Written on January 11th, 2010 by adminone shout
During January the WoPoWriMo Pledge becomes available to well…erm.. pledge at.
The idea of WoPoWriMo is to write a poem a day for the whole of February so on February 1st those signed up to the mailing list will receive an embarking pep talk. These pep talks/news bulletins will continue at aproximatly one a week for the whole of February.
Posts will be going up daily with exercises and ideas to help get the creative juices going – these should go live at 6 am GMT each day so that you can get those pesky poems written on the way to or during down time at work 😉 You do not have to write from the ideas or exercises; they’re just there as a resource in case writer’s block hits!
Posts containing relevant information to poets will also be appearing, such as useful links, book reviews and competitions.
And, hopefully, there will be some inspirational words from established poets, writing tutors and the like.
Post-February (i.e. early March) a completed pledge list will be compiled, and completion freebies given out (don’t get too excited about this; it will probably all be electronic!).
The remainder of March and April will see information on editing and poetic form on the blog.
A charity anthology of contributed poems may also be on the cards and we would love donations of poems written during WoPoWriMo but this is still uncertain – as is the charity it would be for!
Written on January 4th, 2010 by adminno shouts
World Poetry Writing Month
WoPoWriMo is a poetry writing feast along the lines of NaNoWriMo! For each day of February participants write one poem. The poem can be raw and unedited – the point of the exercise is to get the bones or concept of the poem down onto the page or screen or restaurant napkin. Making it into a smooth shiny monster can happen later on!
So, next question: what are we considering a poem?
We are including all poetic forms including the prose poem, haikus, sonnets, pentameter and anything else that could arguably be called a poem. We are also including song lyrics, as the distinction between lyrical poetry and actual song lyrics is indeed a very blurry thing. Street poetry and rap are as welcome as the floaty Byrons of the 21 century. VisPo (visual poetry), the new and upcoming wave of poetry so far relegated to the edges of the poetry world, is also welcomed – and indeed encouraged!
Performance, kids, even limericks – the idea is to get you writing those poems as a creative expression.
You can mix and match form, or if you wish to write an epic poem along the lines of the Illiad and Odysseys (the first European Literary efforts were indeed very long poems!) then we suggest setting yourself a target of 40 lines a day.
And, yes, we are aware that poems are technically composed and not written, but WoPoCoMo was just too hard to say!
This blog will be a source of resources, stimulus for those with a creative blockage, and mutual support – if we get enough numbers our tech will sort us out a forum but until then….
Happy Composing 🙂