Dear Readers,

I’m happy to announce that The International Imaginarium For Word & Verse is finally back from its five-month hiatus this month and would like to invite all of you to participate in our fourth edition (our very first one for this year) with Padmaja Battani, a very talented poet, and writer living in Connecticut, as our featured poet to be posted on our Imaginarium website on the evening of Tuesday, March 28th, 2023.

To be part of our Imaginarium open mic this month, please send us one to three of your own original poems or stories (under 2000 words altogether please) either in a Word document file or pasted in the body of an email along with your name, any opening remarks you care to make, and where your poem has appeared if it was previously published to poetorium@mail.com by Friday, March, March 24th. Also if you like, you can send us a photo of yourself to be posted above your poem, but that is totally optional.

We also need contributions to this month’s Imaginarium Group poem. This month, we are going back to something we previously tried twice before with the Poetorium group poem, and use the classic Wallace Steven poem “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” as our poem’s template, but this time substituting the phrase “manhole cover” for “blackbird”. So to participate, please send us one to eight lines containing either the phrase “manhole cover” or “manhole covers”. Your contributions (which like always will remain anonymous unless otherwise requested) will then be numbered and compiled into this month’s group poem which will be tentatively entitled “Different Ways of Looking at a Manhole Cover” Once again, the deadline to contribute will be Friday, March 24th.

If you have any questions about submitting to the virtual open mic, the group Imaginarium poem, or anything else about the International Imaginarium For Word & Verse itself, please leave them in the comments of this post, and I will try to answer them right away.

Thank you so very much for reading, folks! As always, I really appreciate everyone’s continued support of this blog, and hope to hear from you soon with your contributions to our fourth edition of the International Imaginarium!

Dear Readers,

I’d like to invite all of you to participate in our very first edition of what was previously known as the Virtual Poetorium under its new name of The International Imaginarium For Word & Verse this month (to be posted on our brand new Inaginarium website on the evening of July 26th) with John Ormsby, a very talented writer, poet, and blogger (originally from Canada but now living in the United Kingdom) as our featured poet.

To be part of our Imaginarium open mic this month,, please send us one to three of your own original poems or stories (under 2000 words altogether please) either in a Word document file or pasted in the body of an email along with your name, any opening remarks you care to make, and where your poem has appeared if it was previously published to poetorium@mail.com by Sunday, July 24th.. Also if you like, you can send us a photo of yourself to be posted above your poem, but that is totally optional.

We will also need contributions for our very first Imaginarium Group poem. We will be trying something a bit different this month, and write a group ekphrastic cento (ekphrastic meaning inspired by a work of art such as a photo, painting, or sculpture while a cento is a patchwork poem consisting completely of lines taken from other poems or writing). To participate, please write and send us a six-line poem inspired by the following photo:

At least one line (but probably more) from each submission will then be taken and rewoven into one long seamless, flowing poem that hopefully can stand on its own by the editor (which in this case will be me). We will retain our usual policy on anonymity that we used for the Poetorium group poem, but that is totally optional, and poets can receive credit for their contribution and have their individual poems published alongside the collaborative poem if they wish. Please try to send me your individual poems by Sunday, July 24th, so I will have time to edit the resulting cento. Also kindly let me know if you want to have your identity known and/or your original poem published.

If you have any questions about submitting to the virtual open mic, the group Imaginarium poem, or anything else about the International Imaginarium For Word & Verse itself, please leave them in the comments of this post, and I will try to answer them right away.

Thank you so very much for reading, folks! As always, I really appreciate everyone’s continued support of this blog, and hope to hear from you soon with your contributions to our very first edition of the International Imaginarium!