Poem/a/Day adds tweetpoems this year to celebrate Poetry Month

An apple a day may keep the doctor away, but a poem a day will help chase the blues away. That’s why we want your poem, your artwork and your “tweetpoems” for this year’s poetry celebration

Lansing Online News (LON) is celebrating National Poetry Month with its second annual Poem/a/day opportunity for area poets to contribute their offerings. And new this year is your chance to submit a Twitter “Tweetpoem” of 140 characters or less that will automatically appear on our home page (see the instructions below).

As we did last year, each day during April we will publish a poem from local and Michigan poets of all levels: published, unpublished, students, teachers, professionals and amateurs. While we are open to different styles, this year we would like to suggest a theme: a sense of place. “Place” can include nearly anything, from the hidden attic inside your head to an ode about a dirty garage.

Submit your poem to us by emailing castanier AT sbcglobal.net (please put POEM in the subject line). Emailing us your poem verifies that you have the rights to the material and that you are giving us permission to publish and to illustrate the poem as we choose.

Please also provide a two- to three-line bio, including the URL of your website or Facebook page if you would like us to link to them. You can also provide suggested artwork, though that is not required.

Calling all artists

We need various kinds of digital art to illustrate the poems - photos, graphics, scans of paintings, animations, videos. If you are a photographer, illustrator, animator or videographer and would like to contribute a digital image or two, please email us with POEM ART in the subject line and attach your submission.

Our new Tweetpoem opportunity

This year we are excited to add a new dimension to our celebration that should send poets atwitter. We are asking you to submit Tweetpoems of less than 140 characters and include the hashtag #LONpoem. Using that #hashtag allows us to capture your tweetpoem from Twitter and display it directly on www.lansingonlinenews.com You can submit as many tweetpoems as you like beginning at midnight April 1.

If you do not have a twitter account, click here to sign up to start the twitter patter.