IS THE BLOG HAVING GLITCHES?

Feathers,
I'm curious if you are experiencing some technical difficulties, or maybe unaware that certain of us are. Every time I open the blog I get the same housekeeping post you posted well over a week ago as the first post. I have to scroll down to the home link to refresh the page to get the latest posts, that have actually been posted. This wasn't happening before? Things have gotten quiet in here, so if its happening to other posters, they would be thinking, no one's posted anything new in some time and maybe stop checking.


Jeanne

Anonymous Comments

Even if you're just dropping by, please sign your comments with some sort of name or handle. (I don't care whether you do it in the little field or in the body of the comment.) Any unsigned comments posted after this point will be deleted.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled poetry critique.

Announcement: Travel and Comments

I'm getting on a plane for a conference the US this morning. (Yikes, should've announced something sooner.) I will be checking in at the Sydney airport in about 6 hours, and then I will be out of commission for a day or so. I will not have much energy to be very lively for the next week or so, but I'll be keeping up my moderating responsibilities, and hopefully my posting responsibilities too.

Suzanne's computer is doing some horrid thing with her cookies, which prevents her from commenting. I have not yet had to zap a single comment (the Internet does not notice that we exist, particularly), so I am going to enable anonymous commenting until the issue is resolved, or until I discover myself having to zap invaders.

"What we're reading"

I've got everybody up on the "What we're reading" page now. (You can find that page by looking under the "Pages" heading on the righthand side, and clicking the link that says "What we're reading".) Most of us have several variants on our names: capitalised vs. uncapitalised, handle vs. real name, first and last name vs. just first. I basically picked a variant for everybody without following any systematic rule. If you'd like your name to be displayed differently, just leave a comment on this post and I'll fix it.

Pclem figures things out!

Aha! The technologically challenged figures it out! Give the seal a fish!

Indexing

Small tech issue: it looks like you can only create a page if you are a blog administrator. I think it's probably a bad idea to make everybody an administrator, because it increases the probability that somebody will accidentally hit the wrong button and produce total chaos. So, new improved indexing proposal:

Pick a label for your posts. (I suggest using your alias.) Before you hit "Publish Post", enter your label into the field that says "Labels for this post: e.g., scooters, vacation, fall". I've added the widget that displays labels on the right side of the page. So if you want to read all the posts by Joe Bloggs, just look under "Labels" in the upper right, and click on the "joe bloggs" label.

I think that will be nice and simple.

Then, make your first (non-fluff, non-housekeeping) post a short overview of which book you're reading, and why. I'll make a page that's an index of overview posts. You can use your overview to index your other posts, but let's keep that strictly optional.

Welcome and guidelines

(Edited July 13, 2011, 10 AM (in Brisbane), to change the indexing scheme)

Welcome to NaPoReMo 2011! The basic idea is that everyone here will read a book of poetry by a contemporary poet, and post 15 comments, each on a different poem from the book. Here are the rules (shamelessly cribbed from this post at PFFA).

1. NaPoReMo will begin on 15 June 2011, and end on 15 July 2011.
2. Obtain a book of poetry by a contemporary poet, preferably one whose work you're not particularly familiar with but in whom you have an interest and whose work you would like to explore. Feel free to read more than one book by a single author, if the spirit moves you. Anthologies are also acceptable if you would prefer something of that sort, although in general it's better to focus on a single writer, as the basic idea of NaPoReMo is to develop a deeper understanding of a specific writer. Nor does it matter if more than one participant chooses the same book or poet, as what each says is likely to present differing perspectives from the other.
3. To index your posts, pick a label (such as your alias). When you make a post, type your label in the little box that says "labels for this post".
4. Make an overview post that says which book you're reading, and why. I'll make a page with links to all the overview posts. If you like, you can use your overview post as an index, with links to all your other posts, but this is strictly optional.
5. Read the whole collection by the end of the month at least once.
6. Every other day, write at least a paragraph on a poem from the book, for a total of 15 posts. There’s no minimum or maximum length; you can write a short sentence. I'm not imposing a maximum length of one paragraph either, because paragraph breaks make a big block of text much easier to read. Just explain how you react to the poem and quote your favourite line (or a line to show why you didn’t like it). Be careful not to quote too much from individual poems. Respect copyright. (Of course, one doesn't have to post every other day; it's the number 15that's important, although waiting until June 16th to begin could offset the advantages to be gained; that, however, is purely at the discretion of the participants.)
7. Feel free to comment on others' posts about the specific poems reviewed or the poet or related poetry-based matters. Off-topic fluff is also permitted this year. People who aren't participating in NaPoReMo are welcome to drop in and comment as well. No anonymous comments, spam, or harassment, though.
8. Be excellent to each other, and have fun!