Poetry Month--A Party to Remember

As I pulled ideas together for celebrating National Poetry Month, I didn't know what to expect. One reader, shortly after the event began here at suite101.com, wrote to tell us that many people consider the idea of a designated month to have little merit.

Of course, we didn't pay much attention. We were too busy hosting the party. Several thousand people participated in our activities-there were days when all I did was answer email. Even that was exciting, because we met so many new people and fine poets. About 300 poems were entered in our first ever Poetry Month Contest. I enjoyed reading every one of them.

A Team Effort

So many people contributed to this event. Our editors at suite101.com wrote a variety of interesting and informative articles related to poetry. Some editors even created or shared existing personal poetry pages. All the staff and my managing editor, as well as our event coordinator, helped tremendously. One of our editors created the graphic, another whom I also consider my friend, answered many of my naïve questions about html through email.

Zines and poetry sites across the Net told their own readers about us. We discovered dozens of new links to poetry sites-you wrote to tell us about them. Some of you even shared your own url on our special thread. We are visiting all these sites, and will link them in the coming weeks. We will archive the "url" link so that visitors can continue to explore poetry through our members' sites.

Very special thanks goes to Dusan Pajin, Ph.D. From Yugoslavia, Professor Pajin managed to send me a three part series of articles about early women's poetry. In email, he discussed Women's Poetry in Ancient Times with me. He described hearing the bombs fall as he worked.

America Online's WritersClub Books.com offered to produce an anthology comemmorating National Poetry Month. Our contest judge, Jennifer Ley,editor of The Astrophysicist's Tango Partner Speaks has been reading your poems since the first day of the contest. Poems selected by Ms. Ley will be included in this special anthology. She will be taking her final look in the coming weeks. Each poet whose work is selected will receive a copy of the anthology. Proceeds from sales will go to a worthy charity. Our Poetry Month Awards Page describes each prize and donor.

Watch our welcome page at Women's Poetry for updates on the contest, and an announcement of winners during May.

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