Archive for May, 2010

This week’s prompt

Earlier this week, the moon rose full and orange. It was gorgeous, and instead of worrying about werewolves or the other crazies that are supposed to be out and about during a full moon, I wanted to be one. Call it the pull of the moon or full moon fever, but as that glowing orb rose, the urge to do something wild and unpredictable grew like a daisy in time-lapse photography!

I’m not going to tell you if I did or did not indulge my urge to join the ranks of the wild and crazy, but I will put it into a poem. And that’s your job this week.

Write about something you would love to do but have never dared. Maybe you are indeed a poet who lives on the edge. Choose one of your greatest adventures and put it in a poem. Never ventured over to the dark side? Make something up! Keep us guessing. To quote Mary Oliver in “The Summer Day,” “Tell me, what is it you plan to do/ with your one wild and precious life?”

How prompts work under the Big Tent

We post prompts on Mondays, and you have all week to write your poems, based on our fabulous prompt or any other inspiration. Come back on Friday when you will find a “Come One, Come All” post where you can use the comments section to 1) leave a link to your poem or 2) leave the poem in its entirety.

You’ll have all day Friday (and all weekend!) to post your work and read each others’ work. Take your time. Enjoy all the poems that are new to the world.

Some hints

Hint: We’ve set Big Tent Poetry to Central Time.

Hint: An easy way to check on new post comments is with RSS reader, if you use one. Here’s the address: https://bigtentpoetry.org/comments/feed.

Hint: Since we’re a new site, and you’re new to it, your comment(s) will be held for moderation for your first few posts. We’re checking the filters often, so don’t despair! That said, if it takes more than a half a day to see it come live on the site, do email us at info (at) bigtentpoetry.org. (But be patient, okay?)

Circus etiquette

We figure you know how to play in the poetry community, but here are the basics:

Be nice. Have fun. Remember we aren’t a critique forum. We want to support each other as we bring more poetry into our lives. Only provide critique if someone specifically asks for it.

Although we love seeing our badge in the sidebar of your blog, we would appreciate it if you would also link back to the site in each of your poem posts. Linking within your post helps people travel back and forth from your site to the Big Tent Poetry site, and it helps perpetuate Big Tent Poetry “findability” in Google searches — and that helps us all.

by Carolee, Deb & Jill
It’s show time! It’s time to post your original poem, written in response to Monday’s prompt — oh, it’s getting hot in here! — or any other inspiration from the week. (We love it when you write to our prompt, but we also love it when you write on a whim. We all know how fickle that muse can be.)

So leave a link to your blog post, or leave your poem itself, in the comments!

Let the show begin! This post is “sticky” — it will stay right here in the spotlight for you all weekend.

Here’s how prompts work under the Big Tent

You’ve got all week to write your poem, based on this week’s prompt. Come Fridays (today!) you’ll find a “Come One, Come All” post (this one!) where you can 1) leave a link to your poem or 2) leave the poem in its entirety.

We want to give you all weekend to post your work and read each others’ work. Take your time. Enjoy all the poems that are new to the world.

Some hints

Hint: We’ve set Big Tent Poetry to Central Time.

Hint: An easy way to check on new post comments is via a RSS reader, if you use one. Here’s the address you would add to your reader: https://bigtentpoetry.org/comments/feed.

Hint: Since we’re a new site, and you’re new to it, your comment(s) will be held for moderation for your first few posts. We’re checking the filters often, so don’t despair! That said, if it takes more than a half a day to see it come live on the site, do email us at info (at) bigtentpoetry.org. (But be patient, okay?)

Circus etiquette

We figure you know how to play in the poetry community, but here are the basics:

Be nice. Have fun. Remember we aren’t a critique forum. We want to support each other as we bring more poetry into our lives. Only provide critique if someone specifically asks for it.

Although we love seeing our badge in the sidebar of your blog, we would appreciate it if you would also link back to the site in each of your poem posts. Linking within your post helps people travel back and forth from your site to the Big Tent Poetry site, and it helps perpetuate Big Tent Poetry “findability” in Google searches — and that helps us all.

One other thing

So it might be more than one. Read our barkers’ articles, if you haven’t recently. Great stuff. Here’s the list of links.

An interview with Ren Powell, Big Tent Poetry Sideshow Barker

10 questions: poetry & technology (an interview series by Nic Sebastian at Very Like a Whale)

I love that language can be presented on the page with clauses that have to be seen and connected in the mind, that a metaphor about grief can hover in a collection until it is completed twenty pages later in a poem about a dog. But there was a time when Scandinavian poets used complicated meters and they could make those kinds of wonderful epic artworks through memory and aural performance. We’ve lost that, as poets and as audience members. We will certainly lose something of Poetry along the way. I expect we will have a newly defined form of Poetry through which to express our grief.

One of the neat things about this series at Very Like a Whale is that a number of our Sideshow Barkers are included, as well as other folks we read regularly. Look for January O’Neil and Dave Bonta’s responses soon, and be sure to read the entire series.

Click on the excerpt to read the entire article. Check our About page for a list of other Sideshow Barkers, friends of Big Tent Poetry who are generous enough to share with us their columns, interviews and reviews. There is no set schedule for these appearances; willy-nilly is a symptom of creative genius!