1

Tips for Starting a Poetry Writing Group

By

Dina Ripsman Eylon

Robin Williams as John Keating, the English professor in the film Dead Poets Society,

attempted to instill in his students a love for poetry. He stated: We don't read and write

poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human

race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business,

engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty,

romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. (Dead Poets Society, written by Tom

Schulman and directed by Peter Weir, 1989.)

If truth be told, we read and write poetry because we have an intrinsic passion for words

and their broad spectrum of meanings. Writing poetry is usually a creative process that is

carried out in solitude. Yet, I believe that most poets yearn for some feedback, preferably

in the form of constructive criticism. A childhood friend told me once that he stopped

writing poetry because he doesnt have an audience anymore. Perhaps, he was right.

Reading poetry to an audience could be in itself a powerful motivation to keep writing.

This being said, how do you find an audience for your poetry and how do you maintain

these meetings and readings on a regular basis?

This short article provides some tips on how to establish and sustain a poetry-writing

group. The following is a step-by-step guide, based on my personal experience as the

founder of the Vaughan Poets Circle.

Several years ago, I attended a creative writing class in my neighborhood. For years, Ive

been writing poetry but except for some advice from close friends and family members,

Ive never had a serious critique of my poems. Attending the creative writing class was a

winning endeavor. The critique my poems received from the instructor and my fellow

writers made my writing riper, stronger, and significantly more succinct. Only a handful

2

of poets attended the class. In time, I noticed that time spent in class was primarily on

analyzing prose pieces. This realization led me to initiate the Vaughan Poets Circle.

Here is a plan you can adopt to establish your own local poetry writing group:

Find a rent-free venue in which to conduct regular meetings (weekly/bi-

weekly/monthly). I live next to a public library. I emailed the Head Librarian of

my city, introduced myself, and related my plan to found a poetry-writing group.

I asked for a free room on a Saturday (I knew that most of the library programs

are offered during weekdays. Therefore, the likelihood of getting a free room on

the weekend was higher.) The Head Librarian was delighted to offer me the

opportunity to organize the program pro bono. The library was even willing to

supply complimentary refreshments.

Name the group. Since my citys public library sponsored the program, the

groups name had to include the citys name.

Create a core group. Once your rent-free venue is set-up, call a few friends or

acquaintances, tell them about the new group, and invite them to attend the first

meeting. In my case, four of my fellow students from the creative writing class

were thrilled to join the new group and have since been attending and

participating in the monthly meetings.

Publicize and promote the meetings in free outlets. In todays cyber-culture,

your local poets may belong to various web groups. Hence, advertising the

meetings in national and international websites and forums could bring local

poets to your meetings. Announce the meetings, at least in the beginning as the

group is forming, on Craigs List, poetry @ about.com, MeetUp.com, [places for

writers], Outsider Writers and allpoetry.com. Winning Writers, a well-organized

web resource for poets, offers an extensive list of poetry forums. Alternatively,

send announcements to your local newspapers. They usually publish community

3

events for free. In my experience, the library printed bookmarks, flyers, and

posters to advertise the new program. My friends and I posted the flyers in other

libraries, community centers, coffee shops, and local bookstores.

Create an agenda for the meetings. Here is where your imagination can go

wild. Create guidelines for submissions start with 1-2 poems for each member

and change the guidelines according to attendance. Structure your time allotment

so that the group starts and finishes on time. The Vaughan Poets Circle began

meeting monthly for two hours. At first, the time span seemed a bit lengthy. As a

result, I contacted local published poets and invited them to read from their

collections and conduct a question & answer period. As a form of compensation,

they could sell their books to the members. The readings became quite inspiring

to the budding poets in the group. The meetings are structured in informal and

fluid fashion. The atmosphere is relaxed, non-competitive, and supportive.

Members share their doubts and achievements and so far, the group published a

collective chapbook Waging Change: Vaughan Poets Engage in Politics (2007)

and a bound anthology Earth to Moon (2009), both were successfully launched

in the community.

The Vaughan Poets Circle has been holding meetings regularly for the last nine years. Its

members have since published chapbooks and book-length collections, as well as

contributed to national and international publications.