This is my personal year of the poem.
I am Stephanie Hutchinson and I have set out a plan to write a poem a week for the year.
I am inviting you to join me.
The idea here is to think and write about life as we live it and feel it in 2010. And then see what we have by the end of the year.
Before we get too far along in this invitation, I should mention that I define poetry quite broadly. It includes the Book of Ruth and the Gettysburg Address.
There are only a few ground rules:
1. Any poem for this project needs to be a minimum of 4 lines.
2. Any poem for this project must not be offensive for children to read. -- Notice that I did not say, “appropriate for children.” I am inviting children – particularly my grandchildren – to participate. I want them to be safe reading the materials that might be posted. On the other hand, if your topic is depression, the poem might not be something children would enjoy (they might start it and quit because it doesn’t draw them in) but should still be written in a way that no one would have to protect children from reading it.
3. All poems must be written in this year.
4. All poems must be original – don’t send in your favorite famous poem on a particular topic (more on that later) – I am looking for our own work.
5. All poems must be attributed – you must tell me who you are even if you want me to keep that confidential – which I will do on request.
6. All poets should have some relationship to me. Or, in other words, I want to know who you are. If you are the friend of my step-daughter’s third cousin, Jewel from Arkansas, please tell me because I want to know. It is not about the number of degrees of separation, it is about relationships. (To the best of my knowledge, Anne doesn’t have a third cousin named Jewel in Arkansas but if you think you can show me that she does, give it a shot – I will ask her to vet your information.)
7. Yes, you can submit poems that you have written for your teacher (or professor) as a school assignment, as long as it was written in 2010 and you are proud of it. But please do not submit poems that are on their way to being published elsewhere.
8. And I reserve the right to be the final judge of all these things. I can take a poem off the blog just because I want to or I can refuse to post a poem. I am the final judge. Any judging I do will be limited to suitability to the audience and conformity to the rules, not literary merit.
About topics. I will post a topic every Friday. Your poems do NOT have to be on topic. The topics are fairly general but chosen to stimulate a thought or two. George and I made up the topic list. It is not particularly deep but could elicit deep thinking. I will literally draw out a card each Friday and that will be the topic for the week for anyone that needs a topic. Since they will be drawn randomly, they will not conform to the calendar – patriotism might land on October 31st – while the calendar might get you thinking along poetic lines – patriotism on July 4th – and that is OK. You do not have to save poems until a suitable topic comes up. Submit when the poem is finished, whatever the topic. (The word patriotism is not on the list but would be an entirely appropriate topic for a poem submitted to this blog.)
About comments. I am ambivalent. I don’t know if I will publish them or not. I will read them. I am concerned that poets not get hung up on who got comments or the most “attaboys.” This blog is not about suggestions to improve your poems or any one else’s. I am open to your comments on comments.
And, finally, about postings. I am kind of busy, so I may only get around to doing the detail work and postings once a week. Please understand when you send in a poem and it takes a week before it is posted. . . .
