the new read write poem — bigger and better

by the Read Write Poem Staff

Hello again, everyone! This is our second post about the new Read Write Poem site, which we’re aiming to launch July 31 — just three days from now!

One thing we should mention is that there will be some downtime as we move all the information to the new site and get it up an running. In the next couple of days, we’ll give you more details about exactly when to expect that downtime.

But for now, would you like a sneak peek of the new features you will see on the site after we launch? We thought so. Here’s the rundown:

Profile pages
These pages will replace the list of participants that we have been manually updating on the site. Now, you will be able to create your own profile page in a matter of minutes. Your profile will include not only your website, but also a photo, information about you, what type of poetry you like to read, and links to other places participants can find you online, such as Facebook, Identi.ca and Twitter.

A personal news wire
The wire is associated with your profile and will allow you to post status messages, short poems, announcements about publications, poetry news and the like. You can use this feed to share just about anything poetry-related — and even things that aren’t poetry-related.

Forums
We will offer several forums on the new site, where participants can discuss poetry, share poetry news, post calls for submissions, connect with one another for collaborative projects and more. If it’s poetry-related, you can discuss it on the forums.

Critique forums
We have created a special group of poetry-sharing and critique forums, with designations for different levels of sharing and critique. This is our first foray into critique, and we wanted to offer it as an option for our participants who might love sharing work written to each week’s prompt, but who also want others to dig into their work a little more. We believe the critique forums will be quite popular, based on the results of our recent poll asking what functionality participants want to see on the new site.

Groups
Hooray for groups! We are thrilled to offer this feature, which is a way for participants to connect with those who have similar interests in poetry. Do you love prose poetry? There’s a group for that. How about formal poetry? There’s a group for that as well. And if you don’t see your groups listed among all the choices offered, you can start your own group. Each group has its own wire for group-related news. Some groups will have forums associated with them, so you will have even more ways to communicate with group members.

Private messaging
We know from our recent poll that this isn’t the most anticipated function on the new site. But it comes bundled with all our other new features, so you’re getting it. No worries, though. You can forward Read Write Poem messages to your personal email account so you don’t have to check two sites.

Friending
You will be able to friend people on the new site. Friending someone allows you to email one another and see each other’s wires. It will also help us keep track of one another as the site grows.

Subblogs
This is one of the features of the new site that we are most excited about. The feature won’t be available at launch; we are hoping to roll it out by the end of the year. We will offer a handful of blogs linked to the main site that provide more content on specific types of poetry and poetry interests. We will keep you in the loop on this feature as it evolves.

Now, if you have read through all of these fantastic features, and it’s just not what you want — no worries. We strongly encourage participants to become members and take advantage of any and all of these ways to engage with the community. But it’s completely and totally optional.

Even without becoming a member, you can still read and respond to all the content we will be sharing on the main site, as well as participating in our Read Write Prompts. Just remember: Getting an account is free, and it’s easy. Why not explore everything the community has to offer?