: Re: Is there a "writer's room" for poetry? Is poetry always a solo endeavor? TV scriptwriting is classically done in a Writer's Room, where the show-runner outlines the main plot/character beats for

@Sue2132873

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It depends on the kind of collaboration you mean, but usually no.

Poetry - worth reading - is a solitary venture.

Years ago, I began something that was quite entertaining and humorous; a poem by committee that was essentially an anti Idylls of the King. One rule existed - couplets only.

Couplets were submitted and the piece grew. Nine Cantos and two thousand lines later, it was a curiosity and not a ballad. I tried to give it some cohesion, but the many voices in one piece pull it apart.

It can be fun to read, follows the conventions, but is absolutely not poetry. Anything that I have written alone surpasses it and a few of mine I truly think qualify as poetry and not just verse.

In prose, you will see coauthors. Even some novels have coauthors; the Belgariad, for example, was written by two people (David and Lee Eddings). How much of it each wrote is something the reader does not see as the two voices blend and become one.

The term poem by committee is sometimes used to describe something that is undesirable.

Anthologies and combining poems with art is a different kind of collaboration. Anthologies tend to be collections of poems written by single voices. Adding a photograph to a poem about the subject of the photo creates an enhanced and cooperative piece.

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