In this post I want to introduce (or reintroduce to some of you) the Hive community I run, Blockchain Poets, and gives a few reasons why you guys should come join us.

As you might guess from the name, Blockchain Poets is for poetry. We accept any kind of poetry and in any language. In fact, half our poets are Spanish speakers. You may get better engagement if you translate your poem to English, but it's not required.

I didn't create the community, but I've been running it for the past two years with the wonderful help of a team of mods I've assembled.

So why should you join... Well... we do give nice rewards 😉 But if you want to hear about that, you have to listen to me ramble on about poetry first. Deal?

Everyone is a Poet!

^{Image by Esther Merbt from Pixabay}

Poetry is a wonderful thing. I think a lot of us have bad experiences with poetry when we are in school, but sometime after school we learn to appreciate it. Almost everyone I've ever met has at least one poem they like enough that they have bits of it memorized. For many it is something famous like The Raven from Poe, Song of Myself from Whitman, Ozymandias by Shelley, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by Wordsworth, or even bits of The Wasteland by Eliot... well, and so on. For others it is something from a local poet, who may not be so famous but who really touched them in some way.

I remember my grandpa used to love Little Orphant Annie by James Whitcomb Riley and would often recite it.

Onc't they wuz a little boy wouldn't say his prayers,—
An' when he went to bed at night, away up-stairs,
His Mammy heerd him holler, an' his Daddy heerd him bawl,
An' when they turn't the kivvers down, he wuzn't there at all!

I learned it from him when I was very small and I still remember most of it. If you ever want to read a poem written in Indiana-dialect ("Hoosier English"), that's a fun one to try.

Even if most of us develop an appreciation of poetry, however, most of us have an attitude that we could never write poetry ourselves. No no no, not me. Poets write poetry, not any random ordinary schmo like me. We then get embarrassed if someone keeps pushing and suggesting we write something and we refuse.

The thing is I think anyone can write poetry. Just like anyone can sing. We all enjoy singing, but few of us are brave enough to do it where others can hear. Sure, your voice might not be perfect and you might not be able to hit the notes as well as Sinatra, but anyone can do it. So too with poetry. Poetry is even better because no one can hear when you can't hit the notes 😜

Our group welcomes you to try. Let out your inner poet. Don't worry about rules for different poems. Does this form require 6 or 7 syllables per line... do I have to rhyme any words... does it have to be about love... No, stop that, don't mind the rules. Just find something in your life that inspires emotion and let it out. Later if you decide to you can look up rules of specific forms, but never let the rules distract you from the poem.

If you want to offer an English translation of a foreign poem, that is also allowed. I often post translations of Japanese haiku, we have another member who does the same with famous old Chinese poems, and we've had various people who it with famous poems from other languages. If you do this, however, please also tell us about the poem. I would prefer if it were your own translation, but others are allowed—just be sure to credit the translator.

If you are brave enough to try your own or give a good translation with info, we offer some nice rewards...

Rewards

^{Image by Andrzej Rembowski from Pixabay}

Poetry is a very niche topic on Hive. I should know—my first 3 years on Hive I posted nearly everyday only poetry and I never got much support until I started to expand out of that niche. Even if many of us appreciate poetry, the upvotes on this network definitely don't reflect that. At Blockchain Poets we are really seeking to change this. While we will never be able to compete with all the money in, say, LeoFinance, we are trying to give good rewards to motivate our poets.

I give out Ecency POINTS, shares of Hive SBI, and PIMP tokens every week to random people who submit poems and follow the community rules (more on this later). I pay for the Ecency POINTS and SBI myself, and the PIMP was very generously donated by @enginewitty, who has kindly supported us for awhile. He's a poet at heart!

We are curated by the Indiaunited community and so in addition to the rewards I might send your way, poets do occasionally get nice upvotes. Recently @LeoFinance delegated us a large chunk of LEO to use in upvoting our poets who use Leo Threads. I also host random poetry contests on Threads and give Hive SBI to winners. And I am always seeking further support from other curators to help our poets out.

Finally, everything the community account makes gets converted to Hive and powered-up. Our upvote is low but it is growing.

Rules

^{Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay}

The major rule is engagement. You must leave comments on two other posts for every post you make. We don't currently mute people for not following this rule, but people who don't follow it are not eligible for any of the rewards I listed above. Our goal in this requirement is not to put a burden on people, but to promote interaction. So few small accounts on Hive get many comments. Our community seeks to be different and help reverse this situation. Just as you like to get comments, so do other people. I invite you to think of this requirement as bring joy to other people.

Criticism is allowed, but if you have something critical to say about a poem someone posts, please keep it gentle. I also suggest remembering the golden rule of giving feedback: say two positive things for every critical thing.

There are some other rules posted on the community page, but these two I mention above are the main ones you should be mindful of.

So there you go. Please come and give a try. I know you have at least one poem in you—be brave and come share it! 😃

❦

David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku.