Poet Nancy Simpson Celebrates the First Anniversary of This Site LIVING ABOVE THE FROST LINE

One year ago, I attended a Saturday How to Blog Workshop sponsored by NC Wrirters Network West. The next day, on Sunday, October 26th, 2008, I made my first post with pictures. I made up my mind early at the workshop that my site would focus on southern and Appalachian writers, that I would aim to celebrate the work of one poet each month and would add good poems when I could get them even if there was already a featured poet. A few times, I resorted to reprinting a few of my own poems, but that is not my goal.

For sure, when the poems are posted, that is when the visitors swarm in from around the world. I check my sitemeter, and although I do not know who my readers are, I know where they are coming from. I know the page they entered on so can make a good guess it is poetry they want. It is exciting to know there are folks in the world who love to read poetry and search for it. Thousands have searched for poems by Physician Poet John Stone, poems by former Georgia Poet Laureate Bettie M. Sellers, poems by Appalachian Poet Ruth Faulkner Grubbs, and others. A young Mississippi poet named Particia Neely Dorsey became a follower, and I featured her poems. This month, the featured poet is Glenda Council Beall, author of the newly published poetry collection NOW MIGHT AS WELL BE THEN. Lots of readers come looking. On one day alone, twelve people searched and found poet Clarence Lee Newton and his poems on my site. People also come looking for colored leaves changing across the Blue Ridge and for flowers growing on the northside of an appalacian mountain. It seems they come looking for anything Appalachian.

If you are a practicing poet or if you are interested in poetry, visit often and leave a comment.

Original welcome: Celebrating One Year Above the Frost Line.

Welcome to my new blog. Living Above the Frost Line is a dwelling place for practicing free verse poets. Above the frost line, we give ourselves some extra growing time. I am still here, still practicing poetry, still studying, publishing, still teaching and still learning how to live. Yes, I know, the hard freeze will come, but until it arrives, I shall grow and share my poems.

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