Several years ago, I attended a creative writing class in my neighborhood. For years, I’d been writing poetry but except for some advice from dear friends, I’d never had a serious critique of my poems. Attending the creative writing class was a successful endeavor. The critiques my poems received from the teacher and my fellow students/writers made my writing riper, stronger, and significantly more succinct. However, over time, I noticed that our time in class was spent primarily on analyzing prose pieces.

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We read and write poetry because we have an intrinsic passion for words and their broad spectrum of meanings. Poetry writing is a creative process usually carried out in solitude, yet I believe that most poets yearn for some feedback, preferably in the form of constructive criticism. A childhood friend told me once that he stopped writing poetry because he didn't have an audience any longer.  Reading poetry to an audience could be in itself a powerful motivation to keep writing. This being said, how do you find an audience for your poetry and how do you maintain these readings on a regular basis? Perhaps by founding a poetry group, which I did when I established the Vaughan Poets’ Circle.

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Here is a plan you can adopt to establish your own local group:

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· Find a rent-free venue in which to conduct regular meetings - I live next to a public library. I emailed the Head Librarian of my city, introduced myself, and related my plan to found a poetry-writing group. I asked for a free room on a Saturday (I knew that most of the library programs are offered during weekdays. Therefore, the likelihood of getting a free room on the weekend was higher.) The Head Librarian was delighted to give me the opportunity to organize the program pro bono. The library was even willing to supply complimentary refreshments (and still does).

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· Name the group. Since my city’s public library sponsored the program, the group’s name had to include the city’s name.

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· Create a core group. Once your rent-free venue is set-up, call a few friends or acquaintances, tell them about the new group, and invite them to attend the first meeting. In my case, four of my fellow students from the creative writing class were thrilled to join the new group and have since been attending and participating in the monthly meetings.

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· Publicize the event/meeting in free outlets. In today’s cyber-culture, your local poets may belong to many web groups. Hence, advertising the meetings in national and international websites and forums could bring local poets to your meetings. Announce the meetings, at least in the beginning as the group is forming, on Craig’s List, poetry @ about.com, MeetUp.com, Outsider Writers and allpoetry.com. Winning Writers, a well-organized web resource for poets, offers an extensive list of poetry forums. Alternatively, send announcements to your local newspapers. They usually publish community events for free. Our library printed bookmarks and posters to advertise the new program which the members then brought to other libraries, community centers, coffee shops, and local bookstores.

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· Create an agenda for the meetings. Here is where your imagination can go free. Create guidelines for submissions – start with one to two poems for each member and change the guidelines according to attendance. Structure your time allotment so that the group starts and finishes on time. The Vaughan Poets’ Circle began meeting monthly for two hours. In the beginning, the time span seemed a bit lengthy. As a result, I contacted local published poets and invited them to read from their collections and conduct question & answer periods. As compensation, they were able to sell their books to the members. The readings became quite inspiring to the budding poets in the group. The atmosphere is relaxed, non-competitive, and supportive. Members share their doubts and successes. So far, the group has published a collective chapbook Waging Change: Vaughan Poets Engage in Politics (2007) and a bound anthology Earth to Moon (2009). Both were successfully launched in the community.

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The Vaughan Poets’ Circle has been holding its meetings regularly for the last five years. Its members have since published chapbooks and book-length collections, as well as contributed to national and international publications.

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Thanks for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Dina Ripsman Eylon, Guest Blogger

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Author and publisher, Dina Ripsman Eylon has a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. For the past thirteen years, she has served as the publisher and editor-in-chief of Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary Journal, a gender-related publication, which has engaged and promoted new feminist scholarship in Jewish Studies. Her book, Reincarnation in Jewish Mysticism and Gnosticism, was published by Edwin Mellen Press (2003). Eylon founded the Vaughan Poets’ Circle and serves as the Thornhill branch manager of the Ontario Poetry Society. - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor