the poems are up and ready for your review!

and an announcement, a request, a pretty, pretty pleeeeeease … let’s step up the amount of critique the group gives participating poets. we’ve had some poems posted that have received no comments, and we want to make sure that if our pals post something we stop by and see it and share with them our thoughts about their pieces.

we understand, of course, that everyone’s busy and may not be able to participate every month, and that’s OK. (remember, we do try to relax around here, afterall.) but how about this rule of thumb? at a minimum, if you post a poem in a month be sure to offer critique during that same cycle to your fellow fertile grounders.

as always, you are encouraged to give critique even in cycles in which you don’t post something of your own. and, as always, if you’re no longer interested in participating, let us know that, as well.

my apologies. the month of may — the ENTIRE month — completely got away from me. i’m posting the may pieces now as well as inviting pieces for june. oy!

UPDATE: i sent out an invitation for the june workshop and a couple of them bounced b/c of spam filters. if you’re in the dark and didn’t get the email, add me to your approved senders: art [at] polkadotwitch [dot] com.

attention members: if you have poems you want to workshop in may, send them along now to carolee at art [at] polkadotwitch [dot] com. we’ll be accepting them through monday, may 5, allowing ourselves a slight delay to recover from napowrimo.

if you’re not a member, but would like to participate, you may also email the same address with your request!

the april poems are up! visit the critique page when you get a chance and read and comment on your fellow poets’ work.

hi, everyone! it’s the last week of march already. if you have a poem you want to workshop in april, please email it to carolee [NOTE A NEW ADDRESS THIS MONTH only: caroleesherwood (at) gmail (dot) com] before 3/31. she’ll post it to your workshop page by the 1st of april.

not a member but want to participate in peer critique? email carolee at the address mentioned above.</div>

TRYING SOMETHING NEW: although we like the relaxed pace here at fertile ground, it’s impossible for us to know when to stop by and see each other’s work. so we’re going to formalize the critique component a little bit.

the critique cycle will last for one month. the start of each month will mark the start of a new round of critiques. easier to keep track of, right? right!

Members: the last week of each month is now a call for poems.

during the last week of the month, email carolee [art (at) polkadotwitch (dot) com] a poem you’d like to workshop . she’ll post it to your workshop page by the 1st of the following month.

then, visit the site near the first of each month to see what poems are being workshopped and make an effort to offer feedback to your fellow poets during the course of that month. (we’ll remove existing poems at the end of the month.)

since february is a short month, it’s technically the last week of the month already. send your poems along ASAP! if we receive them by 2/29, we’ll have them up and ready for critique on or around 3/1.

not a member but want to participate in peer critique? email carolee at the address mentioned above.

hey poets! what follows is a link to the publication/theme we are promoting for this month’s poetry send off party. this month’s poetry writing/poetry submitting challenge is to write about downtime.

downtime. stay-at-home and do nothing time. time when you breathe. time when you get quiet. there’s more! read about it at this website.

after you check it out, let us know in the comments section if you are participating. what do you think of the prompt? how are you going to apporach it? and, by all means, link us up to your freewrites, your first drafts, your final drafts!

i just wanted to draw your attention to a post on melissa donovan’s blog (writing forward) about participating in peer critique. she writes in a really light-hearted, clear way about what to do and what to avoid. (you may remember her name — jill and i did free writes a few weeks ago based on some lists of words she provided.) i’m adding a link to the post on our “critique” page and will also make the same suggestion to our good friends over at read write poem since we have a similar page over there!

tell us about your publishing efforts: submissions, research, deadlines, acceptances, rejections, organization, etc. what’s your plan? what do you need to accomplish it? what’s your good news? what’s your bad news? anything you do in february to move toward getting published belongs in the comments section of this post. go ahead — share!

a little late this month. join us in sharing what publishing goals you have this month (revision, organization, submission, research, etc.), what actions you’ve taken and what news you’ve heard!