I wanted to tell you about a fantastic social media initiative that is also a great example of the kinds of things that are being born out of the creative conditions created by the lockdown.

Tara Skurtu, wonderful poet and writer had the idea for The International Poetry Circle in March. She wanted to create a place to bring poets, poetry readers and poetry lovers together as we headed into sheltering, cocooning, quarantining and socially isolating ourselves.

“People often turn to poetry in tough times,” she said, “so I’m starting Poetry Circle—a growing thread of people reading their poems and their favorite poems.” To date, she has over 1000 poems on there.

For full details, read Tara's Twitter post below–and watch her introductory video. It explains all and you'll see poetry in motion@!

But in short, if you're a poet, create and post a video of you reading your poetry. If you're a poetry lover, and post a video of you reading a poem you love.

We are going to bring some of Tara's poets to an extended edition of our Indie Poetry Please! podcast in May. If you'd like your poetry to be considered too, go here.

Till next time,

May your life be filled with poetry!

FROM TARA — @taraskurtu (@TaraSkurtu): 

I’ve started getting media requests, so I wrote up this brief description of #InternationalPoetryCircle and how to contribute. Everyone is welcome to join and read poems. Stay safe and well, and please take care of yourselves and each other. 💙 @IntPoetryCircle

https://t.co/wj8bUMwu0n pic.twitter.com/krS9BcijDD