I would really appreciate your help in getting the message out there about this project- if you are a blogger/facebooker/twitterer would you mind reposting?

For a while now, I have been chewing on an idea about putting together a collection of poetry.

From time to time people send me things they have written- asking for feedback. I always really struggle to give feedback- I want to be honest, open and encouraging, but poetry is really subjective. What I find however, is that there is almost always gold in the dust. Most people who write do so to get into the depth of things, and the process opens us up- in my view, it opens us up to God (however you understand this.)

Much of this writing is personal- like many of the things I write, its primary purpose is personal spiritual discipline. However, some poems have a life beyond this- and become vehicles that allow other people to travel. It is these poems that I am interested in.

We are used to being told that our poetic voices are worth nothing- either because poetry has become so elitist, or because we doubt our inner voice. Poetry also has little or no commercial value in the consumer culture that we live in. However, we believe that poetry is more important now than ever- we need our poets our prophets and our malcontents.

So, if you write poetry and you have material that you think may be helpful to the spiritual journey of other people, then you might like to consider this;

We are looking for contributions to an collection of poetry to be published by Proost.

We intend this is to be a collection of voices in and around the margins of our churches and will bring together poets whose writing is not normally heard to be a resource for worship, contemplation, prayer and even faithful prophetic criticism.

Poems should fit broadly into one of the following categories/chapter headings;

• Faith/doubt
• Becoming
• Losing
• The world is beautiful
• The world is broken
• Inside/outside
• Wilderness
• Laughing out loud
• The far horizon
• Learning to love

Notes on selection process;

We are looking for poems with something to say- poems that open us up rather than close us down. Poetry at its best can be challenging, disturbing, uplifting, transforming and much more. If you write poems like this we want to hear from you. We are not interested in reputation or CV- rather we want to encourage those of you with a poetic/prophetic voice to let others hear it.

We will select poems for the collection if they fit the broad (and generous) ethos of the book and if they are of a quality and spiritual depth that moves us. This means that some very good poems may not be selected. We hope that you will understand that we lack the resources to give feedback on the reasons for our editorial decisions.

We would impose no proscribed form on the poems, but broadly speaking poems should be no more than 35-40 lines.

You may send up to 8 poems– simply because we know how difficult it can be to choose. We hope that this too might be a way of gathering some more unusual voices- many of us have at least one pearl in amongst the pebbles.

Please send poems by e-mail to thisfragiletent@gmail.com

About Proost

Proost is a small publishing outlet aimed at gathering together resources from the creative edges of Church. Most of the material is made available for download- although hard copies of books can be purchased via a print-on-demand service.

As recompense for your hard work and creativity, poets published will be eligible for a free download of their choice from the Proost website- which is chock full of music, art, movies, worship resources and books.

We look forward to reading your poems!