So I'm excited that some of our April PAD Challenge participants will have a chance to be featured in a well-designed eBook. The purpose of this project is not to exclude participants but to shine light on some of the very good poetry that happens on this blog in April. If you were here last year, you know what I mean.
Well, here's how the April PAD Challenge eBook is going to work. I'm going to make the deadline for consideration at midnight on April 30 (whether you're posting a poem to Day 1, Day 30, or sometime between). At that point, I'm going to go through each day (possibly with the help of my amazingly awesome wife and poet, Tammy) and select a Top 5 for each day.
(Note: As you know, a Top 5 in poetry is very, very subjective. And if this year is anything like last year, there is bound to be a ton of great poems each and every day. So please don't have any bruised feelings if you're not in this group.)
So, I choose a Top 5 each day. 5 poems per day X 30 days = 150 poems, right? But only the Top 50 poems during the month will appear in the eBook. And this is how we'll narrow it down:
* I'll be passing a group of Top 5 poems for each day to a guest judge (list below). That guest judge will pick a favorite from the Top 5 list to be the top of the day. So that'll take care of 30 of the 50 poems.
* I'll then pick out 20 from the 120 remaining poems. That'll get us to 50 poems.
Last year, more than 400 poets submitted more than 4,000 poems. So I definitely want y'all to know just how exceptional these 50 poems poems will be. And that those who are selected should feel proud, and those who aren't should feel just as good about themselves.
Apart from making it into the eBook, all those who complete the April PAD Challenge this year should receive a certificate of completion and badge for their websites/blogs (as we did last year). Plus, you should be able to make plenty of new friends (as we did last year).
So, here's the very distinguished list of judges (who are all volunteering their time and effort to the cause for free):
* Seth Abramson
* Sandra Beasley
* Shaindel Beers
* Mary Biddinger
* Jericho Brown
* Edward Byrne
* Sage Cohen
* J.P. Dancing Bear
* Jim Daniels
* Mark Doty
* Annie Finch
* Nick Flynn
* Jeannine Hall Gailey
* Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
* Vince Gotera
* S.A. Griffin
* Tom C. Hunley
* Collin Kelley
* Amy King
* Dorianne Laux
* Alex Lemon
* Reb Livingston
* Diane Lockward
* Marilyn Nelson
* Aimee Nezhukumatathil
* Chad Prevost
* Don Share
* Martha Silano
* Patricia Smith
* Anne Tardos
If I were running a literary journal, I would be overwhelmed with joy to have these fine poets published within my pages. To have them volunteering their time to help us out here is a great honor. (And if you want to learn more about them, just click on their names above.)
I won't be revealing which days they're going to judge (even to the judges themselves) until after the April 30 midnight deadline. I have several reasons for this--not least among them that I want poets to focus on writing a poem-a-day in April (as opposed to writing only on particular days). Hey, I'll be writing every day; you should, too, right?
Anyway, I'm super excited, and I hope you are as well.