November 2024 Survey Summary
Survey Participation and Statistics: This information provides quantitative statistics on the participation rates of TPA subscribers in the November 2024 survey, including email distribution, survey visits, and responses.
Frequency of TPA Use: It also includes quantitative data on how often subscribers find TPA helpful, visit to read, and share content with others.
Valued Aspects of TPA: It also lists various aspects of TPA that subscribers value, such as the opportunity to write and read new poetry, community inclusivity, fighting food scarcity, and fostering a sense of friendship and community among poets.
Suggestions for Improvement: In the link below, respondents provide numerous suggestions on what more TPA could achieve, including increasing visibility, engaging in fundraising and educational programs, publishing anthologies, and organizing public readings.
General Feedback and Comments: Also included are additional comments and suggestions from respondents expressing appreciation for TPA, its impact on their lives, and suggestions for maintaining and improving the project.
QUANTITATIVE RESULTS
142 email distribution
67 survey visits (47% of email distribution)
27 survey responses (19% of email distribution, 40% of visits)
How often is TPA helpful?
Rarely 0
Sometimes 9
Often 18
How often do you visit to read?
Rarely 1
Sometimes 12
Often 14
How often do you share with others?
Rarely 5
Sometimes 10
Often 12
Willing to Donate?
25 or 93%
QUALITATIVE RESULTS
List aspects of TPA that you value
● Chance to write and read new poetry
● Independence, focus on beauty and technique.
● Enhancing Community
● Inclusivity
● Encouraging artists to contribute work based on both universal subjects and timely concerns
● Fighting food scarcity
● Promoting art through the written word
● Uniting many writers from all parts of the nation.
● The feeling of friendship and community with other poets.
● Assignments have been the catalyst for many new poems.
● I love reading how so many poets approach the same assignment differently.
● A venue friendly to poets.
● An opportunity to read the efforts of old friends and new
● An opportunity to join them for monthly readings.
● Initiates conversations with other poets.
● The variety of responses to each assignment is always interesting and inspiring.
● shared values and experiences
● inspiration to write
● respect for others
● kindness from colleagues
● friendship from afar
● memory enhancement
● - Laurence
● - reading & interacting with the regional poetry community
● Direct, relatable prompts.
● Zoom readings.
● Opportunity to serve.
● prompts, community
● Meet poets from around the state. Get published.
● Assignments for various reasons;
● Poets’ poetic responses;
● Different format compared to other online journals, easy to read and navigate.
● The links, i.e. events, interviews, resources, poet books.
● I value that it provides a community for those who like to write poetry and share it with others - my husband greatly enjoys participating.
● I have never considered myself a poet, but with the urging of my husband, have written a few and have enjoyed seeing them on the TPA website.
● The prompt titles jog my memory to nearly forgotten days as a boy in West Texas & San Antonio.
● new friendships; keeping in touch with poetry; stimulation for writing
● A valuable site for sharing poems. The readings also contribute to maintaining contact among poets.
● I really enjoy the prompts.
● The poems and the readings. I read the interviews less often (time crunch and they don't go out of date as fast).
● Community with other writers
● Guidance to improve our writing so we will be heard
● The TPA Website where we hear from each other through poetry (so important!)
● A place of sanity and honesty where the truth is not ashamed to speak out
● Support in these tacky and turbulent times
● Opportunity for continuing to learn (think Chris Ellery's beautiful presentation recently)
● TPA keeps us writing!
● Community
● Creative Energy
● I value the community that TPA has fostered these past four years and the friendships created.
● I also appreciate the challenge of responding to topics I might not otherwise address.
● I love all the ideas for assignments but seldom have time to think them through unless I have something already in the works. I'm not prolific, and I give a lot of consideration to my craft before I submit it.
● The inclusiveness. The beauty of the writing.
● The editorial direction.
● Really important is the feeding hunger aspect, I think it is a worthy effort, and for TPA to be involved makes it even more cool than just poetry assignments.
● The assignments help brainstorm ideas, sometimes I just read a few poems every few weeks. The emails from TPA make it easy to find the poems under a specific assignment, it's only a few steps. For myself, I don't always post but, enjoy reading other poets. Also. the focus on Texas is good I think it helps writers get more familiar with the history and places in Texas.
● The prompts are great encouragement for writing especially if feeling blocked.
● I enjoy getting to read the poets selected and following them on social media.
● I think it is a good idea. Any tool that keeps us writing and that provides a sense of community is a good thing,
Describe what more you think TPA could achieve
● More visibility by a Facebook page
● Greater reach.
● -Further engagement with Feeding Texas fundraising and food drives (suggestion: Annual Reading and fundraiser at a supported food bank)
● -Medium effort: Elementary and/or High School education program with online guest reading with young poets
● Continuing to fight food scarcity.
● Championing young writers/students.
● Helping many to grow.
● I guess more poets, more readers, more traffic to the website?
● Encourage the distribution of participants' publications.
● Sponsor public readings once or twice a year.
● Publish an annual anthology.
● Maybe another anthology?
● As an online entity, TPA is limited.
● "Publishing" hardcopy material is harder, but that might be a future objective as in TejasCovid, by the Langdon Review; Lone Star Poetry, by Kallisto Gaia Press, and the Senior Class by Lamar University Press.
● Gatherings would be lovely. Public or private -- though difficult to arrange, they would enrich the online experiences.
● Staying alive on the World Wide Web requires commitment and enthusiasm. Stimulating such commitment and stoking such enthusiasm would be full-time jobs. Farming out responsibilities could help -- and hinder. Broadening the menu of services could help. Adding a podcast might bring more interest. Partnering with local publications would open the world of poetry to a larger audience. Contests? Travelling shows? OnlyFans? -- well, maybe not.
● There is already the aspect of live readings around the state, but this seems like it could be increased or networked into other local poetry readings.
● Maybe expanding prompts beyond “Texas”
● gotta have enough for a second anthology.
● I wish there was a way to be alerted to new posts. Like a post in the ilk of poem daily.
● Maybe a regular ecopoetry section in light of climate change, etc.
● Online critique hour.
● N/A
● I attended one of the remote readings. Maybe some way to make them more attractive to members?
● refreshed membership
● I like it as it’s going. Perhaps the readings are too frequent. If readings were quarterly, more poets might be inclined to participate.
● I think it could reach a broad audience that typically doesn’t read poetry.
● More published poems and more poets reading and submitting.
● We need you now more than ever, Laurence. More than even the pandemic. You have given us an opportunity to organize around the work of poetry, and its importance to speak to the world through metaphor concerning truth. Now truth is on the chopping block in this country and we have a community, with your leadership, to speak the truth in love with honesty. That will be so important in the days to come. Perhaps there are ways we could influence our own communities with our writing. Suggestions welcome!
● NA
● I have been surprised to see our number of contributors dwindle during the past year or two in our monthly meetings. Perhaps scheduling readings once every quarter might make a difference in attendance.
● Perhaps we could alter the format to reading one of our own poems in the first half of the hour and in the second half having a lively discussion on a prearranged topic about some aspect of the writing of poetry.
● This is a remarkable offering for poets, and I value the times I've been published. Sometimes it's hard to navigate the website and find poems. That's my only thought for achieving more.
● I honestly don't know because I've no idea about the kinds of submissions you receive. How many are a good a fit with the topic? In the submissions that aren't a fit do you see other options for subject matter that would appeal to readers, and perhaps broaden readership?
● Well, if there's not a public reading there could be. It would be a good goal something like a conference.
● Perhaps the poets who are published by TPA could organize an in-person reading in a convenient location and use the event to have a food drive to benefit a local food pantry.
● Perhaps, some tips about crafts might be helpful.
Other suggestions or comments
● A notification of new poems being posted. Via Facebook or auto email
● Keep it up!
● -Thanks for adding search to the site!
● -Explore in-kind promotion (free, exchange) of the site, call for entries, and the archive with kindred journals, and writer’s events. Leverage contributor memberships and connections.
● -Bi-monthly (every two months) podcast featuring collected assignments with adjacent themes (Ex: Texas Seasons + Texas Spring/Summer; Forms--Aubade, Blank Verse, Ars Poética, etc.). Feature readings from authors with writer’s statements. Regularly promote the site and current assignments. This was suggested by Vincent who would produce pro bono.
● Please don’t quit. I need this in my life.
● I hope you’re not getting burned out and will continue doing this. But I do understand what a big commitment it is and certainly wouldn’t hold it against you if you decided to call it a day.
● This is definitely not the time to silence the voices Texas Poetry Assignment has supported for several years.
● Lay on the taxes -- NOW! I'm in for a hundred.
● It is life-affirming to participate in this project and to know other writers and their work through it.
● thanks for keeping this thing going
● Laurence is great!
● Thank you for TPA!!
● N/A
● Laurence does a great job.
● I had no idea of the cost to operate!
● Keep going if you’re able. Again, the TPA provides a valuable venue for Texas poets.
● If one shared TPA's existence with several people. At least one has been published on TPA.
● Maybe you could invite some of your younger poets to join us and we could share perspectives through poetry.
● I would enjoy hearing from other poets who have recently published, as we heard from Chris. Such a wonderful evening.
● You have taught us so much Laurence in your gentle way about form and the music and rhythm of poetry. Thank you so much.
● We learn from each other and from the discipline of your prompts.
● I appreciate, as I am sure many of us do, this "labor of love" you initiated four years ago when we felt in limbo during the Pandemic and you provided a means to shift our attention toward more benign leanings, such as creating and sharing poetry.
● For me, the assignments come too fast and too often. I would like a little more time to consider and write. But it looks like that method is working for many poets. Don't fix what isn't broken for so many!
● Thank you for all you do. I appreciate your generosity.
● I'm glad I stumbled upon TPA, and I'll share it with poets I know.