Wherever you live on this big old planet, we invite you to submit a love poem that we can consider including in our February 14, 2015 {piCs} project, which is called:
poets ♥ downtown Cobourg
This is a repeat of last year’s very successful collaboration between {poetry in Cobourg spaces} and the DBIA (Downtown Cobourg).
It will occur Saturday, February 14 to coincide with:
the DBIA’s “FEEL THE LOVE” event; and,
Valentine’s Day; and,
the holiday weekend (Family Day falls on Monday, February 16); and,
Cobourg Tourism’s Winter Festivities event; and …
… wow! Just WOW!
Last year, 200 poems from all over the world were presented to the public in our wonderful town, widely known as “a poetry place.”
For our 2014 event, an even larger number of poems will be shown in a public display throughout the downtown of Cobourg, Ontario. We hope to use 500.
Also, pairs of poets will wander around downtown asking passers-by, “Would you like me to read you a love poem?” and if the answer is “Yes” that’s exactly what they will do.
Again, the way the poetry is exhibited will invite the public not only to stop and read (or stop and be read to) but also to “TAKE ME” “SHARE ME” “LOVE ME”
Yes, anybody can take away any copy of any poem they like … to show people at home … to read later … to keep forever … whatever moves them.
The only “Right” extended to us for the poems is for this one-time only usage: copyright and all other uses of the poem is retained by the poet.
If you submit, you will not receive feedback from us about your poetry; we could not possibly develop a critique for each poem we receive. Our experience last year taught us that it is not feasible for us to give individualized replies to poets who submit. Thus, our responses will be in a generalized format and will sometimes be limited to a broad-swath-type reply, either by email or via social media. (Last year, we grew to feel completely swamped. But we still think it is wonderful to be swamped by poetry; it’s just difficult to give everyone personalized attention..)
We will (again) present to the public still photography and video (with audio) of the Saturday, February 14 event. Last year, a big group of poets out there were quite delighted to either see an image of their poems on public display or, perhaps, to have video of a poet reading their work to passers-by. Again, that will be presented both on youtube and on Facebook.
We hope *YOU* send us poetry. (Be sure to review the criteria below. We do not want you to waste our time BUT even more than that, we do not want you to waste your time.)
James Pickersgill, Secretary,
{poetry in Cobourg spaces}
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SUBMISSION CRITERIA
The poems that are displayed will be selected from the submissions we receive. The poems read by our wandering poets to passers-by are taken from those on display.
ONLY submissions received by email will be considered. Use this email address to submit:
pics [at] bell.net
Do *NOT* submit your poem(s) using this Facebook event page. Do *NOT* submit your poetry using Facebook messaging. If you do so, the poems will not be considered.
ONLY submissions received before the end of the day Monday, February 2, 2014 will be considered.
ONLY poems that fit within our criteria both for the number of lines and for maximum line length will be considered.
ONLY poems that are submitted already formatted –BY YOU so we can copy-and-paste them without any re-formatting– will be considered.
Note well:
Submission does *NOT* guarantee inclusion in the project. An editorial process will be applied to ensure that the poems are acceptable for display to the general public (for instance, we are asking for “love” poems, not “lust” poems).
Last year, approximately 500 poems were submitted. From those 200 were selected.
Also, we will not include any poems that are NOT love poems (if you send us a poem that only expands on semiotics or Monsanto seeds causing health problems in humans and cows or the taste of the eggs laid by free-range chickens you raise on your urban farm or who you would pick as the President of the newly-proclaimed break-away Democratic Federation of Flebisque, etc, we will enjoy reading what you have written but we will NOT include it in this particular project).
Note too: no poet is restricted to submitting only one poem or having only one selected. As stated, we hope to collect and present 500 love poems.
CRITERIA: MAXIMUM LENGTHS
The length of the longest line in a poem will be 75 characters maximum (spaces and punctuation are considered to be characters).
The maximum length of the poem is 25 lines. If the poem is titled, the Title counts as a line; if the poem is broken into stanzas, each space between stanzas counts as a line.
We are able to use 2 columns side-by-side as long as the above two criteria work in combination, that is, poems up to 50 lines in length can be used if the longest line is 35 characters or less.
For your information: our experience last year showed us that the poems that worked best were 14 lines or less. (That would be 28 lines if they would fit into a 2 columns side-by-side presentation).
FORMATTING CRITERIA
Last year, we found that formatting all the poems to fit our presentation template was extremely (extremely!) time consuming. We will not be able to do that again this year, especially because we want to increase the number of poems used from 200 to 500.
You must format your poems before sending them.
Use “Georgia” as your font.
Use 16 pt as your font-size for the body of the poem.
Use 18 pt for the poem’s Title (if it has one but a title is not a requirement).
Put your name at the bottom of the poem also using 16 pt.
If you submit more than one poem, put your name at the bottom of each one and put a page break between each poem. (That is, do not put more than one poem per page.)
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We hope you send us a poem (or thirteen).
James Pickersgill, Secretary,
{poetry in Cobourg spaces}