Are you a poet who doesn’t know it?

WordPress.com’s Blogging U begins its Writing 201: Poetry class tomorrow. Lasting 2 weeks (with weekends off), each day the course will provide a prompt for a poetic experiment that you can share with other class members via your blog and discuss on the private course site, the Commons. Despite the 201 label, you don’t need any specific writing experience, just an interest in trying poetry for yourself in a no-pressure environment. If you miss a day, nothing bad happens. 🙂

To prove how painless it is to try out a Blogging U course, I’m signing up myself. Will it be potentially embarrassing to share poetry on my personal blog? Yes, possibly. I’m not a poet by any stretch, as evidenced by the Doctor Who-themed song I posted once that was a result of a Coursera songwriting course.

Based on what I’ve seen in the Blogging U Commons from past courses — I’ve not taken one myself yet, I’ll be a newbie just like you! — I have a feeling that it will be a lot more fun than the student assignment forums in that Coursera songrwriting course, where people seemed to be really anxious about “getting it right” and tended to sound really stressed out. In the Blogging U Commons, everyone is there to have fun, learn a little something, and create blog posts in the process.

Who’s up for 2 weeks of writing poems? Silly or serious, anything goes. Will you take the challenge and join me in Writing 201: Poetry for the next two weeks?

I leave you with a poem that was written by a trumpet player in my high school band that has stuck with me for going on 30 years now:

Roses are red
Violets are blue
You think this will rhyme
But it won’t

 
Sign up for Writing 201: Poetry now!

(And tell me in the comments on this post so I can keep an eye out for you in the Commons!)