It’s the beginning of a new month and soon, a new season as well! And I for one am very excited about what Spring will bring. If you are new to Calliope Unbound, stay a while and explore. You can learn more about the creative challenge and how to participate, or browse through past submissions. Calliope is still very new and quite small, but visitors and new participants are always welcome. And as always, if you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know.

It’s hard to believe that February is almost over, and with the beginning of March will come the one-month anniversary of Calliope Unbound. It’s been a modest, fairly quiet month, but there is still much to look forward to. Many thanks to the little band of participants who have been brave enough to put themselves forward in this forum. I look forward to seeing more from you this week and for many weeks to come!

The beginning of another beautiful week. My apologies that this post is going up so late this morning; I’ve been under the weather lately, and I have alot to catch up on. So, without further ado, you may submit links to your wonderful creations now.

It was a quiet first week at Calliope Unbound, but filled with promise. Thank you to the brave first participants, and to everyone else who stopped by. If you are just discovering Calliope, feel free to join in–if not, please check out the submissions and show your support for their creative expressions. For details on how to participate, click here.

Later today, I will be posting a list of participants on a separate page. I will keep this updated regularly.

And now, fellow poets, photographers, and sundry other creative spirits, it’s time to submit your link as a comment to this week’s post!

Welcome to Calliope Unbound! This week marks the official launch of the Calliope Unbound creative challenge. I’m sure it will be small at first, but hopefully it will grow into a thriving creative community.

What is Calliope Unbound? Well, once a week for the past month, I have been posting poems accompanied by original photographs on my personal blog, using the photos to inspire me to write myself out of a creative dry spell. It’s been challenging and alot of fun, and its’s something I plan to keep doing. I know there are alot of talented writers and photographers in the blogging community, so I wanted to open the challenge up to everyone.

Participation is simple. Post an original photograph or series of photographs accompanied by an original poem on your blog, then come back here and submit a link to your post (the exact post, not just your blog) in the comments section of this post. Every Monday morning, there will be a new post you can link to–participate as little or as often as you like, and don’t forget to check out other people’s submissions too. For details, or to grab a spiffy button, read more here. You can also find links to my January 08 poems there if you would like to see some examples, or you can read Nina Bagley’s beautiful Winter, which combines poetic prose and photography.

If you’re not a poet or photographer, don’t worry. Calliope Unbound is for everyone, and you may discover that with a little bit of time and practice, you can create things far beyond your expectations. Even though I have been writing for many years, I’m fairly new to photography–in fact, my first January 08 poem was inspired by some very blurry pictures I took of our Christmas tree. So come stretch your wings and let Calliope inspire you!