Treasuring Poetry – Meet poet and blogger, Melissa Lemay, and a review of Bro ken Rengay

My November Treasuring Poetry guest is poet and blogger, Melissa Lemay. Melissa is also the editor of Collaborature, an online journal for poetry and fiction. You can find Melissa on her blog here: https://melissalemay.wordpress.com/2025/11/06/creating-community-syllabic-poetry-more-with-colleen-chesebro/

You can find out how to submit to Collaborature here: https://collaborature.blogspot.com/p/submit.html

Tell us about Collaborature. What inspired the idea for this on-line poetry platform and what are your aims for it going forward?

Collaborature is an online only journal for poetry and fiction. The key point of every submission is that it must be written by more than one author, or include a collaboration of two or more individuals (eg: art and poetry).

Inspiration for this idea was a result of my collaborating with various writers, like David Bogomolny, Lesley Scoble, Nigel Byng, and Lakshman Bulusu. I found that I enjoyed the art of creating poetry together very enjoyable. It was from these collaborations, along with my participation in the poetry community on WordPress and places like dVerse and Tanka Tuesday, that I turned my focus toward collaborative work.

I searched the internet and found that there were very limited options for people to have their collaborative work published. I mulled it over for a while, what this space and creating it would look like. Through encouragement of friends, and with help from Nigel coming up with the name, I decided to launch a journal in January of this year.

Submissions to Collaborature have slowed down a great deal. Initially, I scheduled one post for each publishing day. The amount of submissions I received was so great that I began to schedule two posts a day. I did this to reduce the wait time for publishing. Even now, I am scheduling a couple months out. Perhaps this was an error, and I should have kept to one per day. Now that submissions have slowed down, I have enough works to take us through January. If people aren’t interested in submitting, then unfortunately I won’t be able to maintain this publication schedule, and may even need to shut down Collaborature altogether. This is not my dream, but I accept that things are constantly changing, and that whatever there is a need for will flourish. It has been a great first year and a wonderfully engaging experience. I have gotten to know more friends from around the world and build relationships with some of the writers who submit to Collaborature.

How do you go about writing collaborative poetry? I am sure many poets would like to try but don’t know how to go about collaborating with a poem.

Initially, I wanted to host strictly collaborative poetry that was written by multiple authors at Collaborature. Even before it launched, I considered that it was such a niche market and might be difficult to gather enough submissions to have the journal running the way I envisioned. I wanted to have multiple posting days a week, preferably a couple posts per day. I realized that people may not submit enough poetry and fiction to have continued publication. So, I allowed submitters to collaborate by writing ekphrastic poetry, quoting other authors, and so on, in order to broaden the category for the journal’s purposes.

To write truly collaborative poetry in the present moment, one must have a partner to work with. People make this more difficult than it needs to be. In my experience, part of the problem is that people are hesitant to reach out to other people, for whatever reasons. Time is also a factor. I hear that from people, that they just don’t have time to collaborate.

My collaborations started via email. I think David’s Poetry Partners was a big inspiration. His is a great example of writing collaborative poetry. Poets submit a poem to him and he responds with a poem of his own, and then he publishes these pairings on his blog. This is a perfect example of how to write collaborative poetry. Well done, David!

In my mind, collaboration really can take on a broader view. Any time two people work together, in essence this is collaborative. Just as we are all connected and our actions every day influence other people around us, so do our words on the page. I don’t think it is an “easy out” to sit down and write a response poem to a poem written by someone who is deceased. You’re still working with that person’s ideas. Had they not had them, you would not have been prompted to create that response. So, I think this should be counted towards collaborative work.

However, I would love to see people truly connecting with one another. It can be as simple as you writing a line and sending it to me, then I respond with a line, then you respond with another line, and so on. Or send a short poem to a friend, and and them to respond with a short poem. There are tons of forms that lend themselves to collaborative work effectively. A lot of the Japanese forms were begun through collaborative work. Renga is a great example. This form started over 700 years ago, which tells me that people have had the desire far and wide and for a long time to engage collaboratively with one another.

My suggestion: if you have a friend and you’d like to try writing collaborative poetry (or fiction), get together in person, on the phone, or via email, and talk about your ideas. Decide how you will write, whether line by line, or maybe you’ll try a form like renga. Carol Anne and I have written acrostics together for each month of the year; we each take a letter, write a line, and alternate back and forth. You may see them all here: https://collaborature.blogspot.com/search?q=Carol+Anne+and+Melissa+Lemay

A quick internet search will return lots of results with different collaborative forms or ideas for collaborating together. Here are a few sources:

https://poets.ca/collaborative-poetry/

https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/list-of-50-poetic-forms-for-poets

Tell us about Bro ken Rengay. How did this collection of collaborative poems come into being?

Bro ken Rengay came from my introduction of Rengay to Nolcha Fox and Barbara Leonhard. I became friends with both of them through submitting to different websites where they are editors, as well as responding to prompts Nolcha posted in various places. Nolcha and Barbara have published books both together and separately. I have read some of their writing and thought it would be fun to write together, so I reached out. Thankfully, they also liked the idea.

I had recently discovered Rengay, and I suggested we use this form. We were off to the races! We share similar senses of humor and thoughts about life. So, writing together was a breeze. Our voices compliment one another nicely. Bro ken Rengay includes around 30 published works. We have more in our arsenal.

Who is your favourite poet and why?

I don’t really have a favorite poet, although I have many whom I enjoy. Ai, Gwendolyn Brooks, Charles Bukowski, Emily Dickinson, Allen Ginsberg, Dorianne Laux, Sylvia Plath, Assotto Saint, Charles Simic, Dylan Thomas… There are also many WordPress poets whom I admire, too many to name, but a handful: David Bogomolny, Robbie Cheadle, Colleen Chesebro, Kim M. Russell, Kerfe Roig, Lesley Scoble, Merril D. Smith, Andrew Wilson… Okay, that’s more than a handful…

What is your favourite poem?

I have two favorite poems, and they’re both fairly short. I think they compliment each other quite well, they exhibit the tension of the duality of human existence and spirit, and I have been deeply embedded in both sides of the coin. I hope you enjoy them.

“Cause and Effect”

By Charles Bukowski

the best often die by their own hand
just to get away,
and those left behind
can never quite understand
why anybody
would ever want to
get away
from
them

“For the Sake of Strangers”

By Dorianne Laux

No matter what the grief, its weight,

we are obliged to carry it.

We rise and gather momentum, the dull strength

that pushes us through crowds.

And then the young boy gives me directions

so avidly. A woman holds the glass door open,

waiting patiently for my empty body to pass through.

All day it continues, each kindness

reaching toward another—a stranger

singing to no one as I pass on the path, trees

offering their blossoms, a child

who lifts his almond eyes and smiles.

Somehow they always find me, seem even

to be waiting, determined to keep me

from myself, from the thing that calls to me

as it must have once called to them—

this temptation to step off the edge

and fall weightless, away from the world.

My review of Bro ken Rengay

I am always hugely admiring of poetry and book collaborations. These three talented poets have managed to stitch the poems in this interesting book together in such a seamless way you would not know that they are written by more than one person.

The poems cover a spectrum of topics from experiences to emotions to aging and they all inject a thread of dark humour into the mundaneness of the human condition. Let’s be honest, daily life is generally pretty ordinary except when pain or joy make their ad hoc appearances and to be able to laugh at our daily grind is a wonderful thing.

This extract from ‘Everybody Knows My Name’ is an example of this humour:
“baskets of laundry
hanging out in the hallway
calling my name

I changed my name
and I don’t speak laundry

I speak frozen custard, French vanilla
country drives to count the deer
beer and pizza on date night”

‘Pain Will Do That’ is a poem that exposes the debilitating nature of on-going pain and how we are forced to face it and deal with it as we age. This is a short extract:
“pain is the perfect weight loss plan
food tastes bitter
even cheesecake makes me flee

holding a pen too long –
my wrists ask me for Ibuprofen

if I could, I’d challenge pain to a duel
my titanium joints, my weapons
I’m a cyborg, pain, get ready!”

These poems highlight the humanity of the poets and bring the reader into their worlds of ups and downs, achievements and disappointments. This is a relatable collection of poems that will make you feel better about your own life and give you some rose coloured spectacles through which to view life.

Purchase Bro ken Rengay from Amazon US here: https://www.amazon.com/Bro-ken-Rengay-Unruly-Poetry/dp/1962374572

About Robbie Cheadle

South African author and illustrator, Robbie Cheadle, has written and illustrated sixteen children’s books, illustrated a further three children’s books, and written and illustrated three poetry books. Her work has also appeared in poetry and short story anthologies.

Robbie also has two novels and a collection of short stories published under the name of Roberta Eaton Cheadle and has horror, paranormal, and fantasy short stories featured in several anthologies under this name.

You can find Robbie Cheadle’s artwork, fondant and cake artwork, and all her books on her website here: https://www.robbiecheadle.co.za/

________________________

Did you know you can sponsor your favorite blog series or even a single post with an advertisement for your book? Stop by the WtbR Sponsor Page and let me advertise your book, or you can make a donation to Writing to be Read for as little as a cup of coffee, If you’d like to show your support for this author and WordCrafter Press.

__________________________

This segment of “Treasuring Poetry” is sponsored by WordCrafter Press and the Poetry Treasures series.

Get Your Copy Today!

Poetry Treasures: https://books2read.com/PoetryTreasures

Poetry Treasures 2: Relationships: https://books2read.com/PT2-Relationships

Poetry Treasures 3: Passions: https://books2read.com/u/b5qnBR

Poetry Treasures 4:In Touch With Nature: https://books2read.com/PT4-Nature

Poetry Treasures 5: Small Pleasures: https://books2read.com/PT5-SmallPleasures