The following is a list of Zbird's blog entries, in reverse order
How to get noticed on gotpoetry
Sunday, March 14, 2010 (14:28:18)
Too many people post there poems and then sit back and wait for them to get rated. With thousands of poets here that can take awhile, so instead of feeling sorry for yourself that no one is rating your gems get out in the community and take part! Join the slams - a sure way to get your poems noticed. Or start a slam or two of your own. Participate in the workshop forum discussions. No one is going to know you are here if you sit back and hide and expect others to just find you. The best way to get noticed is to notice others as well.
The only analogy I can think of would be if you were in a classroom, but instead of sitting in the room and actively participating in the class, you sat outside the room and waited for the teacher and other students to notice your brilliance and find you. It won't happen and you won't get noticed here if you don't participate.
I'm not saying everyone needs to get involved in every aspect, but if you want to get noticed you need to do more than just post your poems.
Yep, it's Keith's spring break for one whole week and my plans were to sleep in EVERY morning! Ah!!! to stretch out and lay in bed and read and work on poems....yes! So, this morning at 6:30, when I hadn't gotten up at my usual time one of the cats politely asked me to get out of bed and feed them. Well, that is if you consider throwing up on your bed polite! Dang! Talk about a rude awakening! So, of course, I had to get up and once the cats were fed I figured I might as well get online. And then I looked out the window at the beautiful morning sky and the birds flying across between the trees and suddenly I was so happy to be up this early while my husband still sleeps quietly and there is absolutely nothing I have to do except enjoy the moment. Here's hoping that today at least everyone finds that peaceful moment when all is right with the world and nothing matters but feeling happy to be alive.
It’s come to my attention that a lot of those on this site don’t know how to rate the slams. Once I get someone new into a slam the next question is what do I do? How are the poems rated? How will I know who wins? I see the slams ending but never know how they got rated and who won…. So here it is in a nutshell.
First you have to find the slams. On the homepage and many other pages there is a menu on the left hand side. Under the menu is a sub-list called Inside. On that list are the words page slam. Click on those words and it will take you to the page slam page.
Once there you will see two sides. One is called running slams and one is called pending slams. The running slams are the ones ready for rating. To rate the poems you
1. click on the title of the slam. Once in the slam you will see the avatars of all the poets in that slam. Below each avatar is the title of the poem they have up in that part of the slam.
2. Click on the poem title! Not the avatar! If you click on the avatar you end up at the page of the poet. Once you click on the poem you will see the poem and below it a list of numbers from 1 to 10.
3. You rate the poems by clicking on the number you feel that poem deserves. This is the rating. 1 means it absolutely sucked and a 10 means it was one of the best you’ve ever read. A 5 means it’s a good poem but isn’t any worse or better than most of the other poems.
4. Do this for each poem in the slam and then move to the next one .
5. Remember to be fair! Rate all the poems in the slam.
Years ago a friend of mine lost her son to SIDS. To help alleviate some of the pain she wrote a poem to him. It wasn't the best poem I had ever heard, but it was written with such love you knew she put a lot of care into the words she chose to honor her infant son.
I read a lot of the poems on here that are so good, or rather could be so good, if only some care had been put into the presentation. We have gotten into the world of text messages and the use of abbreviations. While u for you, and 2day for today are acceptable with text messaging it just doesn't work for poetry.
Your poems are your creations! Your works of art and love and should be honored as such. Before you publish your poem in the completed section make sure you have run a spell check on it and corrected any spelling errors. Check your grammar and watch those contractions cant and can't have two different meanings as well as ill and I'll. And please, please check your grammar! gonna? when did we start using shorthand speech so liberally we are accepting it as proper grammar?
Respect your poems! If you don't respect them enough to give them the proper care, in their presentation, how can you expect others to respect them enough to give them a proper rating?
When I leave a comment about one of your poems that says respect your poem, that means I see potential for a great poem, if given the proper care. It is not meant as an insult, but rather as a nudge.
We have a great forum here called the rewrite workshop, and if you are new to the site and to poetry it is a great place to start. Post your poem there and many helpful poets will guide you in working your poem into a real work of art and love.
So, love yourself, love your poems, and give them the respect they deserve.
I posted this under my Let's Get Slamming Club, but decided to post it here also in case some don't see the club posting.
I've seen a lot of slams out there going nowhere fast and decided to post some do's and don'ts about setting up slams.
Before you set up a slam check the pending slams. If there are already a couple in the genre you want to choose (lyrics, dark, etc) hold off on setting up your slam. If the others haven't been filled chances are yours won't be either.
The bigger the slam the less likely it will get filled. Those with 128 places... they just aren't going to happen. So, before you make the mistake some have and set up slams bigger then they expected read the following.
Limited category slams often take a lot of time to fill. Open all works best for the larger slams.
Check to see how many poets are posting under the category you want to use if you aren't doing an open all slam. I've seen slams where the person put up 32 spaces, but when I checked the category they had chosen only a handful were posting poems in that genre.
Promote your slam! Once you've set up a slam send out some private messages to your buddies and other poets on the site to let them know about your slam. Ask them to join and to invite others to join in as well.
Types of slams
1) In Match Play slam remember each round will double the number of players. If you start with the final round where there will be two players, multiply by 2 and you know there will be four players for the semi-final round...and the number of poems you select determines the number of rounds and the number of players
okay, so far it's cool. you've chosen 4 poems and will have four rounds starting with 16 players...but watch what happens when you choose 7 poems and a lot do thinking they will have seven rounds and the first round will have seven players. That's not how it works in match play.
5 poems - round 5 = 32 players
6 poems - round 6 = 64 player
7 poems - round 7 = 128 players
so when setting up a match play be careful when choosing the number of poems needed for your slam.
2) In a face off slam you simply choose the number of players which will determine the number of poems. This is a one round slam. So, the poet with the highest score at the end wins. Again, be careful in the number you choose. The more slots to fill the less likely it will get filled, especially if it's a limited category.
3). In a Deathmatch slam again be careful of the number of players you choose. The higher the number the more poems needed to enter your slam and again if it's a specific category rather than an open all slam it will be harder to fill. If you choose 10 players there will be 9 rounds which means each player will need 9 poems in whatever category you choose.
4)Randomize Me is the same as match play except the players cannot change their poems once they enter the slam. The system chooses the poems and those are the ones they must play. (So the same rules about choosing the number of poems applies here as with the Match Play slam).
5) head to head is two players battling it out in the number of rounds chosen by the person who set up the slam. so again take caution when choosing a category and number of poems.
I hope this helps and we can eliminate common mistakes that make slams impossible to fill. keep on slamming!
I was just thinking that it's a good thing we aren't charged karma points for every private message we send as I just sent out a bunch more encouraging folks to join a few more of the slams .
Hey guys and gals, I can't believe this slam hasn't been filled by now, but I see some guys awaiting partners and even a young woman awaiting a partner, so how about some of you just jump on in and grab a partner and fill in those spaces. Since they are already awaiting someone to lead them to the floor you won't even have to find someone to take to the dance Smile.
Bogeyman, JohnnyMagnum, Brennan, loisseau, zackattack, and jahnvi are all awaiting someone to take the floor with them. If we can get partners for them that will leave only two empty slots to fill. Come on! help us get this one going!
gotpoetry.com/Page_Sla...d=959.html
and of course if anyone wants to join but needs the karma just let me know and it shall be yours. hugs!!! zbird
In the coffee shop workshop it was asked why we write poetry and my response was to preserve my sanity. Life has too many problems, stresses, and worries that we all need a release. Mine is through poetry. Which is one reason why I love the slams! Someone will put up a slam about a topic of which I have not written any poems. This is a challenge to me and working on these poems takes me out of reality for that time and when I am done and come back to the real world it is often with a renewed attitude. There were slams about Spring, Sunsets and even Wine - so I sat and wrote and wrote and rewrote until I had enough poems for each slam, that I felt were worthy of posting. I became so intrigued by the Broken Finger poetry that of course, I had to give it a try and now I have Broken Finger poems whenever one of those slams comes up. So, when you see a slam up there that has a topic, in which you have no poems, take it as a challenge and let your creative side move you along. Keep writing!
Yep, today I applied for my retirement social security benefits and my benefits will start in April. It's nice to know there will be some extra money, but dang! I finally reached that magic age..... I'm still not quite sure how i feel about it. But it is a marking point in life.
My brother, Joe, uploaded my grandma rap video to youtube. It's not all that exciting but if you want to see me and hear me read it check out
hopefully this will get you there
Well, Christmas break is coming up for the college and my husband will be home for a few weeks. In that time don't expect to see me online much as my time will be spent watching movies and playing chess with him. Just relaxing and having some fun. At least we hope the cats will allow us some chess time. . I will be on once in awhile just to check up on all of you slam slackers. I see more slams piled up during my illness. tsk tsk tsk. So get busy and join some slams for the holidays! catch you when I can.
Ah, let's go to the hop
Let's go to the hop (oh baby)
Let's go to the hop (oh baby)
Let's go to the hop
Come on, let's go to the hop
Come on everyone! Melly is throwing a sock hop and you don't want to miss this one! Be there ore be square! Read the comments because this is a sock hop with a twist! No, I don't mean the Chubby Checkers twist, although that may be one of the dances later in the hop. .
So go on over to the pending slams and check this one out!
Part of the fun of filling the slams is watching who wins. For awhile there the same people were entering and the same people were winning, but as I look down the list of the latest completed slams I have to smile. There is a different winner for almost every slam! I love it! It is so much more fun when there are a variety of winners and everyone gets to enjoy the fun of winning a slam. Congratulations to all the winners and I do hope more new people will be encouraged, by seeing that it isn't always the same ones who win, and jump in on some of the pending slams. You never know - you may be the next winner .
.:: Home
:: Poems
:: Workshop Forums :: Register
:: Features
::.
Membership:
Latest: Tamara
New Today: 0
New Yesterday: 7
Overall: 10139
Members: 3
Visitors: 193
Staff: 0
- Use an RSS reader to stay up to date with the latest news and posts from GotPoetry.
You can syndicate other parts of our site using the following files:
Inside
Community
Reference
Communication
