launching Guerrilla Poetry Day for 2009

Reprinted from my blog at cityoflegends.com

Ook! No, not that sort of "guerrilla". The concept comes from a discussion that I and Dan "The Man" McTaggart had a few years ago about performing poetry in spontaneous settings. I dubbed it "guerrilla poetry", he wrote a poem about it that appears in his book "Midnight Muse in a Convenience Store" as I recall.

A few days ago I resurrected the concept...not with Dan but on Twitter, and got some nibbles from like-minded poets around the world. So, there it is, the genesis of a start of a concept of a prototype of a dream of a whim of a thought of an idea.

But, it looks like people are looking to me to take the lead (I hate leading, I find it gets in the way of getting to criticize people). So, here it is...

I, William F. DeVault, poet, author, pretty decent human being and blogger superior, do hereby declare July 5th as "Guerrilla Poetry Day".

The concept is simple. On July 5th, at some point, in public (in private is a little masturbatory, don't ya think?) you will stand up and read or recite, aloud, 1 - 3 works. More than three might be tedious, less than one may confuse people. You will then just sit down as if nothing just happened, or depart. If asked, you just tell them to look into Guerrilla Poetry Day on the web, or at our official blog at http://guerillapoetryday.blogspot.com .

We will evolve more details and structures as time passes. I hope to be able to report on efforts by others and even set up a place for people to report on July 5th as they complete their "attacks". The time of day of your attack is not important...but do it during that day in your timezone.