Remote Poeming in Pandemical Times

By Dinty W. Moore

Poems While You Wait, the Chicago-based collective of writers whose mission is to appear in public places — street festivals, museums, libraries, & theaters — with manual typewriters and bang out poetry on the spot, on any topic, brilliantly, is social-distancing like the rest of us. So that means “REMOTE-POEMING in the time of Pandemic.“

Poetry can save us, console us, amuse us, and lift our spirits in this difficult, housebound time, and it is all for a good cause, so order your poems now.

Here is how it works:

1. Donate $5 to Rose Metal Press (a literary non-profit) via PayPal (use link, or just send to rosemetalpress@gmail.com through your PayPal account.)
2. Email your poem topic (see note on topics below) to poemswhileuwait@gmail.com. Please include your PayPal receipt in the email body or as an attachment. The Poem folks will notify you when your topic has been distributed to one of the poets.
3. Wait for your poem. (Poems While You Wait will email you a photograph of your hand-typed, one-of-a-kind, custom-made poem within 72 hours of confirmation.)

*** Note on topics: Give us as little or as much information as you think the poet needs. “Silver” is a wonderful topic, but expect a poem on either the color, the metal, the comic book superhero (Silver Surfer), a great-grandmother’s tea set, the tragic history of silver mining in the Colorado Rockies, or all of the above. If what you meant was something more specific (“A Silver Anniversary poem for my dearest husband Hank who invented the light bulb,” for example), you should include that extra information.