straight to where we're at                             straight to stats

poetry p f  was founded on 1st May 2005.  25 poets in the UK were invited to become founder members and to invite one other poet to register.

The site was formally launched, with only spread-the-word marketing, on 1st August 2005, with 27 poets listed.  

There is no restrictive agenda, e.g. gender, age, country, although, inevitably, it will initially comprise mainly UK poets.

The stated aims:

• to grow gradually to form a comprehensive showcase of today's established and rising poets.
• to maintain a high standard of poems on the site
• to give rising poets a searchable presence
• to publish a contact point and book purchase points for members
• to promote approaches to poets for readings and workshops
• to promote poetry sales

So, where have we got to?   Aside from (at Jun 08) averaging circa 100,000 hits per month...

Hit- counters don't really reflect the true activity on a site; someone browsing for over an hour might view dozens of pages (some report that they do) without increasing the counter at all, so see below for some stats.  

poetry p f encourages direct contact with poets so is only aware of benefits arising from the site, if members report back (many thanks to those of you who do!), but, some general points:  

• the site has been used to engage poets for readings and workshops
• poets are being contacted through being found on the site
• the site is used as a reference by other organisations when posting events etc (e.g. US sites linking to Pascale Petit's and Geraldine Green's pages)
• 2008: poets registered on the site were invited to take part in a collaborative translation and broadcasting project with the University of Bucharest.  As a result, some 60 poets' work is being translated into Romanian, published on-line and some 30 radio programmes, each devoted to one of the poets,  are to be broadcast by the Romanian National Broadcasting Corporation.   This project spawns another:  poetry tREnD - a collaboration for translation into German with
  D I C H T H A U E R, Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich.
• the site is a Poetry Society 'Landmark' site
• publishers' responses have been generally appreciative and supportive
• contacts from outside the UK, expressing appreciation of the poets' work, include Florida, Italy, Bucharest, Sidney
• there are usually around 40 poets whose pages are 'in progress'  i.e. invited but not registered, registered and work not yet received, pages drafted and pending approval
• poetry p f is also a publishing imprint.  The first publication: Alice Beer's second collection Talking of Pots, People & Points of View.

This project receives no funding and charges to members are set only to cover the cost of running the site.  From January 2007, to enable  development of the services offered to members, sponsored pages, provided they are conducive to the site's aims, will be sought.

Some formal marketing has been undertaken but it seems that word-of-mouth is still the most successful so, let's keep spreading the word!

site editor

Anne Stewart

*1  Was recorded near end of August at 541.  

*2  Actually, 2,960, but clearly anomalous, so this is the 2nd largest.

© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
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