Please Join the Revelry at Cherita Fitzgerald!

Dear LivePoets,

You will soon all be receiving invitations to join a new Blog that I have wistfully named ‘Cherita Fitzgerald.’ It is a site for poetic extrapolation, cooperatively braiding of various poetic forms, working together to create layered verse and compose reflective poetry.

The new Blog is also under the umbrella of The Soul Food Café. I want to make it very clear that Cherita Fitzgerald is in addition to, not taking the place of LivePoets. I hope that our output here continues to be as full of both quantity and obvious quality as it has always been. We will certainly still see poetic forms here, in fact I will not discourage cross posting in anyway and we may bring pieces from one Blog to the other.

Of course Cherita Fitzgerald is just the catchy name that I choose to call this Blog, what we do there certainly need not be restricted to these two forms. Poetic forms are practically endless and many of them lend themselves to partnering and cooperative poetic blending and reflecting. Renga, Sijo, Tanka and Hakiu are a few other forms that spring to mind. And Tan Renga! Which, like our friend Cherita Fitzgerald is a combination of forms . . . looking like a tanka and working like a renga. Then there is the Marquisette which Mrs. Marsh may have invented. (The final word hasn't come in on the name yet!) And the Marquisette Fitzgerald . . . the vistas are endless!

I hope you will all take the plunge and join Cherita Fitzgerald and give it a try. If you are new to poetic forms, please do not let this stop you. They are easy to learn and often very easy to use. Several of us have recently discussed the fact that, though it seems strange, working within a poetic form often makes writing poetry easier. It can act as a laser and bring your focus to a point where the words flow in a way they otherwise wouldn’t. There is also something really lovely about the blending of words, thoughts, minds and spirits that this brings about. As writers, we often talk to each other about writing; we read each others writing, but this experiment of extrapolation, braiding and reflection takes working with other writers a step further into something really fascinating and new.

I will quote faucon of Sakin'el (since I have already done so all over the new Blog!) These blended forms bring “a golden braid of mind, soul and spirit endlessly folding back upon itself to reflect new images of poet and EveryLight”.

Everyone please join the revelry at Cherita Fitzgerald! Heather and I are already there, waiting for fun. All you have to do is hit "accept" when the invitation comes.

~ Winnie