But I seem to be myself, I've spent the day writing fairly harsh critiques and enjoying it thoroughly despite the fact my head hurts, my body aches and I can't raise my right arm.

Ah, harsh honest critiques, and one pretty crappy poem are the best therapy!

haiku style

Haiku - has 17 syllables in three lines of 5,7,5
The first line has 5 syllables
the second line has 7 syllables
the third line has 5 syllables
An example of haiku in this form is;

my restless spirit
long for Nantucket's water
along her south shore

hore

japanese poetry- tanka style

Tanka- has 31 syllables written in two parts.
The first part is same as Haiku- 5,7,5 and
the second part is 7, 7.

An example of tanka structure;

My restless spirit
Long to see island's north shore
They share her beauty
Sparkling waters with tourists
As I plan Nantucket cruise

China Blue is looking for people to volunteer for this position. If you are interested, please get in touch with her. She has a blog explaining what the position entails:

http://www.neopoet.com/china-blue/blog/sun-2012-03-25-1159

Thanks, Cat

I have been asked enough time "what is a chat room moderator" that I felt the need to give a description of same.

Pre-moderator
Any member may become one. They are in short moderators in training for the moderators/host program

Training consists of
four(4) open chat rooms( no theme)

you will be evaluated on each room. No pre moderator will be left in a room on their own. The director or co director will be monitoring you and at the same time coaching you.

I would like to invite those that wish to host/moderate a chat room to contact China Blue or Nichole
for details.
You will be trained
and you will not be left alone there will always be someone to guide you along during your training period

There are very few guidelines you will need to know this will be explained during training.

Hi Ya'll
I was reading one of Norton's Anthologies on poetry and ran across a quote by Robert Frost..:
"Writing free verse poetry is like playing tennis without a net". And this is from a poet who used free verse lol. Thought you would all get a laugh out of this...................stan

On Saturday March, 31st, Chat on the Darkside, everyone should bring a poem with the theme of no hope.
There will be no happy-endings! I want your darkest endings for the subject of said poem. You have a whole week, so I expect that I will see some very sad and despairing ends for these poems. We will critique and discuss the poems and the endings. ~ Geezer

I would appreciate It if All would take time to respond to this. In doing so it might help me in the event that I decide to inflict another workshop on ya'll..................stan
1. Was this shop enjoyable?
2. Were instructions clear and easy to follow?
3. Did leader seem to know what he was talking about?
4. on a scale of 1-5 with 1 be very easy and 5 being very hard how would you rate difficulty of shop?
5. Do you feel like you learned anything?
6. How could it have been improved?

thanks...............stan

Consider your audience, consider yourself as your own audience.

Consider the title to your poem. What does it say that draws the reader in? What is that first line that
is skillful, unique and would tempt the reader to go beyond the first line without groans and moans or to
stop reading it in mid-sentence because it lacks even rudimentary wordsmithing. Is it the same old
same old, rewritten a thousand times, and much better by a thousand and one poets? Do you really
think you only have an audience of one in your head?