WHAT IS THIS?
It is an online community devoted to sharing writing prompts and the poems that come out of them. On the blog, we post prompts. On the forum, we invite you to share the poems that you’ve written based on the prompts.

WHO CAN JOIN?
Anyone. Just click here to register. You’ll be asked to sign in when you want to read or post on the forum; you don’t need to register to read the blog.

WHO ARE YOU?
We are poetry MFA students at George Mason University.

WAIT, IF I POST MY POEM ON THE FORUM WILL IT BE CONSIDERED “PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED”?
No. This is why the forum is user name/password protected. According to DUOTROPE and WRITER’S MARKET, “most publishers consider works that have been freely available to the public to have been previously published. You won’t be able to sell First Rights on such a story. If you join an online critiquing group, make sure people need to register and log in to read your story” (DUOTROPE).

WHAT’S THE SUMMER CHALLENGE?
In July and August, the Poetry Instigator is partnering with four awesome national literary journals to bring you four weeks of cool prompts, literary discussions, special features, and more. Each week, an editor from one of the featured journals will read the poems based on the week’s prompt and choose a winner, who will receive a free year’s subscription to the journal. This challenge is totally free and open to everyone. Participate for one week, or all four! You can write and post a poem on any prompt any time you like, but to be considered for a summer journal prize, you must post your poem to the forum during the same week the prompt was posted.

We hope our challenge increases productivity and user satisfaction!

Schedule
July 20-26:  PHOEBE (deadline midnight, July 26)
July 27-August 2:  SO TO SPEAK (deadline midnight, August 2)
August 3-August 9:  32 POEMS (deadline midnight, August 9)
August 10-August 16:  SMARTISH PACE (deadline midnight, August 16)

HOW DO I POST A POEM ON THE FORUM?
The blog portion of the site, where we post prompts, is open to everybody. To read and contribute to the forum, you must register first. A few minutes after you register, you’ll receive an email containing your password. Use it to log in, and click on discussion stream that correlates to the prompt that instigated your poem (you can also post a comment, question, or complaint about a prompt here). At the bottom of the page, in the REPLY box, paste your poem, then click SEND POST. Viola!

We invite and encourage you to register for the forum and get involved in our poetry community.

HOW DO I CHANGE MY PASSWORD?
If you’ve registered for the forum and you want to change your password from the impossible-to-remember one that you were issued:

1. Log in using the user name you chose and password you were emailed.

2. Click on your name (“Welcome, NAME!”). This will take you to your PROFILE. At the upper right-hand side of the page, click the middle tab, EDIT. At the bottom of this page, you may type in a new password and confirm it.

HOW DO I GET A PICTURE NEXT TO MY NAME IN THE FORUM?
Our forum IDs are supported by Gravatar, which allows you to upload an image that appears beside your user name not only on the Poetry Instigator but on numerous other sites as well. Sign up for Gravatar and follow its instructions for adding a picture to your ID, then register  with the Poetry Instigator forum using the name and password you created for Gravatar.

If you’ve already created a user name and password for the Poetry Instigator forum, you can still sign up for a Gravatar ID, but if your Poetry Instigator user name is already in use as a Gravatar ID, you’ll (unfortunately) have to create a new ID for the Poetry Instigator if you want your Gravatar picture to show up on the Poetry Instigator forum.

It’s a little confusing, but once you get your Gravatar/Poetry Instigator user name in place, you’ll have a handy picture and user name that you can on numerous sites, blogs, and forums!