Bringing back the Romantic & Erotic Poetry Group from the dead

Aeons ago, before the second "oops" (friends know of whom and what I speak) I was one of the ragtag team of madpersons who assisted Tim Henson in convincing the powers (TPTB) that be to create a poets' area under the America Online (AOL) Writers Club (yes, Tim Henson created it, anyone who claims credit for that besides him is, flatly, a liar).

Anyway, since I was in good with TPTB (I hung with them in the real world and had a humour column for their area, and my Panther Cycles were very hot at that time, poetically) Tim asked me to negotiate with them a bit.

I came away from the discussions with three terms:

Yes, they would create the area.

But...I had to do a weekly chat (to lend my then-prestige to the venture)

and the third term came from what I decided to make the chat,

which I called The Romantic & Erotic Poetry Group, and that was
a Terms of Service (TOS) waiver during these events, so there would be no limits on what could be said in the works presented during those chats...(the first night one young woman came in with a very graphic poem about performing oral sex on a dragon...actually, the poem was quite well done, but I think the whole room sorta freaked, waiting for the TOS police. Since one of my totems in my works was already established as a dragon, I just had to wonder if this was a fantasy poem...or a "fantasy" poem.)

We ran the chat for months, and every night the place was overfull and I had more applicants to read than there was time to read, we often overflowed by a fair piece into the next time slot...which got politically dicey, as someone started a poetry contest (I despise those things) in another chat room right after our scheduled end time, and would send someone in during the R&E to advertise it...which was actually a violation of AOL rules and regs that we were not in a mood to exempt them from....

Anyway, in time I left it and they changed the name (at my insistence, I won my point that the name was directly associated with me and that anyone else using it was trading on my rep (we writers can be such pricks when we want to be)).

Now I have revived a form of it on www.myspace.com. It's in the "Groups" area and is a moderated forum called (not surprisingly) "The Romantic & Erotic Poetry Group"...if you're a writer and want to join and promise to act like a writer and not a troll, drop in, sign up and be part of the reawakening.

If you're a troll looking to snark or spam, go away. You don't get to post without my approval and I can kick your sorry butt out if you start acting like some of the jerks my curvaceous but cunning co-host had to deal with in the chat mode of the R&E at AOL. Later, I'll fill you in on how it's going...I've sent out a few invites on MySpace and to old poetry friends, former lovers and a few promising young writers I've tripped over already.

Oh, hey, it's Sunday. Better get some caffeine and some food...