From the inside of the closed facebook group it has been like this: I see others post their poems, I like them if I like them. I comment, briefly and instantly. I read the other comments. I an not scared of commenting. I say if I don't understand a word or stumble somewhere. If the other wants to they post an edit, or they don't.
I enjoy specifying what I love in a poem. It isn't deeply thought out, but a sudden pointing to a word or phrase. I enjoy putting brief replies, no need for these long correct sentences.
When I write it is usually directly into the facebook box, but I sometimes write into my email drafts, or type out something I have come to after writing in longhand on paper. That is a different process.
There is a sod it moment when I press send. We have shared some intimate writing with each other.
Overall I now have massively high expectations from any poetry group I am part of, since I know what it is like to have such a flow of work and comments to be part of. I find it normal to work alongside people with different lengths of time in the poetry world and different levels of publushed-ness, I mean published-ness. Another wonderous typo: pub, lush, blushed, shed.
To me they are all the same, just a more or less anonymous name attached to a poem. I read the poem. Some names are neither male nor female so there's that haziness about the writer too.
I see others deal with their ebb and flow of production. I wait and see where I am going. I get used to the angst of others, let them get on with it.
At the South Bank in the summer I was in a hall full of potential. Had I known the compere I might have asked for an announcement for any 52 members to come to the front to meet each other. Without knowing what we look like, there is a mystery and potential for meeting each other anywhere.
