Welcome to the WOM-PO listserv. Click here for posting guidelines. Click here for the archive of previous posts.

The WOM-PO (Discussion of Women's Poetry) List was started in December 1997 by Annie Finch with an invitation to a small group of poets, critics, and lovers of women's poetry. These people in turn invited other people to join, and the list has grown gradually by spreading through these networks. In April 2008, Amy King succeeded Annie as List Moderator for WOM-PO. Discussion on the list covers women poets of all periods, aesthetics, and ethnicities. It has been characterized by its high caliber, relatively low volume, and openness to a diversity of aesthetic perspectives.

HOW TO JOIN Send an email to LISTSERV@lists.usm.maine.edu with the words subscribe Wom-po in the body of the email. You will receive WOMPO emails at the address from which you sent the email.

HOW TO SUSPEND EMAIL If you are going on vacation and you want to temporarily suspend WOMPO email, Send an email to LISTSERV@lists.usm.maine.edu with these words in the body of the email:

SET WOM-PO NOMAIL

To begain receiving mail again:

SET WOM-PO MAIL

To receive all of the day's posts in one "digest" rather than receiving each one individually:

SET WOM-PO DIGEST

INTRODUCING YOURSELF WOMPO has a tradition of newcomers introducing themselves to the list. We recommend that you browse in the archives and on the website to learn something about the list and its members. After you feel familiar with the tone and pace of the list, consider yourself warmly encouraged to introduce yourself by telling us something about yourself and/oryour work, if you would like to do so. The new members' introductions are an important part of maintaining the wompo sense of community (you can see examples in the Archives, below, and also under members' bios on the WOMPO website), so don't feel you should be modest or shy. Also, after you are familiar with the list, feel free to invite your colleagues and friends who are interested in women's poetry to join.

GUIDELINES FOR POSTING Women's poetry of any language, time-period, ethnic/cultural background, or aesthetic is an appropriate topic for discussion. Although we do not as a rule discuss our own work on wom-po, many of wom-po's subscribers are themselves poets of all levels of professional accomplishment, from beginners to national award winners. Feel free to post any emergency/time-sensitive postings of use to other list-members, such as readings, conferences, and calls for papers or poems, directly to the list. Congratulations and other messages directed at one subscriber only, however, should be backchanneled to that subscriber so as not to clutter the list.

NEWSLETTER If you would like to share other news, such as announcements of publications, awards and maybe even some personal news about yourself or other subscribers, please send such information to Diane Lockward (DSLockward@aol.com) for the on-line wompo newsletter. This newsletter is an important source of community and morale-boosting for all of us, so again, don't be shy.

POSTING CLIMATE Keep Volume Low: WOM-PO has made an active choice to be a list of relatively low volume and high quality. A number of wom-pos, because of busy schedules and/or physical conditions that make handling large numbers of posts a challenge, can only remain on the list because the number of postings has been relatively low. If you are used to other lists with routinely large numbers of short posts, please consider combining your short messages to control volume.

Clean up Garbage: As a courtesy to Digest subscribers who receive one long message, please make a habit of cleaning up "garbage" (old messages unnecessary for understanding your post) from the bottoms of your posts before you send.

Helpful Headers: Wom-Po's archives are most useful and messages easiest for people to organize with accurate, specific subject headings for each post. If you change your headings to keep them timely and informative (even entertaining), you will do the list a real service.

FOREMOTHERS' FRIDAY WOMPO has a tradition of posting favorite poems by "Foremothers" (dead women poets) on Fridays. Our convention is to include "FF:" in the subject of the post. Feel free to include information about, or quotes from, the poet.

OFF-TOPIC POSTS should include "OT:" in the subject of the post, as a courtesy to other subscribers. Off-topic posts of a POLITICAL nature should include "POL:" in the subject of the post. The primary topic of discussion on WOMPO is women's poetry.

Wompolicy on Blog Announcements

To preserve the intimacy and uniqueness of the wompo list environment, wompos have agreed to the following policy and procedures for bloggers who would like to provide information about their blogs to the list:

1. Blog addresses may be included in signatures on posts, but please do not send mass or generic blog updates.

2. If a blogger wants to inform wompos about a particular post that is relevant to a thread, or that they feel will be of special interest to wompos, please include that information in a "regular" post written especially for the WOM-PO list. It doesn't have to be a long post, but it should be clearly addressed to wompos.

3. Blog links can be posted on the wom-po website as follows:

To have your blog added to the WOMPO website, send the following information to Ann White at eden000@gmail.com:

1 Your Name (or blog member names if more than one WOMPO is involved)
2 Your Blog's Title
3 Your Blog's URL
4 A short description of the blog. I suggest 10-15 words at the most.

Give the essence, primary subject material, affiliation (if applicable), attitude or a catchy subtitle. Please remember that this will appear on the WOMPO website and will be your blog's online identity. If you don't want to provide a description, that's fine too. If you can provide the blog name as a hyperlink, (like so) that would be wonderful!

Ann White also compiles a weekly blog digest. Bloggers can submit their blog updates to her at eden000@gmail.com.

THANKS FOR JOINING! WE ARE GLAD TO HAVE YOU ON THE LIST!