How Do I Successfully get an Audience for my Poetry? - My Quora Answer

(Picture Credit - G Salahuddin)

Getting an audience for your poetry. Well, here are some first thoughts. The easiest way is simply to Google some online poetry sites and post there. I happen to favour "Hello Poetry com", "VoicesNet" and "Poemhunter", but there are many more. Such sites are "communities" of poets who love to read and comment on the work of others. 

Poets also like to have THEIR stuff read etc. too, so it's very wise to read and "support" poems by your "colleagues". My most successful poem on Hello Poetry has so far had 10.8 K Views. On VoicesNet my top one has had 7,700+ Views.

By the way, I favour typing my poems on Word then copying and pasting onto the poetry site. That way, I keep a copy of my original for safekeeping.

I also happen to run a poetry blog through Google Blogger\Blogspot. It is quite easy to use. The tough thing though is that "Views" do not come so easily as you are operating in relative isolation. One of my poems did get about 7,000 Views however. You just have to soldier on with such a blog... I also use WordPress blogging site which is easy too.

When you post any poem on the internet it helps to "share" it with search engines and social media sites. I share mine with "Google Webmaster Tools", Bing, Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Linkedin, Stumbleupon, Google Plus.... In fact most blogging and poetry sites offer links to countless sharing platforms like these.

So there you are. An introduction to getting your poems Viewed and commented on (and even discussed).

Paul Butters