I’ve commissioned some poets to write an online poem and blog about the process. The poems can explore the process of creating something that is purely text in various draft stages, or produce visual, audio or hyperlinked poems.

Our guest bookers are:

Jay Bernard. Jay writes great poetry and also produces graphic zines and reviews.  She was a Foyle Young Poet of the Year in 2005 and her pamphlet your sign is cuckoo, girl was a Poetry Book Society choice.

Yemisi Blake. Yem is a fellow tech-geek and a poet who likes to work across a lot of creative platforms. He’s currently an Artist in Residence at the Southbank Centre, where he is creating new work and developing youth arts projects. In 2008 he advised and contributed on the Southbank Centre’s Poetry International Festival blog. During July 2009, he blogged for the London Literature Festival.

Malika Booker. Malika has represented British writing internationally, both independently and with the British Council in numerous locations including Slovenia, New Zealand, India and Azerbaijan. Her pamphlet Breadfruit was published by flippedeye in 2008 and recommended by the Poetry Book Society.

Tom Chivers. Tom’s a wild card: poet, editor and co-founder/director of the hybrid literature event of the year the London Word Festival, he could come up with anything! Tom is also Director of Penned in the Margins and Associate Editor of Tears in the Fence. He was Poet in Residence at The Bishopsgate Institute, London. How To Build A City (Salt, 2009) is his first collection.

Inua Ellams. Inua is a graphic artist as well as a poet and performer; I recently went beserk at an auction and bid for a limited edition of his illustrated pamphlet 13 Fairy Negro Tales (flipped eye, 2009). Described as the love child of John Keats and Mos Def, Inua’s work crosses 18th century Romanticism and the West African tradition of storytelling with contemporary diction. Inua’s also promised to open up his sketchbook as well as his notebook.

Leila Segal. Leila started writing short stories when she was living between London and Cuba from 1999 to 2006. She’s now preparing the manuscript for publication with Flipped Eye and will be logging the process of redrafting over an intensive two week period.  Leila works on community art projects, using writing and photography to give marginalised groups a voice and led the Jaffa Photography Project, with Jewish and Palestinian teenagers in Israel. Leila is an intensely thoughtful writer and individual and I’ll be fascinated to see what she comes up with here.

Chris Mooney-Singh. The Singapore connection: Chris is another 30/30 veteran who competed his latest collection The Bearded Chameleon on the strength of the work he produced during the period. Born in Australia he lives in Singapore and is a co-founder and director of the Lit-Up Festival as well as Word Forward, the Writer’s Centre in Singapore. Of Anglo-Irish descent, he adopted Sikhism in 1989 and has also published four poetry collections and co-edited The Penguin Book of Christmas Poems.

Miriam Nash. Miriam Nash is a poet, performer, workshop leader and freelance project coordinator who runs Snail Mail, a series of workshops exploring creative letter writing, in partnership with Slow Down London and Foyles. Her work credits include the London Teenage Poetry SLAM, Barbican Young Poets, UrbanWords and positions at Spread the Word and Apples & Snakes. I love Miriam’s poetry and creative spirit and am looking forward to collaborating with her.

Jocelyn Page. Jocelyn Page is a poet from rural Connecticut who lives in South East London. Her work has appeared in Smiths Knoll, The Interpreter’s House, City Lighthouse Anthology, nthposition, Shadowtrain and The New Writer Prose & Poetry Magazine. Her debut pamphlet will be published in 2010 by tall-lighthouse press. Having read Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook, Jocelyn has decided to compartmentalise her notebook writing and report on the results. I don’t think it will be science as such, but expect some empirical findings!

Naomi Woddis. I’ve invited Naomi on board as the founder and curator of Poetry Mosaic a fabulous collaborative online experiment in found poetry. Naomi is going to run a number of mosaic style freewrites — where we ask writers to contribute notebook entries which she’ll use to create found poems. I may join her as I like to produce collage pieces and I think it’ll be fascinating to work with other writers’ rough drafts! For more about Naomi, who is a talented photographer as well as a poet, check her MySpace.