Birth of a Poetry Community ~ MoonTown Cafe

Have you ever been to an online poetry community aka poetry boards? Many different activities can be found at them - including but not limited too.. Showcasing of members poems, workshoping, journaling and true friendship, some even find romance. Here's one poetry board's founder Jon Neihart and how a famous online poetry community virtually became reality.

Moontown Cafe was the title of a science fiction poem that I wrote in college, I'm sure I was drunk when I wrote it. That was about 1993. Years later in a darkened pub, my buddy Kyle was telling me all about how cool this whole internet thing was. I had tried the internet a few years prior, I found it slow and frustrating. I guess it had come a long way since UNIX.

I threw the idea of having sort of a resource for amateur writers, trying to make that leap to the next level; a place that might offer contests and perhaps a place to share or workshop some of their work. I had no idea that hundreds of places on the web like that already existed. I also had no idea that Kyle was going to take the idea and run with it.

We had an outdated message board that wasn't even Y2K compliant and a nature poetry contest. We went from about 80 posts on our message board in April of 2000 to 800 in a few months. We had almost 1000 entries to our contest. Something was abundantly clear, very few poets actually give a crap about seeing their work in print; a problem I run into with my own various print offshoots, magazines, and anthologies. The message board took off, and we adapted our service to keep up with demands.

We have seen a lot of good poets and mods come and go. It would be unfair to try naming them all for the fear of leaving someone out. I have seen people meet over our site. Jim Amos actually met his wife Laura there; we served as a bridge that brought him from England to Ohio. At one time, we had a half dozen people from a town in Canada using the site, which prompted some to make the pilgrimage there.

I've met some members myself, but one of the biggest trips was having a member on my site that wrote something years back that greatly influenced my own writing. J N Conway had something published in Yankee, a magazine I always aspired to get my poetry into someday (too bad they don't publish poetry anymore). It was a piece about taking down a tree that I had pinned up on my wall for the longest time. I think I over-flattered him and he left, but I still wonder if he was drinking beer when he wrote it. That would be ironic.

We have a good crew and some talented folks. Vickie Knight has been instrumental in keeping the place running over the years, Erin Monahan when she's online. Janie Hubbel is very involved, especially in our print publications. There is Doug Seavey, who has a cool poet girlfriend Laura Harris. There is Nancy Wilcox, Melissa Rees, Jen Bredl, Jen Mirles, Jeninot, Amber Logan, and many many others who have contributed in any way they could without receiving a dime. They claim that they wouldn't do it if they weren't getting something back, funny how an idea can sprout into something much larger than yourself.

Jon Neihart aka Jon von Nottingham ~ MoonTown Cafe