(PITTSFIELD, Mass.) – During the month of April – National Poetry Month – WordXWord sponsors a 30-day poetry challenge. Poets, young and old, student and professional, are given a prompt each day via e-mail to which they are challenged to respond with a poem.

Poems can be as long or short, as serious or whimsical as the author sees fit. Given that this is a daily challenge, most poems tend to be modest in length. Participants may choose to keep their work to themselves, share only with friends, or submit it to WordXWord for publishing on the web. Poems submitted to the April 30/30 Poetry Challenge web pages are published daily. A poem or poems may be chosen as a “featured” poem of the day and placed on the welcome page.

Examples of prompts offered in 2011 include: walking in someone else’s shoes; television; is it too late?; monster; finally; inappropriate laughter and something foreign. For examples of some of the work submitted in for the 2011 challenge, visit WordXWord.

• Individuals subscribe to participate via the online form.

• Prompts are provided the day before the due date.

• Beginning March 31, 2012, a daily email will be sent to participants.

• Poems are submitted to the 30/30 email address.

• Poems submitted by the daily deadline are posted to the web page for that day’s challenge (at the end of the month there will be 30 pages of poetry).

• At the end of the month there will be a poetry reading event to celebrate.

We’re asking that anyone interested register via the form on the WXW website. In “theory” the challenge is open to anyone and everyone, however for practical reasons, at our sole discretion, we may cut off registration to keep the publishing task at a manageable level.

Register at April 30/30 Poetry Challenge