The Poetry Marathon

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

I participated in the poetry Half-Marathon in 2015. It was my first marathon of any kind, and I had a lot of fun staying up all night. I loved the eeriness of the night, the dead silence after a heavy downpour, the crunch of my all-night snacks, and the way my mind worked its magic into the wee hours. It was a surreal experience! Some of the poems I wrote that night went on to get published in online literary journals, and that was the icing on my marathon cake. I am all set for participating again this year, and am eagerly looking forward to some interesting prompts and scribbles (read first drafts).

You can read more of here writing at https://www.facebook.com/Shloka-Shankar-a-rasikas-musings-745965042120215/

I participated in The Poetry Marathon in 2015, shortly after finishing my Creative and Professional Writing degree. I could already feel withdrawal symptoms from the intensity of my course and the marathon was a perfect quick fix.

There is something liberating about writing to a specific deadline, it forces you to stop worrying about perfection of every word and just get on with it. And sometimes that’s exactly what’s needed to make the magic happen. The Poetry Marathon is an extremely fast paced version of it, as the deadlines are hourly. But at the same time there’s no fear of missing the deadline, as nothing bad will happen if you do. It gives all the positive aspects of that “last minute” inspiration and none of the negativity that usually comes with it.

I can’t say I wrote 24 brilliant poems during the marathon. I hated some of them with a passion. But there were 5 that I loved just as much. And those 5 I still do. Some others I might get back to and dedicate more time into editing. And even among the hated ones, some were a really fun challenge that I don’t regret taking on.

In addition to all that, I know what I’ll miss most from my studies is receiving meaningful and constructive commentary on my creative work. I had plenty of in-depth feedback on my poems during the marathon, and I made some friends that I can still rely on to honestly and constructively comment on my work. And that alone is priceless.

You can read more of her writing at https://ravenfiction.wordpress.com/

I’ve done two half-marathons. Like many folks, an entire 24-hour period hasn’t been feasible with work commitments. The half-marathon is the perfect compromise. Each year’s 12 hours has pushed me to produce new work, in response both to the prompts and the process. Something about writing a poem an hour, in the company of other crazy writers from around the world, feeds creativity. Seeing how others interpret the prompts, reading the comments on my work… Both are useful as well as encouraging. Writers range in experience, but all are strong readers, which is what most of us writers want & need. I’ll be back for a third year, anticipating more work I couldn’t conceive of otherwise.

You can visit Britton online at http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/beginnersheart/