Passions in Poetry News

June 14, 1999:   Many of you will see today's update of the web site and say, "Well, it's about time!" And rightfully so, too. Passions has been plagued by a rash of technical problems in the past sixty days, some of which we've talked about on this page, and some of which would only bore you. Suffice it to say, it's become increasingly difficult to get new poetry to you in a timely manner.

And that is unacceptable. It's unacceptable to me, and judging by the email I've been receiving, it's unacceptable to you. Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be any easy solutions.

There are over 300 new poems on the site today. I have about 2,000 more that are still unedited and unposted. Some of our poets have been waiting six weeks or more for their work to be published. I've decided it is completely unfair to those people to continue falling farther and farther behind.

This was a very difficult decision to make. And I recognize it isn't a solution, but only a temporary breather. Hopefully, a very temporary one.

The good news is that you can expect a lot of new poetry in the next few weeks. I am completely freezing development of the web site and concentrating all of my efforts on getting the backlog of poems posted. So, get ready for a concentrated deluge of great new poetry.

I have hopes that our temporary suspension of accepting new poems will be short-lived. A couple of weeks, a month at the most. And during that time, I'm going to be looking for permanent solutions to the problems that have plagued us, ways to increase the efficiency of what we do. I would certainly welcome any suggestions from you, our loyal visitors and poets.

New Stuff

Enough with the depression! In spite of the difficult changes, there are also a few new features in this latest update that you should know about. Our next update will bring you new menus that incorporate a lot of the changes we've made in recent months, but until then you can access the new features from the text menu at the bottom of every page.

First, we now have a FAQ page. For those of you don't know, FAQ stands for Frequently Asked Questions and it has become a staple on the Internet almost since the web's inception. And for good reason. Up until about a month ago, I was spending at least an hour a day, often several hours, trying to answer all the email I receive. Often, I was answering the same questions over and over. I haven't been answering most of those for the past month, because I thought it more important to get the site updated. So, if you've written to me to find out what happened to your poetry, you now know why I haven't been able to answer. But that is just one of the many questions that I've tried to cover extensively in our new FAQ. Please read it.

We also have a new Search facility available. Again, up until recently, I was spending a lot of time tracking down poems for people. To be honest, it was something of an ego trip for me. Someone would write, looking for a poem for a certain occasion or person, and I could almost always direct them to three or four that would suit their needs. It made me feel good to think I knew our database of poetry so well that I could find just the right poem out of thousands. But it was an expensive ego trip in terms of time. Now, with just a little effort and thought, you should be able to find those poems yourself. And you won't risk me forgetting the perfect one for you, either.

The Best Is Yet To Come

On July 3rd, Passions will celebrate its official six-month anniversary. It's been an incredible six months. We've gone from half a dozen pages with just a few of my personal poems, to over 5,000 web pages representing the work of almost a thousand wonderful poets. We've watched our traffic grow even more quickly, watched as thousands of people spend hour after contented hour reading poetry every day. Perhaps more importantly, we've made a lot of great friends along the way.

Our road has not been without a few bumps, of course. But every single problem we've experienced has been a direct result of our very success - and those are the kind of problems that are always solvable. Passions is still a child, learning to walk. We've got a few skinned knees, but like any child we'll continue to try. Like any child, we'll learn.