The Poetry Marathon

Chose one or more of the following images and write a poem inspired by that image.

Take a small walk, or just stroll around your house or apartment. When you are ready, stop, look around, take a deep breath what do you smell, feel what is near you in the air, under your feet, listen and hear what you normally miss; describe what your senses have been telling you but you have ignored.

Contributed by Stephan A. Kalinowski

Or

Go for a walk with your phone or another recording device. When you feel ready start recording a poem out loud while you walk. It could be about the walk itself, but when I use this method I’m often surprised by what I “write” about.

When you return home type it out to post. Feel free to edit.

Write a poem about magic. Magic as something real, magic as something imagined, magic in a fictional setting, magic in an urban situation, it can be about how children perceive the world as magic, or possibly magic, anything really. The word magic need not be mentioned, but it can be.

Good morning! The challenge for hour one is to write a poem that contains the refrain “I am” at least six times. You can start every stanza with it, or be more subtle. You can take make the poem autobiographical or absurd, or best of all a mix of both.

Good luck and happy writing!

The marathon is fast approaching! 430 people from all around the globe have signed up to participate in the 2019 Poetry Marathon.

The official start time of the Marathon is 9 AM ET on June 22nd. If you need to find out when that is in your timezone go here.

If you applied to participate in the Poetry Marathon you should have already heard from us by now. If you have not heard from us please email us at poets@thepoetrymarathon.com.

Most people who participate set the whole day aside for the event. You get the most out of the event if you fully commit. Many poets write warm up poems during this week for this reason.

I prepare all food for the event beforehand and make sure I have a few treats on hand. Also, when doing the full marathon I set an alarm every hour on the hour to remind me to write.

Everyone is different but I usually spend a half hour of every hour of the marathon writing. I usually put a big pile of books on my desk and open them to random pages for inspiration when I’m stuck.

I wish everyone whose participating this year the best of luck! It’s good to see so many familiar faces and so many new ones.

The very first t-shirt for our event is now available here. There are three different color options. Any money we make (which won’t be much) will go towards future marathons.

We figure most people won’t want to order this t-shirt till they actually survive the marathon, but we wanted everyone to know about it in advance.

We may introduce other designs if this sells well, so feel free to give us suggestions in the comments.

Tonight we sent out the first round of acceptances for the 2019 Poetry Marathon! We’re very excited. Over two hundred people will be accepted in the first round.

Instead of offering a last minute secondary sign up period this marathon, we are extending the sign up period to the 15th of June. So the last day to sign up is the 15th of June!

You can sign up here for the full marathon (24 poems in 24 hours, one poem per hour) and the half marathon (12 poems in 12 hours, one poem per hour). All poems must be posted on the blog. This year for the first time the poems can be made private, so that the only people who see your work are other marathoners.

The Poetry Marathon will start at 9 AM ET on June 22cd. Half marathoners can start at 9 AM or 9 PM on June the 22cd.

If you complete the marathon or half marathon you are eligible to submit to The 2019 Poetry Marathon Anthology edited by Jennifer Faylor.

The details of the anthology will be released after the Marathon. To learn more about The Poetry Marathon as a whole go here.

Sign up is now open for the 2019 Poetry Marathon! You can sign up here.

The 2019 Poetry Marathon starts at 9 AM ET on Saturday June 22nd, and will go till 9 AM ET on Sunday the 23rd of June. Those who are interested in doing a half marathon start at 9 AM ET on June 22nd and go till 9 PM on the 22nd. Or they will start at 9 PM ET on the 22cd and continue to 9 AM on the 23rd.

The goal of the poetry marathon is to write and post one poem an hour for 24 hours. Half marathoners post a poem per hour for a 12 hour period.

This is an international event with participants from all around the globe. Generally 500 people attempt the marathon. You do not have to be a poet to participate.

To learn more go here. To sign up go here.

If you are interested in participating please sign up by the 12th of June! We will get back to applicants on a rolling basis.

Sign up starts on June Third! Jacob and I are going to be particularly busy this year, as our daughter celebrates her first birthday on the second of June, but we are excited!

The prompts are all ready to go and have been scheduled. This year some hours will have more than one prompt so that people have more options. Thank you to everyone who contributed a prompt.

Another big shift this year is that the posts in the marathon will be private by default. If you participate you can see others posts, if you don’t participate, you won’t.

However, if you do want to share your work with friends you are free to do so on your own blogs are social media. But the overwhelming feeling of the group was that private posts would be preferred.

The other big piece of news is that we have an editor for our Poetry Anthology this year. I’m really excited about this as it’s the first time I am not going to be the editor.

Jennifer Faylor is a poet and literary editor raised in NYC where she earned her MFA in Poetry at Sarah Lawrence College. Currently she lives in Washington State and is working on her first short story collection. Her website is jenniferfaylor.com.

She has volunteered and participated in a number of previous marathons!

The Poetry Marathon itself will be on June 22cd but in order to participate you have to apply for free between the 3rd-12th of June.

Applying takes minutes, but we found that it helps in terms of making marathoners more committed and prepared for the event itself.