I remember that there used to (unless it’s still going on?) be a This Week in News Genius that would recap some of the best parts of that site that would be circulated around the Forums, and that got me thinking, along with the discussion today about better including the newly-verified community: why don’t we start a site-run literary journal/periodical of sorts? While it might at first sound like something way too serious to ever take off, I imagine it constructed like this:

• Every month, we will accept submissions from users who have thrown up and annotated their own works. In addition, verified artists' (non-users) newest additions will be compiled by a few editors and moderators, and then the best will be chosen.

• Supplementing the highlighting of literary works on the site, we can provide links to the most stimulating discussions found on the Forums, whether they be on poetic forms, the great American novel, and so on.

What might this accomplish?

• Continued exposure for Poetry Genius.
• An incentive for users to create and share their own works.
• A further guaranteed method of notoriety for verified authors of all kinds.
• Continually tying in the productive discussions found on the Forums with the works they apply to on the site.
• Showing that we are more than just a site that succeeds in annotating the works of others, that we are the future of all aspects of the written word.

Comments/suggestions/critiques are more than welcome, and I am also wondering how we can incorporate News Genius into this whole venture; so far, the Forums idea seems to be the most plausible for inter-Genius collaboration.

@poetry-genius-forum @newsgeniuseditors @genius-moderators

I like this idea, partially because I think I’m a pretty good poet.

I’m down, great idea!

Pretty cool!

Let’s do it!

What’s the best format? Text page? Forum post?

I think the fact that it’s monthly (instead of weekly) is nice/sustainable.

@nietzsche

Do you see this working in the blog format? Would it primarily be linking back to other content, or would we be writing fresh copy for it (I think the latter, e.g. attempting to summarize the forum topics then linking back to them.)

Also, what about… rotating editorship?!

we are the future of all aspects of the written word.

YES!

@dalmo I drew a slight template of what I could imagine it being as a page, if the blog post doesn’t work. @stephen_j_p I LOVE the idea of rotating editorship. Really puts the communal aspect to it all.

Also, I promise that my handwriting and art skills are way better than this.

Love the enthusiasm behind this. Here are a few thoughts:

I would suggest that this not be a “Poetry Genius” or “Poetry Genius Editors” branded project. Instead, I’d suggest that either:

• the editors involved in it come up with a separate name, maybe a unifying concept, etc., and present it as its own beast being published THROUGH Poetry Genius

or

• we envision this as more of an informal contest than a formal, recurring publication.

Why make these distinctions? A few reasons, but the main one is that we want the “Poetry Genius”/“Genius” name to be synonymous with open access and universal self-publishing, not the traditional “submissions reviewed by gatekeepers” model that every literary journal embraces. We still have a lot of work to do to help users understand that they can participate actively as well as passively, add and annotate their own work, etc.

Also, as mentioned before, we’re generally trying to reserve the “Poetry Genius” branding for educational materials and occasional in-house blog posts.

Does this work?

I think this is a great concept, but it also sounds like a lot of work, which can be the death of any ambitious project. That being said, I’d always support new ways to make material on this site more accessible.

In reference to the OP: I have enough notoriety, @nietzsche – how about a little fame instead? ;-)

Okay, as I stated above, I think this is an excellent excellent idea– but the logistics could do with a bit of refining. @nietzsche – I think we should keep the first one small, focused and tight and see how it works. Would you be up for editing– which would actually be creating– the first post, say for the end of this month? I would look at maybe 3 of the biggest PG stories (say, 1 individual text, 1 really good tate, and the GoT excerpts), and then maybe one user-submitted text.

Your design is dope but I’m not sure it would survive the conversion to blog format unscathed– we can add pictures but they have to be centralized, so maybe group the three items under a picture/stylized text heading thing?