National Poetry Week Day 1 – WRITE

Happy National Poetry Week !

This week is National Poetry Week in Australia.

First up, here is a National Poetry Week op-ed from today’s Age, from the appropriately named David Campbell. WordPress is being temperamental at the moment so I will just have to provide the long form link below (rather than doing it the sexy way over the text): http://m.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/in-a-land-of-sweeping-plains-poetry-is-hardly-thriving-20110904-1js5r.html

The piece is quite pessimistic about the present and future of poetry. Are you ? I’m not. I think that poetry which is written for an audience has more chance than ever of finding that audience – instantaneously - when they are all using smartphones and iPads. Of course it can be tougher for money to change hands that way - but heaven knows most poets aren’t in it for the money…

Back to the main event though. Each of the five working days in National Poetry Week has been given a theme. Monday’s theme is ‘WRITE’. Here is the blurb from Australian Poetry (@AusPoetry www.australianpoetry.org.au):

Monday, 5 September: WRITE Australian poetry day – A day devoted to the promotion of all Australians embracing their inner poet and writing……physically, spatially, digitally, privately, wildly!

In keeping with this theme, here is a freshly-baked-from-scratch (and slightly tongue in cheek) acrostic poem on the word ‘write’.

Why poke this nest;
Reheat this ash;
Inflame this wound;
Trouble this rest?
Even for cash ?

Ok, so you do better ! And link to it from the comments below

What other folks are doing to celebrate National Poetry Week:

• The national peak body, Australian Poetry, is inviting every Australian to write and share a poem: “Write a poem for a loved one, a friend, a co-worker. Write it on a post-it, stick it on the fridge, post it online. Share your poem with us on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/australianpoetry#!/pages/National-Poetry-Week-Australia-5-11-September-2011/262908627059707) or join us on Twitter (@AusPoetry)  with the hashtag #npw2011″
• Poet Gabrielle Bryden is celebrating over at her blog: http://gabriellebryden.wordpress.com/
• VIM journal will publish poems submitted by readers on their site each day from Sep 5–11. http://tiny.cc/jmxqa
• Melbourne’s Express Media will publish a piece of poetry from Voiceworks from every day of National Poetry Week on the Virguleblog http://expressmedia.org.au/express_media/  – including a sneak peak at a poem from the soon to be released _Voiceworks_ Issue #86: “V”. You can follow along at http://www.expressmedia.org.au/voiceworks
• Also check out also Australian Poetry’s Calendar for the week here to see what’s happening near you: http://www.australianpoetry.org/blog/category/events/2011-09

Tomorrow (Tuesday) is BUY Australian Poetry day. See you then!

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