Young Writers Society

March Poetry Events
Let's Get Ready for National Poetry Month

Workshop 1: How to write a Poem

This March, poetry crew & the mod team are hosting a series of entry-level poetry workshops. By that I mean, if you've never written poetry in your life, you are welcome to attend, if you think you can't write poetry we want you here, and if you're an old poet pro or somewhere in the middle come on by - it'll be good to get a little poetry practice in before National Poetry Writing Month begins in April.

Our first workshop will start where it all begins. The topic will be: How to Write a Poem. This will be basic. I promise technical jargon will be kept to a minimum and no diary entries or deep confessions are necessary.

How can I attend?

The workshop will be hosted on a Writers Feed Pad. It'll consist of a few discussion questions, some basic instructions and resources, and then a writing activity at the end where you can hopefully come away with a few lines or maybe a whole poem!

To access Writer's Feed Pad, all you need to do is click on the link to the workshop which will posted a few minutes before it begins in this thread. You'll type in your YWS information into the box that pops up, and then you'll be in! When you're in the Writer's Pad it'll look like a blank document with different people typing in different colors, if you've never been to a workshop before I would say this is a great first one to attend. If you have any questions or concerns please send me a PM or just comment below.

When is the first workshop?

The workshop will be Saturday
(time automatically is shown in your time-zone).

If you can not attend at this time but are really interested in the content - send me a PM, I can send you the link at another time and might even be willing to give you a run-down of the information we covered.

Keep your eyes open for future workshops over the month of March as well as possible other fun poetry related activities leading up to NaPo. Of course it's not too early to start getting your inspo and prompts ready for April's National Poetry Writing Month.

Here's the link for the workshop, which starts in 9 minutes! Feel free to join - you can come late too!

https://alliyah.writerfeedpad.com/47

EDIT: Thanks to everyone who could make it! Keep watch for the next March workshop if you missed this one!

Here's a brief summary of what the first workshop covered if you're interested:

The next March Poetry Event is going to be an Editing Poetry Workshop!

If you have a poem or general questions about editing poetry, please bring those to the workshop as we're going to be doing some hands-on stuff. This is for every level of poet, from the novice to the novel's worth.

It will be the same time as the first workshop, but this Saturday the 10th! In other words:


Be there, or read this article which basically covers everything I'm going to cover and potentially be more thoroughly informed with less hands-on experience!

Editing Your Baby

I think the workshop is at as the 9th is Saturday! Can't wait! It's going to be great!

Is it happening? Where is it?

@paperforest I'm thinking now that I must have been wrong, and it'll be at 7 pm CST.

Very sorry for the mix-up; that was my fault!

In the meantime while we wait for the workshop - some of us are poetry jamming in here ---> link

Oh ok, thanks!

HEY EVERYONE!

Sorry about the late start for the workshop but it is on and here's the link!

https://aley.writerfeedpad.com/118

I was having a bit of internet trouble DX

Ready for your next March Poetry Event?





National Poetry Month is getting closer - so there'll be more poetry in the Green Room soon! Do you want a few tips and techniques to help write your poetry reviews? @Aley and I are hosting a workshop this Saturday!

You can come whether you're a poetry reviewing-pro (we welcome your wisdom!) or if you're a bit hesitant to tackle the poetry side of things! We'd love to see you there.

(if you can, please bring a poem 20 lines or less for the activity portion - if you don't have a poem, still come and we'll figure it out!)


Workshop time is: (time should be adjusted to your time-zone) & the link will be posted in this thread.

Here's the link to the How to Review Poetry workshop - > you can hop in now, or else we'll officially start in 20 mins


https://alliyah.writerfeedpad.com/58

If you missed the workshop here's a bit of what you missed:

And to finish out the March Poetry events I bring you....






This weekend all are invited to the Pre-NaPo inspo gathering poetry event!

I'll post a thread on Friday and it'll be open all weekend.

There will be some poetry activities to participate in, maybe a poetry jam or two, and plenty of ideas to get inspiration ready for your NaPo. Please check out the thread once it's posted and participate - there'll even be a chance to win some points!

Find your party hats and watch for the link in this thread - also if you haven't created you NaPo thread yet... what are you waiting for?

Ready for a Poetry Party?

Grab those party hats and a slice of cake - the Poetry Party is officially open!





* If you haven't created a NaPo thread yet you can do so here.

* And if you'd like to stay up to date with poetry jams that are happening throughout the Poetry Party you can join the Poetry Jam Club.
(I'll try to host a Poetry Jam & but if you'd like to host a jam feel free to open one up and post the link in the Jam Club)



For those that don't have access to the Writer's Feed Pad or are checking out these forums later - you'll miss some of the poetry activities if you're not in the pad itself, but here's the Inspiration Activity Hunt for you to use if you'd like!


Inspiration Activity Hunt
(To complete the inspiration hunt, type out your name below the prompts for a "Inspo Collection Spot" so that you have somewhere to gather your inspo - don't forget to save your inspiration when you're done to use during April. Also let alliyah know if you do all 12 of these activities and I will send you 300 points for participating!)

1. One of the best ways to achieve your goals, is to identify them! Think about what your goals are for this NaPo and then post in this thread -> here (the goals might be how many poems you want to write, themes or structures you want to try, or some type of technique you want to improve on. More ideas here
(if you'd like you can share your goal on your wall with the hashtag #NaPoGoals too)

2. An important tip for writing good poetry, is to read good poetry. For this activity find a poem by a non-YWS author and post in the Poem of the Week Thread .

3. Find a poetry structure (like sonnet, pantoum, abecedarian) that you think you'd like to try for NaPo - and post below (you might give other people some ideas too). Here's a list from Writer's Digest that has 100 different poetry forms if you need some ideas! 100 poetic forms for poets

4. Identify one poem that you've previously written that you'd like to use as inspiration - either as a re-write, borrowing a line from, or using a theme from it. Comment with the title or link below with maybe a sentence about why you chose it.

5. Look outside, describe the first thing you see with as many adjectives as you can think of, take at least a minute. Now when you come back to this prompt write a poem about whatever you saw outside /without/ using any of those words. It'll help you stretch descriptions beyond the obvious.

6. There is sometimes no better advice to break writer's block than to simply write! Participate in either of these to forums to complete this step:
-> Haiku Challenge
-> One Word Group Poem

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Individual Collection
(sometimes it helps to just have a collection of poetry starters, some sort of collection of pieces of inspo that you can use for inspiration when you're fresh out of ideas, try gathering a few of the items below - to complete the "challenge" you need to get one of each, but feel free to gather as much inspo as you think you'll need)

7. Find a Quote from someone famous that you think could inspire a poem. You could browse Brainy Quote if you're stuck.

8. Find a Prompt from the Prompt Central that you like, and save it for later. (Prompt Central )

9. Check out the Poetic Line Generator and see if you can find a line you'd like to come back to.

10. Go to page 30 of a book near you, write down the last line on the page - come back to the line later and try to use each word in a poem.

11. Sometimes a good way to get inspired is going outside of your normal genre of writing. Go to this Laffy Taffy Jokes Website find one that you think is funny and leave it to inspire you later. Maybe you'll write a humorous poem? Maybe it'll turn into a tragedy? We'll see how April goes!

12. Write a metaphor that doesn't make sense, without trying to figure out its logic. For example: chickens are like crayola crayons, or ice cream tastes like train crashes. The more bizarre the better!

Hopefully you have some good places to start you poetry now! Feel free to keep collecting or do some poetry brainstorming below! Thanks for participating in the Inspo Hunt!


Bonus Poetry Activities

Here's some bonus poetry activities you can look at if you want to get those poetry gears turning and keep the Poetry Party rolling - try participating in all of these if you are brave enough!

*Find me a Poem Challenge (find a poem based on the prompt)
Find me a poem...

*Prompt Attack (write a poem based on the prompt)
Prompt Attack -- Version 2.0

*Poetry Discussion on "The Bonnie Blue Flag" (join the discussion)
The Bonnie Blue Flag

*Poem Spot [-on the spot] (you must write a poem if you click the thread)
Poem Spot - [ on the spot ]

*Write the Worst Poem you can (just follow the instructions of the title)
Write the worst poem you can.