A Look Back, & A Look Forward

Posted byColleen M. ChesebroPosted inNotes from ColleenTags:, , , , ,

As 2022 winds down, I embraced all the fun we had writing poetry at Word Craft Poetry this year. Thank you to everyone for joining me.

We posted 47 #TankaTuesday Poetry Challenges and 47 Poetry Stars Recap posts! That’s a lot of poetry! We average 20 to 30 poets writing poetry each week per challenge. That’s almost 1,200 poems a year inspired by the challenge.

What else did we accomplish in 2022?

In 2021, Word Craft Poetry published the first Word Weaving Poetry Journal. As promised in 2022, we used the money from the royalties of the sale of the journal to sponsor a Word Craft Poetry Contest with cash prizes. It was a resounding success!

🏅Announcing the Winners of the Word Craft Poetry Syllabic Poetry Contest 🏅

There was even enough money left over for me to send both judges a paperback copy of Word Craft: Prose & Poetry as a thank you for their hard work.

Rebecca Budd, who hosts the Tea, Toast, & Trivia podcast, interviewed a few of us:

Merril D. Smith

D. L. Finn

Colleen M. Chesebro

What’s new for Word Craft Poetry in 2023?

This year, let’s explore syllabic and other poetry styles written together. Feel free to write free verse or freestyle poetry for the challenge, as long as you add a syllabic form to your poem.

Jane Dougherty introduced me to the Cadralor Poetry Form created by the Gleam Journal. (I’m going to put this form in the category of free verse poetry). This will be a fun form for us to explore.

What is the difference between free verse and freestyle poetry?

Free verse poetry is when you refrain from using a specific pattern of rhyme or meter. I have seen Freeverse, free verse, and free-verse… they all mean the same thing.

Examples of freestyle poetry

Freestyle poetry is when you don’t have a formatted style or pattern, but you use rhyme most of the time and therefore create a catchy beat with your words, similar to rap. Here’s a link about rhyme schemes.

The book, Leaves of Grass, a collection by the American poet Walt Whitman, is an example of freestyle poetry. Allen Ginsberg famously imposed a structure upon free verse with his 1955/1956 poem Howl. He didn’t use a rhyme scheme or specific meter, but the poem holds structure through Ginsberg’s use of repeated phrases.

The option to use free verse and freestyle poetry remains a choice, not a requirement.

  • This year, I’ve added a section to the cheat sheet called Literary Devices Defined. If we’re going to explore other forms, we should learn some of the correct poetic literary terms to use for our poetry.
  • We will explore some different and similar prompts: ekphrastic, photo, synonyms only, specific forms, and some new surprises. I will research different forms and provide a post with examples of how to write the forms so that we can write them for our challenges.
  • I’d like to review poetry books on Word Craft Poetry, so I can highlight the books in my Significant Poetry Reads category.
  • I’d like to highlight each of our poets in the Meet the Poet feature. Read more HERE. I can feature two poets a month. I’m accepting reservations now for January, February & March.

Email me at tankatuesdaypoetry@gmail.com.

The Bitmoji app finally retired my word-witch avatar I’ve had since 2016. It was a sad day. 😞 Here’s to a new year of writing syllabic poetry for 2023.

Published by Colleen M. Chesebro

An avid reader, Colleen M. Chesebro rekindled her love of writing poetry after years spent working in the accounting industry. These days, she loves crafting syllabic poetry, flash fiction, and creative fiction and nonfiction. In addition to poetry books, Chesebro’s publishing career includes participation in various anthologies featuring short stories, flash fiction, and poetry. She’s an avid supporter of her writing community on Word Craft Poetry.com by organizing and sponsoring a weekly syllabic poetry challenge, called #TankaTuesday, where participants experiment with traditional and current forms of Japanese and American syllabic poetry. Chesebro is an assistant editor of The Congress of the Rough Writers Flash Fiction Anthology & Gitty Up Press, a micro-press founded by Charli Mills and Carrot Ranch. In January 2022, Colleen founded Unicorn Cats Publishing Services to assist poets and authors in creating eBooks and print books for publication. In addition, she creates affordable book covers for Kindle and print books. Chesebro lives in the house of her dreams in mid-Michigan surrounded by the Great Lakes with her husband and two (unicorn) cats, Chloe & Sophie.

43 thoughts on “A Look Back, & A Look Forward”

    2. We received around 6 to 8 inches. It was cold, windy, and we had lake effect snow from Lake Michigan for almost 3 days. By this weekend we warm up to 50 F. It’s crazy weather for sure. Poor Buffalo, NY. They’ve received four feet of snow. I can’t even imagine.

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  7. Congratulations on an amazing year, Colleen! So much creativity! Plus, you didn’t mention your new Fairies, Myth & Magic book, which by the way, was fantastic! Here’s to another fun year ahead filled with inspiration!

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  10. I’m looking forward to 2023! Too bad about the Word Witch. Seems strange to get rid of an avatar, it’s not like they do it annually. It fit you so well.

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    1. I’ll try again for the witch costume this Halloween. I can’t believe I kept the other costume that many years. LOL! We should have more fun this year. I’ve got all kinds of fun ideas. See you next week for the first new challenge of 2023! Happy New Year! 🥳

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  12. As this week ends this old year, let us bring light by our words into the new year. May we all continue in our creative ventures and blossom, bringing joy to those who read, learn and share.

    Colleen it has been so good to meet you and become a part of the Word Craft Poetry Community. I had hoped to read more of your new book tour… but I fell behind. I am hoping though to read through more of those posts even into the new year to meet more of the wonderful community that you have built. Thank you for letting me be a part of ‘Word Weaving’ 🙂

    May we all become a better part of the present to lighten, enjoy and evolve the future! Love, Jules

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  13. I hadn’t realized the extent to which your poetry challenge was received. Congrats on placing in the top-ten poetry blogs! That’s big! It’s amazing how far we have both come from our first days of blogging so “long” ago 😉

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  14. Colleen & Company:
    I am an intermittent participant here, but I appreciate what you do, all you’ve done, and all the poets who make it happen every week. I look forward to what you (we) all will do in 2023! I will try to join more often! I learn a lot here, and for that I am in all your debt.

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  16. I’m so glad I found your blog. I may not participate every week, but I know I can count on you to offer challenging/interesting forms and themes.
    Here’s to a great New Year. May yours be all you hope it to be.

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