Writing Poetry on Medium: A Tiny Guide
Welcome to the Family, Poets!
Writing poetry is a passion. I mean you have to really love something to commit yourself to it. Especially if that thing is poetry, a weird little niche of writing where everyone has opinions, critique, and very little budging in terms of what they like or don’t like. And that’s fine. Because whatever poetry is, it is freedom. Freedom to express, create, explore, and be who and what you are. Within that people find you. Somehow.
Now, no one is going to find you if you are not putting yourself out there. And Medium is this space and place like no other online when it comes to poetry, poetry lovers, and poetry appreciation.
Yes, I subscribe to Poetry Magazine. I flirt with the idea of submitting poems to journals and to seeing how this all works.
But also, I have a confession: rejection hurts and I am impatient.
Publishing poetry on Medium is simple, fast, and if you start your own poetry publication for your own poetry, well there is no rejection. And then you wait and see what happens. Sometimes things hit, somethings things miss but what I especially enjoy is no matter what there it is: your poem. Your poem with all of its poem friends. On your profile page. This thing you have done. This creation you have created. This organized neat little space of your work.
It feels like an accomplishment, really. And it is.
And once you release your poem into the wild of this world, which is not really all that wild, because actually what it feels like is a soft pile of lovely pillows and blankets, like a fort, a fort of friends, you get to feel this support, this community, this feedback, and you also get to be this for others. Poetry on Medium is like a pillow fort of happy friends, really.
We work, we write, we post, we read and we do our best to clap and comment when we can, however we can. On Medium you can highlight, that’s nice. You can also, sparingly and with respect, leave private notes. And you can meet great people from all over the world.
All of this is highly recommended, down to earth, chill and awesome.
Join Medium. Join the MPP Program. Do I have tips? Maybe. But mostly the first tip is to join it. Join Medium. Yes pay to be a member, please. The little green circle around your profile pic means you are a member and that your reads give other writers a bit of money. A small bit. A nice bit.
Have Poetry to Share Next, have some nice poetry to share. I mean this is very important. Have some poetry to share. Maybe you have been writing for a while but have had no place to put this poetry. Maybe you have been writing and sending poetry into journals and getting non-stop rejected, which is the case for a lot of us. Maybe you have this idea about writing poetry but have yet to try it.
Guess what? Medium is a very safe place to share your poetry, new and old. It is a very safe place to explore the poet that lives in you. So, go for it. Tips on writing poetry? Perhaps I have a few:
Formatting The formatting is easy but you can see the trajectory of new to seasoned poets by going to the first few poems on our Medium profiles. I started out rough and it shows, folks. Posting on Medium — and formatting — can be answered via my friend’s article here, which is a life saver for many (Thanks Christina M. Ward!):
Photo The other thing is having that photo. Sometimes it annoys me to pieces. Sometimes I just cannot stand picking a photo. Sometimes it feels and looks cheesy. And yet, here I am. I do it. I go for it. Because this is part of the unsigned social agreement of Medium. Some kind of uniformity of what our pages look like, some kind of comfort in the same-ness of it all. There’s freedom in this, but you have to cite and credit the photo if you do not use everyone’s favorite and too easy UnSplash site.
Little Bio Stuff
So, you have your poem, a picture, great. I would have a nice bio to post at the end of your creation. I also enjoy putting a link or two to one of your other poems at the bottom of your poem, typically after your bio. Some people add a link to a newsletter, or blog, or to books for sale. It is up to you, you do you. There might be some rules or laws that help with curation, but I am going to say something mad controversial: curation is just alright.
Curation A tiny word on curation: it used to happen to me more often, now it does not. But overall, I feel the same about the quality of my poetry, and I feel the same about the quality of my readers. Curation in poetry does not mean omg get ready for a flood of new readers. Sorry, fam. It just means it is going to be on a special page and nice people who go to this page will see your poem and the poems of other poets who got curated that day. It is nice, it is really a happy feeling. But, not being curated should not be a sad feeling, okay?
Publications Just write and grow and read and write. Let’s see what’s next? Oh a publication. There are a lot of Poetry Pubs on Medium. Here’s an article about all of that (Thanks Laura Manipura!)
Sharing is Caring: Social Media After all of this comes the potential social media blitz. Sharing your stuff. Share it where you spend time. Share it once or twice. I am not as good at this as I wish. It is exhausting that’s why. And again, it is rare to see a massive rush of people come to any poem — it has happened once or twice, and I have truly appreciated it, and thanked the universe, but it is rare. However, sharing is caring and that is why you might do this. And also, it is neat when you share the work of other poets on Medium too.
I hope this was a helpful little intro into the world of Poetry on Medium. Now that you have done it once, the thing is to keep doing it. Some of us do it every day. Some of us do it three times a week. Some of us stop by when we can. We have lost a lot of Poets in the Great Medium MPP payment Change of 2019. More on that can be found here, but the past is past, right?:
As long as we use this platform with care and respect, and as long as we give our poetry to it and give our reads to it, it is a really magical place regardless of how much it pays for our work. Poetry — well, here, here’s a poem on what I was just going to write as a sentence, because why not, right?
If you are new to Poetry, or new to Poetry on Medium stop by and say hi in the comments. We have some great resources, a neat Facebook group devoted to us, and again, poets on Medium are some of the best people, worldwide.
Thank you for reading and for your support for poetry and poets!
©Jenny Justice. All Rights Reserved.
Jenny Justice, Poet. Author of Love in the Time of Climate Change and Reveal. You can read more of her poetry at Justice Poetic. Sign up for her newsletter here.
