Hi and welcome to my Friday series the Hairbag Poet.

In the blogging world, Fridays are known as Poetry Friday. You can read about Poetry Friday here. I will plan on posting The Hairbag Poet each Friday.

You can read about the history of this series here.

I’m so excited to announce that I will be participating in Ed DeCaria’s, Madness Poetry competition beginning this Sunday March 8th! 64 Authletes (Writer athletes) will be competing against each other for the title of Poetry Gangster, and the grand prize Thinkier trophy pictured above.  Head over to Madness today and sign up to read, vote, and have fun!

The match up brackets mimic basketball’s March Madness brackets. The Authlete’s are provided a single vocabulary word (think SAT/GRE Vocab.) and must create a poem suitable for children, within a defined character limit (Not Easy!).

Ed has the voting divided into three sections: the authlete vote, the student vote, and the community vote. We as writers get to vote all throughout the competition, even if we lose, and this vote carries some extra weight. The student vote comes from schools that have signed up their classrooms to read, and vote on the poetry entries. The student vote also carries heavy weight considering the poems have to be kid friendly. The community vote consists of everyone else who chooses to sign up to read, and vote for their choice of best poem (that means you). The voting is open for two days, at which time everyone can vote, and comment on their favorite poems. The winner then proceeds to the next round. With each round the authletes are cut by 1/2 until only one winner is left standing. Last year’s winner was Lori Degman, whose poems were a delight week after week.

This is my third year entering and I am so excited, and nervous. The talent is amazing! So if you’re a teacher, get your class signed up, if you’re a reader, then get yourself signed up so can you can vote, and if you’re an authlete, I wish you good luck!

Sincerely,

The Hairbag Poet (a.k.a Jean O’Connor for Madness Poetry)