The excitement and micro-poem fever has been building on Twitter since April 2019. Within weeks, the new Twitter feed @BlackBoughpoems had hundreds of followers and almost fifty poets submitted two or three poems each to the new digital Broadsheet project.
It is a delight that this project has received contributions from experienced and award-winning poets, such as Glen Wilson, Natalie Holborow, Rae Howells and Mari Ellis Dunning, to name but a few, who sent amazing new poems. What also wasn't expected was two Poet Laureates to contribute a poem each. Ifor Ap Glyn, National Poet of Wales, gave a bilingual poem in Welsh and English and Professor Jack Bedell, Poet Laureate of Louisiana, was an early entrant. Of greatest excitement has been the work of so many varied poet from across the globe, who have all linked up in Twitter, liking posts, retweeting, following each other - a new online community of support growing.
New poets, Creative Writing Students, Indie poets, published poets - all have shown great enthusiasm for this project, which was inspired by the 'Panning for Poems' Broadside project run by Geraldine and Colin of Poetry Northern Ireland.
This project is about not letting talent slip away, to give publishing opportunities to people who may not have had the chance before. It is about uniting them with role models and leading poetry figures, who can use this as a testing ground and to be inspired by raw talent. We can all learn from each other.
All authors keep the copyright of their own work. We ask that they mention Black Bough in the future if they publish their poem again (for example in their own books or in anthologies). This helps to spread the word.
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