The Poetry Marathon

A few years ago, I came across The Poetry Marathon on a random post I happened to catch on Facebook. Every year, I’ve looked forward to the next marathon. I appreciate the Jans for bringing this magnificent experience to life. It has helped me, as well as many others, to keep warm those flames of inspiration and creativity alive an well in all of us. Some Poets and their anthologies that followed them, are only a small part of what this marathon has created. Here’s to another 24 hours of creative fire, and the life that will spring forth from it. Good Luck everyone!

Practice

Practice, they say

Reminds the body of

Actions and thoughts

Compatible with the

Task you with to

Improve and master

Consequently practice

Every day

Welcome back to another challenging, brain-bashing, creative journey!  I send wishes for all to just enjoy the sights, smells, tastes, and touches and adventures you will impart on the readers, and just let it flow!  I am excited to be here.

Can’t wait! This will be my 4th full marathon. Last year, I would have to say, was my most successful. I didn’t get too strict with myself about waiting around for new prompts. I had stuff to do and I did it. It really helped in the later hours…or early hours. I was playing catch up through the whole marathon and it took my mind off of what time it was.

So excited to do this craziness again with my Poetry Marathon Family!

Best of Luck to All!

Well, last time I only made it through twelve hours of the 24. Let’s give it one more try! Looking forward to another attempt!

Hello everyone–glad to make your acquaintance! This will be my first poetry marathon, although I’ve been writing poems since I was a kid. Prose, screenplays, academic papers…well, those have taken over most of my writing these last few years, so I want to stretch myself; explore the genre in a demonstrable way again.

I have no doubt I will write some less-than-great pieces over the course of the twelve hours, but I hope to discover a couple of gems in myself, too. I will attempt to remind myself it’s more about the work and less about the outcome, although that may be a difficult mantra come hour six. 🙂

Nevertheless, I am excited and am brimming with ideas. See all of you very soon!

Sasha

We are very happy to announce that the 2020 Poetry Marathon Anthology is going to happen! We had announced earlier that it would not be a part of this year’s events.

But after much ongoing discussion and after securing a generous private donation and contributing to that donation ourselves we are able to offer $550 dollars for someone to edit the anthology.

The Poetry Marathon Anthology is some writer’s first publication, and others’ hundredth, but it is always a clear representation of the range of people who participate in the event.

We have found an editor to work on the anthology this year. A huge thank you to everyone who applied.

You can see what last years looked like here.

Sign up is still open for the 2019 Poetry Marathon! You can sign up here. Sign up will only be open til 9 PM on the 23rd.

We’ve had a lot of people sign up for the poetry marathon this year. Over 300 people and counting.

Right now about 50% have signed up for the half marathon – 12 poems in 12 hours, and 50% have signed up for the full marathon – 24 poems in 24 hours.

The marathon itself will start at 9 AM ET on the 27th of June and go till 9 AM on 28th. Half marathoners can start at 9 AM ET or 9 PM ET on the 27th.

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 find out how to convert your timezone go here.

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

We will get back to applicants on a rolling basis. Most people who apply will be accepted. If you have not heard from us a week after applying please send us an email at poets@poetrymarathon.com. Please do not try and contact us through the FB page.

…it’s always such a pleasure.
Despite the many times I’ve tailed before.
Oh how I wrote and wrote,
Until I just stopped writing.
Gave up the fight, succumbed and simply started to snore.

I’m too old for all-nighters,
That’s what I’ve come to see
I’ve failed the full too often,
Now it’s just the half for me.

OK, that’s enough of that. Channel GLaDOS for too long and I start to itch. For this challenge, I need the focused determination of Chell, and the garrulousness of Wheatley. (Note to self: Don’t get those the wrong way round.)

I don’t know why Portal‘s on my mind so much at the moment, but since it is, I simply must call my final, 1 a.m. poem “Still Alive”. Or perhaps, “Still Awake”, assuming that I am. The Portal soundtrack (not the closing songs, the rest of it) is really excellent writing music, too.

Have I hit upon my theme for 2020? Between Portal, Portal 2, and Blue Sky (which I cannot recommend highly enough to Portal fans) I should easily have enough inspiration for 12 poems.

This post is approaching 200 words, and I still haven’t introduced myself. Then again, what else is there to say? If you’re familiar with Portal, you get the idea, and if you’re not then this post will make no sense to you — and neither will any of my poems. Sorry about that.

Hi everyone!

I participated in the 2019 Poetry Half-Marathon last year and am doing so again this year. I found the exercise to be quite a kickstart to my creativity and look forward to getting that much needed boost again. I’m a teacher, so having something to pull me out of the distance-learning Covid19 insanity will be much appreciated. I haven’t seemed to get back into my groove since March. A few of my poems from the last half-marathon have been published, and one even got an award! If you’re interested in reading two of them, you can find them here: “To be a Mermaid” & “I Guess I Own a Cat Now”

I’m looking forward to seeing what this marathon brings me.