by Melinda Blount

Created on: July 07, 2007

When I first bought my computer and hooked up to the Internet, I went in search of poetry websites in which I could share those quirky little poems I had only previously shared with my cats. Many of those websites are now gone, but there are a few that have impacted my life and poetry in some way.

The Starlite Cafe (www.thestarlitecafe.com) is a wonderful, family oriented site that is free to use and relatively safe for even children to post and read at. Founded by the late Albert Victor, The Starlite Cafe is a tight knitted family of people who share their poems for the love of it, only. On this site, there are many writing challenges, such as the 'Ten Word Challenge', form challenges, and also contains a forum where people come together to share pieces of their lives.

AllPoetry (www.allpoetry.com) is another such website. AllPoetry offers a free membership, though at the cost of $5.95/$14.95 a month you can upgrade to a silver/gold membership and receive extra benefits (such as adding images to your poems, music, lists, and original backgrounds). Started and owned by Kevin Watt, AllPoetry is for both the occasional poem writer and the serious poet. This website offers member held contests, poetry classes, the ability to start and participate in poetry groups and also contains forums for both teenagers and the more cynical adult poet.

Also owned by Kevin Watt is a sister site to AllPoetry, SharePoetry (www.sharepoetry.com). This site was created after many members of AllPoetry requested a more serious comment/critique atmosphere. At SharePoetry, one has many of the benefits of AllPoetry with a more serious angle on critiques. Other sister sites owned by Kevin Watt include storywrite.com, allphilosophy.com, oldpoetry.com (which consists of poetry written by the "masters") and findquotations.com which are all under the Social Design logo.

Substanza (www.substanza.com) is a website created by a former member of Allpoetry.com. This site offers a more relaxed atmosphere, the ability to post as many poems one wants at a time, a comment/critique area and, once again, a forum where poets can just let loose.

There are quite a few smaller websites created for poetry sharing, but these, I believe, offer the most when one is looking to share and read poetry online.

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