On Collaboration with Sean F. Munro

We are finishing the week by digging deeper into the process that brought you the featured poem of the Collaborative Voices folio, "A Battle for America", by Sean F. Munro & Henry Goldkamp. Here, Sean F. Munro discusses winners and darlings, while sharing a glimpse of Jazz Fest:

We defined collaboration as a mathematically equal share of the creating, editing, revising, and choosing winners in each versus verses. Since Henry went into this extensively in his post, I won't repeat.

The most surprise came while we pared down a large set of versus verses for a poem. I would discover Henry's darlings—as he would mine—that he couldn't bear to cut, and he'd call a veto. We had three for each poem, and the pressure to use them unveiled much of our poetic allegiances. The exhilarating surprise was what line won the bracket. We didn't choose a winner before we started the tournament process. It fascinated me to watch the line arrive out of our collective conscious.

Shout-out to Brett Evans who invented and coined 'versus verses.' We took it further, but it started in his head.

Thank Y'all for Reading,
Sean F. Munro