Site of the Week

A new poetry prize isn’t usually particularly big news, but when its for the benefit of the Mines Advisory Group, is run online via a lovely website, and is judged by other entries, we just had to make it our site of the week.
“It’s a knockout system in three rounds – but beware, if you don’t participate in the judging, you will be knocked out yourself! The judging will take place in the 2 months following closure of the competition. The judging mechanism ensures that entries are read by a huge number of poets”, reads the blurb on the Poetic Republic website where this all takes place.
I’ve entered so many poetry competitions over the year where the judging has been opaque at best, that this seems a great opportunity for those of us who prefer to write rhymes down rather than spout them out, to be part of our very own “poetry slam”.
Poetic Republic was born out of Poetica, a completely open writing forum based in Central Library, and so has a real grass roots feel to it. Also, they’re honest enough to admit that the competition “is experimental in nature and the outcome is therefore unpredictable.”
“Our experience, however, is that generally writers have an intuitive eye for what is good” – a sentiment with which I can only agree.
Therefore, though its a little more sophisticated than a blog, and runs up to the 2009 Manchester International Festival, of which it forms part of the “Not Part Of” fringe, it’s a more than worthy pre-Christmas site of the week.
We are always hunting around for blogs or websites to feature here, and in Saturday’s M.E.N on the e-view page so, if you’ve got one to nominate, submit a link below or contact us. The only criteria is that they have some connection with Manchester.