Monday
03Mar2008
Nominations To Begin For 2008 Poet Laureate of The Blogosphere
Mar 3, 2008 at 09:57PM
I'm pleased to announce that BloggingPoet.com will again host the Poet Laureate Of The Blogosphere Election for the 4th year in a row with nominations beginning April 1, 2008. The Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere is the only laureateship chosen by readers.
Previous winners are Amy King, Ron Silliman and Jilly Dybka.
Rules for 2008 are as follows:
1. Those nominated must have a history of posting poetry to their blogs for a period of no less than 1 year prior to March 1, 2008.
2. Anyone can nominate their favorite poetry blogger.
3. Nominations will begin on April 1st and will end on April 20th.
4. Voting will begin on April 21st and will end at !2:00 midnight on April 29th.
5. The winner will be announced on April 30th.
6. As in years past, Billy Jones, aka. Billy The Blogging Poet, aka. me, will not be nominated as I am hosting the event.
7. English language only as I'm too dumb to know a poem in any other language.
8. Previous winners cannot be nominated.
9. Like it or not, all decisions by the judge (That would be me.) are final.
10. All nominations must be made in the form provided on April 1st. E-mail, write-ins, protests and other means to nominate will not be accepted.
The number 1 most common complaint I hear about this election is that it hasn't been advertised and isn't as well known as it should be. Well guess what? As I'm broker than ever before it won't be advertised again this year. Unless, of course others want to spread the word.
The number 2 complaint I get is that to the casual observer it would appear previous winners don't post poetry to their blogs. That was okay with me as I knew all 3 posted poetry to online forums and ezines but this year rather than field-off the complaints I've instituted rule #1.
And to deal with other complaints I've instituted rule #9.
I guess the Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere isn't all that big a deal as previous winners are yet to be household names but like so much of what is done here on the Blogsboro Network it's designed to shine some light on a few who have worked hard and seldom received the recognition they deserve.
Update: Speaking of shining more light, the winner will be given the chance to be interviewed at Living In Poetry.
Previous winners are Amy King, Ron Silliman and Jilly Dybka.
Rules for 2008 are as follows:
1. Those nominated must have a history of posting poetry to their blogs for a period of no less than 1 year prior to March 1, 2008.
2. Anyone can nominate their favorite poetry blogger.
3. Nominations will begin on April 1st and will end on April 20th.
4. Voting will begin on April 21st and will end at !2:00 midnight on April 29th.
5. The winner will be announced on April 30th.
6. As in years past, Billy Jones, aka. Billy The Blogging Poet, aka. me, will not be nominated as I am hosting the event.
7. English language only as I'm too dumb to know a poem in any other language.
8. Previous winners cannot be nominated.
9. Like it or not, all decisions by the judge (That would be me.) are final.
10. All nominations must be made in the form provided on April 1st. E-mail, write-ins, protests and other means to nominate will not be accepted.
The number 1 most common complaint I hear about this election is that it hasn't been advertised and isn't as well known as it should be. Well guess what? As I'm broker than ever before it won't be advertised again this year. Unless, of course others want to spread the word.
The number 2 complaint I get is that to the casual observer it would appear previous winners don't post poetry to their blogs. That was okay with me as I knew all 3 posted poetry to online forums and ezines but this year rather than field-off the complaints I've instituted rule #1.
And to deal with other complaints I've instituted rule #9.
I guess the Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere isn't all that big a deal as previous winners are yet to be household names but like so much of what is done here on the Blogsboro Network it's designed to shine some light on a few who have worked hard and seldom received the recognition they deserve.
Update: Speaking of shining more light, the winner will be given the chance to be interviewed at Living In Poetry.
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Reader Comments (17)
April Fools?
Hardly Walden,
April is National Poetry Month in the US., Canada and several other countries and this is the 4th year I've hosted the contest. Thanks for stopping by.
Sweet, I will be nominating someone. Thanks for providing the contest!
Count me in on spreading the world. I will wait till the form is up on April 1st though so that my readers can go straight to the form and nominate someone.
You can count on me to spread the word, too, Billy. I've put the info up on Poetmeister 4 Poets! and will also put up a reminder on April 1st when the nomination form is available. Thank you, Billy, for hosting such a wonderful contest/event!
Billy, your post is up at Word Catalyst for this info. Let me know when the actual form is available and we'll change the link if needed. Thanks for all you do for poets everywhere!
I've posted the announcement on my blog and will update when nominations open. I'll also post it at Totally Optional Prompts on Wednesday.
Have you considered asking some of the other poetry prompt sites (eg. readwritepoem, Writer's Island, Cafe Writing, Poefusion) to post the notice?
Teil,
Thanks for the links and the suggestions as I hadn't thought of them.
i nominate Canadian blogger and poet and fiction writer and renaissance man, rob mclennan. his blog is www.robmclennan.blogspot.com
thanks!
Do you ahve a list of nominations to date?
Dan,
Not yet. All that are being considered for nomination are in this thread. Some won't qualify but I'll not start weeding them out until later in the process.
The most common reason they might not qualify is not having been at it long enough and I know there are some above that don't qualify for that very reason.
hmmm.
is self_nominating frowned upon? actually, i'm not sure if my blog is eligible, given proviso 7. my works are a mixture of code + english. it requires a type of poetic unpacking. + the blog *is* made up of poetry itself - it isn't a blog _about_ poetry or critique/theory of such. the blog has been around since 2003 tho? [read: nekkid attempt at brownie_point getting;)]
anyhoo if the above does + doesn't apply then here, have this:
http://netwurker.livejournal.com/
some additional info [*cough* self_glorification *cough*] can be found at another blog o mine here:
http://knott404.blogspot.com/
chunks,
][mez][
I nominate rob mclennan.
www.robmclennan.blogspot.com
thanks!
Hi,
Thanks for the effort and for providing the contest! I will post the announcement on my blog POETRY 4 KIDS.
Just a question? Why do you have the rule "Those nominated must have a history of posting poetry to their blogs for a period of no less than 1 year prior to March 1, 2008?"
I want to nominate a great poet Angelica - The Ramblings of Angelica, she has over 150 entries, but started blogging 5 month ago.
If your blog is around for 2 years and you posted 13~ poems you are qualified?!
Have a great day,
Milou
Milou,
The reasons for that rule are four fold. One is to keep it limited to those who are not already celebrities as someone with a household name could easily buy enough advertising to secure a win which would take away from many more deserved poets.
The second reason is that I'm reacting to popular opinion and a lot of discussion with many others based on previous years. This is our 4th year and we've learned most of these rules the hard way.
The 3rd reason for this rule is to help weed out spam.
And number 4 is because I don't want to see the Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere to be someone who starts and soon abandons a blog simply to snag a title.
I know your friend's 150 poems in 5 months seems like a lot of work but there are people already nominated who have penned and posted thousands of poems to their blogs. I've witnessed hundreds of poets post a poem a day for 5 months or longer then simply quit. If your friend has merit there will always be future years.
I nominate Jordan Stempleman
http://jordanstempleman.blogspot.com
I nominate Shimmy for Shimmykat's blog....
http://shimmykat.blogspot.com/