The Poetry Marathon

I am a retired 7th and 8th grade English teacher–5 classes a day. In addition, I am a piano and vocal instructor in my home studio. I look forward to taking some creative time for myself now. I’m not sure whether I’ll have the required stamina for the day, but I look forward to giving it my best effort.

I love food, especially chocolate, and enjoy reading, downhill skiing, singing, traveling, and my two grandchildren Olivia 4 and Carter 22 mos. My husband and I camp in our 5th wheel and travel to see our daughter, a freelance photojournalist in Europe, Africa, and Asia. She is presently in Baghdad working for the UN and the Governor of Anbar Province. We will not be visiting there!

My publishing experience includes numerous publicity campaigns for non-profits and several musical reviews for the local newspaper. My poetry has been published in education/writing journals. I like writing free verse as well as formatted poetry.

Look forward to meeting you all and seeing your poems! Donna Jean (DJ)

I grew up in New Delhi and am now studying Economics and Poltiical Science in the US. I used to write a lot in high school, and published three short stories and a novel by the time I was 17. After high school, I got into my dream college, and while it has been a great journey so far, I do regret not having the time to read and write. I have tried many times to start writing something, but have not had the time or the motivation to carry it through.

Poetry was always my first love. My first pieces were simple poems, and I subsequently moved to prose. So taking part in this challenge is like coming full circle and starting from scratch, and hopefully I should get enough momentum to carry through the challenge.

The context could not be better. I am in London this summer for an academic exchange program and happen to be in Stratford upon Avon for a good part of the challenge. Unfortunately I love my sleep too much, so I will be participating in the half marathon. Cannot wait to write and read everyone else’s work!

Hi, my name is Tanya and I love to write poetry. How good it is..well… I don’t know. But, I love it, so I do it. 🙂  I like to focus on the good, true, and the beautiful, attempting with my poor words to light a candle in the world. I have a crazy day on Saturday, so we’ll see how this full marathon goes! I will write while going about my day, though I won’t always be handy to the internet.  So, on Saturday, I will have to post my hourly poems later.

I will probably write about faith, hope, and the loves of my life…. and maybe, if the words flow, I will have some deep ponderings in the wee hours. I was looking to challenge myself to get myself writing poetry again. So, it seems, I found that challenge.  Thank you for the opportunity and good luck everyone!

(p.s. I have arthritis and it is starting to bother me in my right hand so, I’m hoping it won’t get worse and hinder my typing! ah well, perhaps it will make for a good poem?)

I need a creative challenge. I used to write poetry all the time, but I’ve been in a rut lately, sitting around waiting for my “muse.” I decided to start with the half-marathon and see how it goes, and maybe I’ll do the full thing next year. 🙂

Simply put, doing this marathon is a bad idea for me. I have a busy day planned on Saturday, I have been in a poetry slump where I hate everything I write and don’t want to show the general public my work, especially not without heavy edits, and I don’t do well with interrupted sleep. So what am I going to do? A poetry marathon where I have to write a poem every hour for 24 hours.

Here’s to poetry!

As a multi-genre writer, I dabble in all sorts of written word creations from the artistic to the technical, mundane to elaborate and business to poetry. However, of all of the genres I’ve penned, poetry has seen the least of my attention, thus far. This year’s poetry marathon is my chance to turn that around!

Seeing as I’m a mother, wife, horse/dog/cat rescuer, freelance writer (with impending deadlines), assistant to two editing conglomerates, and will be in a critique group on Saturday from 9-noon (already obligated before I knew about this event but, yes, I do plan to drop poems while my fellow writers are reading their pieces – shhh, don’t tell), I think committing to a “halfy” is all I can do for this year. However, I wholeheartedly plan to come back next year and be ready for a full.

To prepare, I’m buying a thesaurus app for my phone, planning on doing about a fifteen minute stream of consciousness each morning between now and Saturday – to get my creative juices flowing, and I have reserved my favorite hammock (the one by the creek in the wooded section of our 18-acre farmstead) for a three hour slot in the afternoon. I’ve also put my husband and daughter on “mommy will be in crazy artist mode” high alert for Saturday…with a day of rest and recovery planned for Sunday.

Huge thanks to the organizers of this event and I can’t wait to add Poet Marathoner to my bio!
 

Hello! I am excited to be part of this year’s Poetry Marathon! I am located in Charleston, SC. I’ve never done anything like this before. I have a six month old daughter. I am a software engineer when I’m not hanging out with her. Looking forward to getting some solid writing in this Saturday!

Greetings and Salutations! I have signed up for the insanity that is The Poetry Marathon (okay, half the insanity, since I’m planning to do the 12-hour version); this is my introduction.
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one thing you can say

about the internet:

there’s always a new

beginning, an escape,

waiting around the next

link.

Hey all….looking forward to spending a chunk of time this weekend on my balcony, looking at the lake, doing what I love…