our vision and mission (woohoo!)

by the Read Write Poem Staff

The new Read Write Poem social network and online magazine has been live (and lively!) for a month now. We thought it would be nice to share our vision and mission statements at this tiniest of anniversary dates. (Yay!)

These statements are also located under our About page, but we want to make sure every member has the chance to see them here on the main site. We also want to take the opportunity to thank everyone for making this community as vibrant, inclusive and engaging as it is. In short: You all rock.

Thanks for the stellar month! Here’s to many more of the same.

Our vision
To be the most vibrant, inclusive, engaging and unpretentious poetry community on the Internet.

Our mission
Read Write Poem facilitates a vibrant online community that gives readers the tools they need to make poetry central to their daily lives, both in virtual and real-world environments. The community encourages readers and writers of poetry at all levels to be more engaged with a wide range of traditional and contemporary poetry, with other poets, and with members of their local, regional, national and international communities. Read Write Poem works in tandem with and also outside of traditional frameworks such as academic institutions, providing an alternative method for learning, teaching, sharing and discussing poetry.

Breakdown of the mission (our mini-vision statements)
Read Write Poem facilitates a vibrant online community that gives readers the tools they need to make poetry central to their daily lives, both in virtual and real-world environments.

• We put information at people’s fingertips, on the internet, where many people spend hours each day already.
• We encourage discussions of poetry and direct, immediate engagement with our content.
• We share writing prompts each week, thus promoting consistent, ongoing writing practice.
• We give poets a place to share their work who otherwise might not be able to share it, which is especially important for those who don’t live in areas with strong poetry communities and for those who have mobility or health issues that make getting out into their own physical communities difficult.
• We give members forums and groups in which to discuss what is most important and compelling to them about poetry.
• We leverage the latest technologies to provide a robust, enriched user experience and enhance the community by leveraging the latest technologies.
• We demonstrate that technology doesn’t have to be secondary to writing practices but can be integral to those practices.

The community encourages readers and writers of poetry at all levels to be more engaged with a wide range of traditional and contemporary poetry, with other poets, and with members of their local, regional, national and international communities.

• We encourage poets to find and build poetry communities where they live, while at the same time expanding their circles to include the larger online poetry community.
• We showcase a broad range of poetry, from classical to contemporary, from traditional to experimental. We expose poets to the work, ideas and opinions of contemporary poets.
• We offer proof that there is not one kind of poetry, that poetry is living and various.

Read Write Poem works in tandem with and also outside of traditional frameworks such as academic institutions, providing an alternative method for learning, teaching, sharing and discussing poetry.

• We involve poets of all levels and with diverse backgrounds and writing styles so the community can learn from and inspire one another in a nonacademic, informal setting.
• We talk about poetry in ways that are inclusive and accessible, opening up the poetry discussion beyond the academy and allowing people to enter into the discussion who would not feel comfortable doing so otherwise or who don’t have the means to do so.
• We offer an alternative to and enhance the way poetry is taught in schools, particularly the K-12 system.
• We offer an alternative to the notion that the MFA program and traditional workshops are the best and only way to learn how to write poetry and to find a community of peers.
• We support and encourage the site’s democratizing, leveling effect, in which poets of all levels are equals and participation matters more than credentials.
• We democratize the act of writing itself. We prove that writing poetry is not a magical act known only to a few elite practitioners.

Comments? Questions? We would love to hear them.