About WoPoWriMo

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 🙂