Posts Tagged ‘ gong ’

Today is Day 1 of our inaugural poetry gong. Did you decide to join us? Did you give it a try? Did you find a new poet, new poem or new line to inspire you? If you did, it’s time to share your first poem with us (link or the whole shebang). Right here. In this comments section.

What is this all about?

Some of us under the Big Tent are writing a poem-a-day for seven days on the theme “new to you” (click here to see what this is all about). If this challenge isn’t something that interests you and you’d just like to stick to the weekly prompts, that’s perfectly OK. We are hosting our weekly prompts alongside these gongs, so feel free to ignore this madness, and please hold your weekly prompt responses for our Friday gatherings.

Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and girls! Follow us to Ring #2 where we will attempt, for the very first time under this big tent, the death-defying, awe-inspiring poetry gong!

The assignment
For our inaugural poetry gong, we will write a poem-a-day for seven days on the idea “new to you.”

Find a poet you have never read or a poet you haven’t read recently and let a poem or a line that’s “new to you” inspire your writing. You may want to buy a new book. You may want to exchange some of your old books for a used one at a local shop. You may want to go to your own shelves and admit it’s been ages since you pulled down the books you’ve collected. We bet many of them will seem “new to you.”

You will do this each day for seven days: read something “new to you” and write a poem. Starting tomorrow, you will post the poems to your blogs and link back here at the posts labeled Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, etc. (Please don’t post poems or links to this post. Tomorrow is Day 1. You will post your first poem then.)

At the end of the seven days, you will have seven brand new drafts.

What is a poetry gong?

A gong is any practice that is repeated daily for many days, so a poetry gong is a multi-day writing challenge. Our first one here is seven days, but they can be any length. The goal is to write one poem each day as part of a community of writers. The idea is that fellow writers provide the encouragement and accountability we sometimes need to shake up our writing practice.

We write these poems in the same spirit in which we write to our weekly prompts — knowing that they are early drafts, grateful to have our creative juices stirred, pleased to have companionship along the way.

Carolee and Jill started poetry gongs when Read Write Poem was active, and the gongs were among the site’s most popular features. We love the gongs so much, we designated a ring in our circus for them from the very beginning. We are thrilled they are underway.

Use the comments section here to let us know if you have any questions. In the meantime, start writing! But don’t post your Day #1 poems yet. We’ll ask for those tomorrow.

It is The Moment You’ve All Been Waiting For — finally! — the arrival of poetry gongs in our schedule (Don’t know what a “gong” is? No worries! We will be filling you in). That means that sometimes, now, here at Big Tent Poetry, there will be multiple activities happening at the same time. How will you know where to go, what to do and when to do it? What’s going on? Where’s the weekly prompt? What is a “gong,” anyway? Where do I post my poem? Have you all lost your minds?

Welcome to The Post With All The Answers.

Whenever there is more than one activity occurring, we will keep a “This week under The Big Tent” post in the exact spot you found this one: front and center, at the top of our page. It will contain the links and instructions you need to participate in any way you like. Deal? Deal! No need to throw water on the fires the clowns have set and run toward the tent’s exit flaps! We will conduct ourselves in a (mostly) orderly fashion. (Ha!)

Remember this — join us when you can. No one is “required” to do any of the prompts or gongs, let alone “all” of them.

Are you ready? Here we go!

* Here is this week’s MONDAY PROMPT.

* The announcement of our first poetry gong (and an explanation of what that is) is here.

* The gong will post daily for its set number of days (Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6 and Day 7).

* The “Come One, Come All” for the weekly prompt posts on Friday as usual (here it is!).

In addition to being able to scroll down our main page and find current, relevant posts, here are some general, quick references to help you sort it out no matter when you jump in:

#1 / This announcement is filed under “Groundskeeping.” Anytime you feel lost, look up at the black navigation bar (the one with the white text) and click on Groundskeeping. There, you will find information of this exact sort: how to, when to, what to.

#2 / No Big Tent activity interrupts the flow and pace of our weekly prompts. The weekly prompts appear on Mondays, and we come together on Fridays (and all weekend) to share our poem links during “Come One, Come All.” Anytime you want to find the current prompt or participate in the current “Come One, Come All” find RING #1: Weekly Prompts in the navigation bar.

#3 / All of our gong posts (this week’s will be our first) will appear in RING #2: Gongs/Revisions, like the others, available in that same navigation bar. Once you click through, you’ll see the most current gong at the top of the page.

Don’t forget, you can always just scroll down the main page to see the latest, as well. No matter how you arrive at the posts with prompts or poems, you can join in by dropping notes and links in the comments sections. Those work like they always have!

Let us know what questions you have. Share with us your ideas. As we continue to grow, we expect to fall off the high wire from time to time. It’s why we have installed the safety nets.