The Poetry Marathon

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.

The 2019 Poetry Marathon will be like the 2017 Poetry Marathon in most ways. There will be two half marathon options. We will have volunteer help.

The one difference will be the anthology. In the past I (Caitlin Jans) have done 90% of the work on the anthology with Jacob Jans finalizing the work. This year our hope is to raise enough money to pay an editor to put together the anthology.

The major motivator behind this is that fact that I just don’t have the time to edit the anthology between our kids, my own writing, facilitating the poetry marathon, and my job.

We have never fund-raised for the marathon before and have paid all expenses ourselves, and we will continue to do so, outside of the editor for the anthology.

We are going to start reaching out to possible editors (who will have to be past marathon participants) and figuring out how we will raise the money for the anthology.

The amount of money we will be looking to raise will be around 500 dollars.

If we don’t receive the money to pay the anthology editor in all likelihood we will not go forward with publishing the anthology this year. However we have

If you have any questions or ideas to help fund-raise please send an email to poets@thepoetrymarathon.com.

If you are not familiar with the anthology you can view the 2017 one here.

We are always grateful for your support and participation.

The goal of the Poetry Marathon is to write one poem every hour, for twenty-four hours, straight. There is also a half marathon option, to write one poem every hour for twelve hours straight.

The 2019 Poetry Marathon starts at 9 AM ET on Saturday June 22nd and goes till 9 AM on Sunday the 23rd of June. Those who are interested in doing a half marathon can either start at 9 AM EST on the 22nd of June and go till 9 PM. Or they can start at 9 PM EST on the 22nd and go till 9 AM on the 23rd of June. The second option might work better for poets living outside of North America.

If you want to figure out what time the Poetry Marathon will be for your time zone, this time zone converter can be very helpful.

Sign up will start in late May/early June. You must sign up in advance in order to participate.

Learn more at our website here

Every word from his lips was conjured from a fantasy he dreamed from behind the gate 

(more…)

There was something quite different about this time around

I missed the others… 

(more…)

And then she named me Rachel Sun…

I will never stop shining. 

It’s always bright somewhere even when the shadow is cast. 

I promised to stay golden 

I know you didn’t mean to take me

Down

But I’m still coming back from that last hit 

Blindsided… 

Did you fashion a bus just so you could drive over me in it?  

Or was I simply at the wrong intersection just in time for it? 

Blindsided…

I felt so inclined to protect you 

I thought we were working for the we 

I didn’t get the memo 

It’s like a closet… the mind

Only we decide what goes in there, even if we didn’t notice someone drop a load on that empty shelf 

Entire shopping sprees happen just to fill them up 

Rarely are they ever empty 

but attempts at clearing them out call for epic expeditions

They are too small to stay inside for long 

Rather claustrophobic 

Each time We open the door, we find something we missed the last time 

or piles tumble out

Something old something borrowed and plenty that we never needed in there in the first place 

If we don’t consciously change what’s in there we limit our perspective 

Even if we don’t wear what’s inside, we need to circulate some air

Shit gets musty in there… 

Everything I ever asked for has been granted

Whether I was the one to receive what

I’ve requested is another story 

We don’t always get what we asked for but somebody does 

Open the channels 

Trust the process

Listen 

You will never make in this work

it belongs to those with old money and the trust funded

So…

I set out to debunk his theory\

Because if we leave regeneration in the hands of the well endowed

we normalize whats been allowed for far too long

and we give away our power

I’ve learned to live pretty close to the ground so I don’t miss much when the money runs out

never had much in the first pace

But I feel that when we distribute the weight

we’re going to prove him wrong