Poetic Republic – a poetic e-democracy
Poetic Republic is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the promotion of the poetic arts and humanitarian causes. It was born out of Poetica, a completely open writing forum based in Central Library, Manchester, UK.
In July 2007 Manchester was galvanised by a festival of original new work across the spectrum of popular culture and art - Manchester International Festival. Yet somehow poetry missed out. This triggered a mission to bring the same sense of vision to the writing and sharing of poetry. The result was the launch of a new kind of poetry competition – the MAG Poetry Prize - a poetic e-democracy that fully takes advantage of the possibilities opened up by the web.
The Competition is for anyone across the world who writes in English.
The winners are selected by a community of poets and thus reflect the taste of a collective sensibility rather than one or two individuals. The entrants only have to read 12 poems in each round yet the combined effect is very powerful.
The judging mechanism (or e-voting process) is designed to avoid the common pitfalls of participation voting such as multiple voting and friends voting for friends. So everyone can just focus on the poetry.
In the first year of the competition, the judging mechanism was successfully trialled (see poetry competition report). Now in the second year we have enhanced the judging process so that participants can also leave comments.
Poetic Republic supports the humanitarian organisation MAG (Mines Advisory Group). MAG works efficiently and in a practical way to get conflict-affected communities back onto a positive track. MAG puts resources into building a peaceful world.
If you have any thoughts or comments on the competition please don’t hesitate to email.
Poetic Republic
Manchester, UK.
