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Announcement :: Media |
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Newspoetry To End Dec 31 |
Current rating: 0 |
by Joe Futrelle
Email: futrelle (nospam) shout.net (unverified!) |
05 Dec 2002
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Newspoetry.com, a website devoted to daily poetry about or inspired by the news, will stop publishing daily poems on Dec 31. The site will continue to exist as an archive of daily poems from 1998-2002, along with related content. |
Newspoetry.com, a website devoted to daily poetry about or inspired by the news, will stop publishing daily poems on Dec 31. The site will continue to exist as an archive of daily poems from 1998-2002, along with related content.
Newspoetry was conceived by Urbana poet William Gillespie, inspired by poet Bernadette Meyer's series of daily poetry exercises. The idea is to respond to the news every day with poetry. William began this alone as a kind of activist project, anonymously inserting them into unsold newspapers at newsstands and posting them in bathroom stalls. But as soon as he began to publish his poems on the web, an online community grew up around the project and carried it forward, with William acting as the editor, webmaster, and mailing list administrator.
When William decided to close the website on Dec 31, 1999, I asked if I could take on those duties so that the project and online community could continue. He was kind enough to let me do that, and as the years went by I tried to improve the site and encourage the community while keeping it close to William's original idea. This year I have decided to return the project I borrowed from William to him, and so daily poems will stop on Dec 31 and the site will become an archive of over four years of daily poems.
The breadth and variety of the poetry that has been produced by the many writers is outstanding. We have had contributions from as far away as China. We have even had contributions from fictional or quasi-fictional characters. We have had contributions in more poetic forms than I can list, including forms invented by newspoets. Newspoets have developed their own distinctive voices which have helped to define newspoetry as a genre and practice.
Personally, the experience of participating in this project has transformed the way I write and the way I read the news. I hope it has done this for other newspoets as well, and I encourage everyone to practice newspoetry. Editing the site has also made me appreciate how much can be done when a clearly-defined project is combined with the enthusiasm of a community of creative people. Maintaining a daily poetry site would have been a daunting task without the generosity of everyone who contributed.
A couple of final notes First: the site is still up and running until the end of the year and we welcome contributions. Second: the mailing list will continue and I hope people will continue to share their poems on the list. Third: I am working on a print anthology which hopefully will come out in 2003. And finally, big thanks to William for making it all happen. |
See also:
http://www.newspoetry.com/
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