Immersed in Poetry

Yesterday, I received an invitation to participate in a blog “Poets’ Rally” and I accepted. One of the conditions is to visit and review 18 other participants’ poems. It was an inspiring, if time-consuming process and I’m glad I did it. I’d like to continue and plan on doing so although it carved a big hole in my own writing time. I experienced poems from every corner of the globe, some of them writing in English as a second language.

One reflection on why it took a long time to do the reviews: I believe that when we accept the responsibility of stepping into another’s writing space, we need to spend some time and effort to give both encouragement and constructive feedback. I noticed most (if not all) of the feedback was positive. As a newbie to the process, I felt more comfortable following the same blueprint. That wasn’t hard to do because there were truly some good poems out there, but, for myself, I want to know what works and what doesn’t work so that I can grow and improve.

The best part was seeing how many younger people are interested in (and writing) poetry. (Most of the sites I visited were hosted by young adults). That gives me hope that the dismal prognostications we read about the death of the poetic artful are not well-founded.

You may want to pay a visit to Jingle’s blog:
http://jingleyanqui.wordpress.com/

See for yourself.