Ray Maxwell, one of the ModPo founders, is gone
We are mourning the loss of Ray Maxwell, a ModPo founder. Ray suddenly left (not by choice) the State Department in the summer of 2012. He had always had a passion for poetry and...
Author: Al Filreis
SloPo mini-courses for winter/spring 2026
SloPo season is upon us. There are many ways to be involved with ModPo when we are not in our annual 10-week “Symposium Mode.” You can click HERE and learn of many ways to...
“The SoCal Spellers”: nonspeaking autistic ModPo reading group in southern California
“The SoCal Spellers” have been posting to the ModPo forums, contributing their comments to our discussions of individual poems. We here on the ModPo team invite all ModPo people to respond to their posts!...
Al’s welcome to week 9 (aleatory poetry) for 2025
In the week ahead we hope you will join us as we read and discuss poems composed by chance, by quasi-nonintentional means, by aid of computer program, by gamification and randomization, by deterministic processes!...
Citizen poetics, the book
Al Filreis gave the introductory chapter of his forthcoming book to a machine that makes podcasts from text. The result is not perfectly accurate but does give you a fair, informal sense of what...
ModPo in Saigon: a short tribute reel
After Al Filreis led a collaborative close reading of a Gertrude Stein poem with a class of middle-school students in Saigon, they sent us this reel. Fun! What a wonderful group.
ModPo 2025 weekly schedule & live webcasts
Opening day Saturday, August 30 Week 1 Sunday, August 31 – Saturday, September 6 Webcast: Wednesday, September 3 — 3 PM Week 2 Sunday, September 7 – Saturday, September 13 Webcast: Wednesday, September 10...
“How to do ModPo,” by a long-time ModPo regular
Our most active Community TA (CTA), Anthony Watkins, has posted to LinkedIn a very helpful guide to ModPo. It’s called “How to do ModPo.” You can find and read it by clicking HERE. Here...
All the ModPo syllabus readings in one document!
Jane Ward, a long-time ModPo citizen, has put together a document, now available online, that provides access to all the readings in the main syllabus. HERE is a link to this helpful document. We...
ModPo participant has “A Vocabulary for Peter Innisfree Moore” on his wall
John Sanchez has been involved with ModPo since 2020 at least. He was a star learner during our pandemic seasons. He did the course with his dad. Recently John wrote this to me: “My...