Poetry Connections
An Introduction To Online Poetry Workshops

 I would recommend poetry workshops to poets at any level of experience. Where else can you get valuable input on your work and discuss questions of craft with fellow poets? However, not everyone lives in an area with a population of poets large enough to support a workshop. Others may find that the available workshop, which meets typically once a month at a set time, conflicts with their schedule or is too infrequent for their needs.

     These days, the lucky writer has all the resources of the Internet available through their modem. Unsurprisingly numerous poetry workshops can be found all over the World Wide Web, but much like a real life workshop, they have different quirks and it is important to choose the right one for your personality.
Are you interested in real, potentially searing critique? Or do you just want to share and maybe hear a few pleasant comments about your work? One of my poet friends visits The Thought Café at http://www.thoughtcafe.co.uk whenever she is in need of an ego boost. The atmosphere is relaxed and within a few hours her poem has collected rave reviews like “I can’t begin to describe how cool this is..every line...it’s amazing!”

     Or perhaps you write metrical rhyming poetry in forms such as the sonnet, and you want some meaningful feedback on your technique? I find Eratosphere at  http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/Ultimate.cgi excellent for metrical poetry. Like all serious workshops, participation is free, but you need to register and then follow the rules, which include posting no more than one poem per week, and critiquing several other posted poems for each one of your own.

     Eratosphere has a free verse forum too, but if you write free verse and are committed to improving your art, I would suggest the Poetry Free For All at http://www.everypoet.org/pffa. The PFFA has the reputation for being tough and the excellent moderators pounce swiftly on rule breakers, but your poem will likely get several in depth critiques from experienced poets. PFFA has forums for Song Lyrics, Humor and Experimental Verse, among others, and it also has a virtual reference library of poetry resources called “The Blurbs of Wisdom” where you will find anything from instructions on how to construct a Villanelle to lectures on the importance of sound in poetry.

     This is good advice before diving into any online group, but particularly relevant to the PFFA: lurk around the site and get a feel for it before posting your own work, and don’t post your first piece to the High or Merciless critical forums unless you really know what you are doing!

     The critique requirements of online workshops may seem like a burden at first, but I soon found the process of analyzing others’ work hugely beneficial to my own poetry. And if you become a regular on one particular site you do really feel that you are part of a poetic community, whose members share tips on publication, links to resources and of course, the latest jokes and even recipes. Yes, poets are human too, even in Cyberspace!
                                                                           Anna Evans