First!

Hello, everyone. This is your favourite web-jockey Ahmed releasing the first post of the website for our poetry group, which has yet to be named besides "BARCELONA ENGLISH SPEAKING POETRY GROUP", which, while descriptive, lacks a certain je-ne-sais-quoi (that's Fancee for "wossname") that one would expect of this kind of crew. So we called it Barcelona Poetry Workshop, because we're subversively simple like that.

Now, I'll quote the general description we have of our group on the Meetup site; seeing as it's excellent and representative and otherwise awesome, I think any alternate description would be a paraphrase. So here we go:

Every week we follow an agenda on a theme of some sort. Examples in the past: 'City life,' ' Passion,' ' Animals,' 'Sex and Lust,' 'Food tasting and writing,' 'Childhood.' etc... We also have themes based around periods/movements in poetry. In general we open with introductions, go into sharing of poems ( whoever has one to share,) , short meditation, 15 minute free-write to selected music, and then delve into group or individual writing projects based on our theme. Prompts are given out though obviously you are encouraged to write about anything your are feeling or want to explore. Lots of writing games, laughing, out-loud recorded group poems. I usually try and introduce 2-3 new poets to the group a week.   We drink a lot of red wine and eat food too! Wednesday poetry nights are generally based around the concept of total escapism.....if you combine wine and food with something as impractical as poetry what do you expect?!
We are a dedicated, supportive and non-critical family of ladies and gents who deeply care about the role of poetry in our world and tend to be romantics at heart. If you see poetry in your day as you walk down the street, if you feel like the quickly developing world of technology sometimes leaves you feeling a pain of emptiness in your heart then come join us at our weekly salons.
We always take a break half way through to visit and consume edible and drinkable things like the heathens we are.
Bring a pen, paper, a personality, some vulnerability, a bottle of wine, a tender heart, a hardened heart that needs tenderizing, a sense of humor...dark or as light as a springtime butterfly, and most important your belief in a life filled with poetry! 

I personally testify that all of this is factual description and excellent advice. No hyperbole, no euphemisms, no doublespeak. We're a straight crew, we keep it real. This is in no small part thanks to our esteemed leader, Kate Hawk, who's great at catalysing up that wonderful welcoming mood, and that sense of fun and authenticity that makes the charm of the group.

With this, I hereby declare our website inaugurated. The next post will be very practical about how to share media and give each other feedback online. Till then!