Colorado Poets Center E-Words Issue #5
Inside issue #5:
Who Are “The Poetry Victims”?
When Jeffrey Spahr-Summers noticed in 2003 that his 13-year-old son was reading O’Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces, he realized the boy might be ready to read his father’s poetry and started sending him a poem by e-mail every day. Soon others in his family were added to the mailing list and then other friends. These became, he says, “victims of my poetry.”
On April Fool’s Day in 2004, he made it official, stylizing the look of his e-mails and actively calling for poems from other poets. Each of those first issues included a poem of Jeffrey’s, a commentary by him, and a poem by a guest poet. By the end of 2004, he was sending The Poetry Victims to over 460 people in over 22 countries.
After moving back to Colorado in 2006, he switched to a blog format and continued his work, averaging one issue a week. He’s also created other blogs (ZZ Baggins Photography, Liar Liar Pants on Fire (political commentary), Americana Photographic (photography), Bent Backed Tulips (art and computer-generated art), Frank Talk Blog, and ZZ Baggins’ Diary, all with their own slant.
AMP (Artists’ Meeting Place & Resource Collective) describes The Poetry Victims as “a weekly poetry and art e-zine with commentary and special links to other literature publications. Each issue features current poetry news, music clips, a guest artist or photographer and a guest poet.”
The new Poetry Victims currently goes out to over 400 people, mostly poets, writers, artists, photographers, editors and publishers of small press and on-line magazines in 28 countries.
The fifth volume is found at http://thepoetryvictims
vol5.blogspot.com/
