The Poetry Marathon

This prompt is a little different. Read the first step, follow it, then read the second step follow it, and then read the third step.

Step 1
Write a ten line narrative poem. (A narrative poem is a poem that tells a story.) It should tell a complete, or mostly complete story.

Step 2
Add ten more lines to that poem. You can add them at any point, they can be interspersed throughout, or together in one section. However they cannot all be at the end of the poem.

Step 3
Remove eight lines from the poem. These lines can be taken from any point in the poem.

Write a poem. The contents of the poem is completely up to you, but the title must be ‘Before Darkness’

Listen to the following song and then write a poem. You can write while listening, or after listening, depending on your own personal preference.

Good morning marathoners and half marathoners.

This is your first prompt, should you choose to accept it.

Write a poem about the end. The end of what is up to you. It could be the end of a move, the end of a relationship, or the end of the world.

You can sign up for the Poetry Marathon now! This is your last chance in 2016 to sign up! If you want to learn more read our main page.

Sign up closes tomorrow at 12 PM ET. All acceptances will go out the following day.

Everything is progressing nicely towards the 4th Annual Poetry Marathon! Introductions are now going up on the blog. The Facebook group is active.

If you signed up for Marathon and have not yet heard from us, you should have, so please email us at poets@thepoetrymarathon.com and we will get back  to you as soon as possible

Due to some (now resolved) health reasons we are pushing back our second round of sign ups to the week before the marathon. We will be open again to applications from the 8th of August through the 9th! We hope if you were not able to sign up before, you will be able to sign up during this second round.

The 2016 Poetry Marathon is currently closed to applications. We are in the process of emailing and orientating everyone who applied.

A little over 300 people have been accepted to participate in the Marathon. Once everyone from this round of acceptances is orientated we are hoping to open up applications again for a final time, for a two day period.

We are particularly hoping that a poet or writer currently living in South America or Antarctica will participate so that we will have poets writing on all seven continents. So if you fit that description, please sign up! If a friend of yours fits that description, please tell them about The Poetry Marathon.

We have a lot of repeat Marathoners this year. About half of the people who have signed up have participated in The Poetry Marathon, once or twice, or even three times before.

So keep your eyes peeled for when we re-open to applications.

Sign up today to write 24 poems in 24 hours or 12 poems in 12 hours on August 13th! Sign up ends on the 19th at 12 PM EST.

Apply to join!

So this year, as long as everything goes as planned, there will be a Poetry Marathon Anthology. Submissions will open September 3rd and stay open till the 12th.

All submissions must include two poems, no more, no less.. All submissions must be made via our email address (poets@thepoetrymarathon.com). The subject line of all emails must be Poetry Submission. Poems must be included in the body of the email.

All poems submitted must be written during the 2016 Poetry marathon. All poems should be completely edited and contain no major grammatical errors. You must indicate which hour each poem was written in. Only poets who completed the whole or half marathon will be eligible to submit.

There is no guarantee that by submitting your poem will be selected.

Digital copies will be made available for free to any contributor. Print copies will be available for a reasonable price and any money that is made from them will go back into the marathon.

Want to know what the 2014 Poetry Marathon Anthology was like? Pick up your copy here.

This year we are looking for volunteers, not just for the day of the marathon but for the week after.

We really want volunteers to ensure that everyone, or at least most participants, receive comments on their poems.

During the 2014 Marathon I (Caitlin Jans) commented on at least one of every single writers’ poems. In 2015 I commented on at least one poem of every single writer who applied for a certificate. I am not able to do that this year. As more and more people participate it has become less and less feasible. Although I love reading and commenting, I can not do it as much as I used to.

So I am really hoping that volunteers can make sure that everyone receives comments.

The idea is that every volunteer commits to posting a minimum number of comments on other writers poetry. I am not just counting friends or people you know from past marathons, but complete strangers.

When you commit to volunteer you are pledging to write either 50, 80, or a 100 comments. Of course you could write far more than that. The choice is yours.

If you are interested in volunteering in that or another capacity, please email me at poets@thepoetrymarathon.com