In the new year, I’d like to…
It’s been a good year, folks. Nearly 11,000 of you have found/returned to the Feed since the first poem back in May. The list of poets featured here has grown so long that the sidebar barely contains them. The Feed’s been good for my students, for me, and I trust for you. Thank you for your part in it all.
Yes, my blogging feet are under me, so I’ve been thinking about what the new year could hold for A Poetry Feed. I’d like to…
Entertain more comments, conversations, and questions. I enjoy the occasional feedback in the comments, and I thoroughly enjoy answering your questions–real or imagined–as Agony Aunt. But conversations like that have been a sideline so far, and I’d love more give and take with more of you. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be a stranger. The Comment Section: It’s not just for Laurie anymore!
Earn enough copper to buy the domain name for another year. How? If you click the book title at the end of any post and buy a book—or anything else during that visit to Amazon—A Poetry Feed earns a portion of your sale. I’ll use those pennies to keep the domain ours.
Include more guest readers. Sometimes I envy the variety of voices and accents over at a site like People Reading Poems, and I bet you’d like some of that, too. I’ve run through all my kids already, and I’ll for sure have more posts by my students, but what about you? Send me a recording of you reading a poem you love, and I’ll find a place for it here.
Tweak the organization of the site. Already, there’s a new page at the top where you can easily browse all the poets featured here. When that’s finished, maybe I’ll do the same for all the poems. And I have a few other ideas for keeping things orderly and usable.
Add a little visual variety. Don’t worry. You’ll never show up here and have to worry about suffering Geocities or MySpace-style seizures. But a different color now and then, or a new tagline up top wouldn’t hurt, right?
Connect with new folks. Or you folks in new ways. A Facebook page? Collaboration with other read-aloud blogs? Interviews with Feed poets? Longer readings? A podcast? What do you think?
Reach 50,000 visitors.
And I’m wide open to suggestions. What would make you even happier to visit the Feed and spend time here?
Belly up, it's A Poetry Feed. 
I’m definitely interested in submitting a reading of a poem. What do you use for your recordings? I only have an internal microphone. Interviews with some of the Feed poets would be great, too. Perhaps they, too, can submit readings of their own poems for favorite ones. Thanks for creating this website, too!
Excellent–thanks, Peter. I use Audacity (free download here) and a modest headset mic. After I record, I export/save the poems as mp3’s and then upload those to the blog.
If you don’t want to figure out Audacity for yourself (or already have another recording tool), I plan to post a clear “how-to” sometime in the next couple of weeks. So you can watch for that.
Thanks for reading/listening!
KP
Definitely not just for Laurie! Sorry I can’t shut up! (Well, I could if I would 🙂 )
Cheers! for the New Year! I’m liking the way things are AND your new ideas! Enjoy!
Thanks, Laurie. What would you think of recording a poem for the rest of us, and then we’d comment appreciatively about you? 🙂
Gulp!