Hello from Ann Arbor!

Dearest Anna, Carrie and Julia,

Welcome, welcome, welcome to our blog.  I thought I'd have time during the week to write a nice paragraph or two about how much I miss our class and what a profound effect Provincetown had on me, but, alas, life interfered. But at the very least, I wanted to give you a few pointers on Blogger and also throw out some ideas/suggestions RE our workshop.

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR HOW TO USE BLOGGER

The main thing to remember is to always "Post" your poems, but "Comment" on other's poems.

The "Post" button is on the top right of the homepage. When you click it, you'll be taken to a dialog box where you can either type or cut/paste your poem. Also notice the box at the top where you type in a title. PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR NAME with your title so we always know whose poem is whose.

All the 'posts titles' show up as links on the right side of the home page. When you click a particular "post" you'll be taken to the post/poem. And at the end of each post is a place for you to write your "Comments" about the poem. For instance, at the end of this post, you should all write a "comment" in response to my suggestions, etc.

Feel free to write "posts" to the group about general stuff, too, by the way. Just try to give it a descriptive title so that if we forget, say, the name of the great movie you just saw, it'll be easy to find just by looking at the list of 'posts'.

And, by the way, you can always go in and edit your "Posts" and your "Comments" (I think you can edit your comments....hmmm).

WORKSHOP STUFF

Re our workshop in general, this is what I'm envisioning: we "post" our poems by the end of the weekend so, say, by the end of the day Sunday, September 16th and then we have the entire month to "comment" on each other's work...as well as to "comment" on each other's comments. If you want us to look at specific things in your poem be sure to write your own "comment" after you post it with the specifics. Also, if you feel like getting technical (at least in your comments on my work) please do. In my mind this is where we pass on the things we've learned over the years as well as where those of us who don't have a firm grasp of, say, what assonance is, can not only start to master the terminology, but the ideas behind it.

But that's what I'm envisioning. What do you think?

Meanwhile, I can only think of one rule that might be helpful and that is, please don't edit your poem once you've posted it unless it's to correct a typo. Because often people may have already read and started critiquing the poem, so then to come back and find that the poem is totally different can be frustrating. And by the way, notice that you can 'save' a poem on the blog, but not 'publish' it. You can also 'preview' how it looks without anyone else seeing it.

The above suggestion also leads to something that we should probably talk about: revisions. My suggestion is that we avoid posting first drafts...unless of course it's one of those poems that's like a gift from the gods. I'm suggesting this because reading the same poem over and over can start to be a little tedious, especially if there's only been minor changes. Not that we shouldn't 'post' revised poems, I think that's important. Not just for the writer, but for the rest of us RE seeing how poems change. But it might be good to wait at least a month so that we can come back to the poem fresh.

But, maybe I'm totally wrong about this; what do you all think?

MISC. STUFF

I think we can add a photo to the homepage of the blog so if anyone has a photo they'd like to add, please do. That is, I tried to make you all owners; let me know if that's not the case. And hopefully I also have it set up so that only we can post and comment. Not sure if others can see our posts and comments, however. That is, I did a google search for Provincetown Poets and the blog didn't show up, at least not in the first batch of results, but I have no idea how private blogs are.

OK, I'm off to do my errands. Big hugs to all of you--Robin