writers, only in the case of collaboration the interplay is with a writer who is actively interacting and working with you.

There’s nothing new about artistic collaboration between poets. As the editors of Saints of Hysteria: A Half-Century of Collaborative American Poetry point out, collaboration flourished in oral traditions and was part of Japanese court life as early as the 12th century. It was part of the French Surrealist movement in the early 1900s. In the 1930s, a group of Japanese poets called the Vou Club wrote together. Coleridge and Wordsworth collaborated. T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound collaborated. Beat writers collaborated. Feminist poets have used collaborative writing as a way to access a collective female voice. The list goes on and on.

But why collaborate?

I can’t really answer that for anyone else, but I can say that I became very interested in collaborating about a year ago. It took me a long time to act on this impulse. I finally decided to dive headlong into the experience and see what it was all about. I started asking anyone and everyone if they would work with me. This included my husband, co-workers, online friends and acquaintances, poets and nonpoets alike.

I was surprised that so many people took me up on my offer, and I have been even more surprised at the results. I’ve written pieces with one other poet, alternating single words or phrases. I’ve worked a line at a time with someone via e-mail. I’ve worked on chainpoems where any number of people contribute a single line to a poem. I’ve worked on blank poems, where one person supplies a “frame” by stripping out all the important words from a poem they’ve written, leaving only blanks in their place, and another person fills in those blanks.

I’ve also been involved with a small group of poets who have formed a private working group (collaboratively run, of course!) where we test out new collaborating ideas and roll up our sleeves to work with one another. Then there’s Read Write Poem, a poetry community several poets and I started where we hope to encourage and support collaborative writing among participants.

But is collaboration all fun and games?

It certainly is fun, and that’s one of the aspects that makes collaborating great. But some of the work that comes out of these collaborations has been intense, powerful, raw, sensual and immediate. And for me, those are the marks of really fine writing. So collaboration can be serious writing business, too, not just a good time.

I’ve only been collaborating seriously for a few months now, and I can already say the experience has taught me as much about poetry as any poetry workshop could. Collaboration has given me access to how other people think, why they make the decisions they make, in terms of line breaks and word choices, for example. I also see how others pace themselves when they write: Some work very quickly while others consider each word with extreme care. The former have taught me to just go for it and writewritewrite, while the latter have taught me that writing is not always a race, and caring for each word matters.

I’ve learned many lessons from working collaboratively, and I have tried to apply those lessons to my own writing. Though I have learned far too much from collaborating to cover the waterfront here, below is a quick list of a few key things I’ve gleaned:

It’s OK to fail. If you are in it together, your risks can be greater, and you can fail with a laugh and a feeling of glee about having really gone for it with whatever you were attempting.

It’s OK to love what has been written. It’s not bragging and it’s not self-indulgent. You and your collaborator(s) created this piece that didn’t exist before. You might think it’s the bomb, and it’s OK to own the fact that you love it and shout it from the rooftops. (This experience might even translate to helping you love your own writing without guilt or apology.)

It’s OK if the work comes along slowly. Again, it’s not a race to the finish line. When working with other people, you learn to be patient and to appreciate the process of writing. You also learn that the piece will still be there whenever you are able to carve out some time to work on it together.

It’s OK to pull and tug the work in different directions. This is half the fun of collaborating — seeing how the poem you thought was going in one direction can suddenly jump off in another direction because your partner in crime has his or her own ideas for the piece. This is great! It has helped me see that there is no single way a poem can go, and it has pushed me to surprise myself in my own writing and sometimes avoid doing what my impulses tell me to do.

Going it alone

I’ve already touched on how collaborative efforts can be applied to the writing we do on our own. And that’s the deal, isn’t it? No matter how much you enjoy collaborating, eventually you have to sit down at that computer or with that open journal and do your own writing. But when you do so after collaborating, you might not feel quite so alone. You are, after all, surrounded by the work of other writers — some of whom you know only from reading their work and some of whom you have actually worked with. So you might feel just a little less disconnected when you are writing and a little more connected to the whole big wide world of poetry.

And if you ask me, a sense of connection is a pretty darn good feeling to have because it reminds us that what we are doing every time we sit down to write is not only plumbing our own depths to explore ourselves and to reach out to readers but also speaking to and honoring the work of other writers. Collaboration is a great way to help us feel grounded and connected, as well as helping us see how our writing, and writing process, fit into the bigger picture.
* * *

This Dream Runs Ahead of Me
By Clare L. Martin and Ceridwen


This Dream Runs Ahead of Me

The dream was always running ahead of me. To catch up, to live for a moment in unison with it, that was the miracle.
— Anaïs Nin

my dreaming is a rain of buzzards’ inglorious riots
their shadows know all my dim secrets

we do not gain the world’s prizes by rooking them — cleaning the bones
of everything discernibly animal and laying bare the enigma

how do these feathers start if not with blood

the dust of marrow extruded by the sun’s thousand years
of waking caught in stars




Ceridwen lives and write in the Seattle area. Her work has appeared in Fence and is forthcoming on Canopic Jar. Her personal blog is My Gorgeous Somewhere and she founded and manages the group poetry project Read Write Poem.