Happy New Year! We have another year of events, workshops, open mics, fests, and tabling. If you aren’t familiar with the Lehigh Valley Poetry Collective, let’s start by explaining that this is a loose collective of poets who collaborate on events and projects and share resources to build community. Whether it means sharing a table with other poets at an event, cohosting an open mic, developing a program or workshop, sharing on social media- this is simply a group of people who try to do things together. While this can be pretty informal, having a website and “banner” to huddle around can be helpful for a few reasons. First, it makes it clear that an event or project is not about one person named, when we often have a few people pitching in. It helps us with grants and partnerships. It is fluid, and we can add programs and projects depending on what we are able to take on. We can share things, and that is a big part of the mission.
We will continue to monthly virtual salon on the first Monday of the month, starting 2023 with January 2. We host a “mini workshop” from 8:00-8:30, then we start the open mic. Poets can come to one, both, it doesn’t matter. The workshop topics will be posted here each month starting with the next one in February. These are usually prompts, exercises, etc. meant to be quick writing sessions and about 15 minutes of writing time is built into this. It can be helpful for people who feel stuck or struggle to write for themselves. No pressure and sharing is options. You can look back (workshops tab in menu) at previous topics to get an idea of what kinds of prompts we have had.
For January 2, 2023, we will be getting back into our routine. We will be talking about punk, poetry, and why people keep talking about whether or not it is “dead”.
