The days feel short in Denmark during winter. In the morning it’s dark outside and when you come home, it’s dark too.

Luckily, December is fun. So much happens and most of us feel we meet merry challenges every day but when the holiday presents are exchanged, we need to face January.

That’s why I wanted a bit of fun to happen and hopefully you’ll want to come along. We’re out here to explore the world together and let our children get near our computers, our keys, and share some good times.

Now, just read the rules and follow Ina’s example when she and her son join in.

How to enter The Brighter Light:

1. You must have an agreement with a child to write 16 poems for January 2013. You, being the poet, and this other someone, a kid (aged 18 or younger), must in a joint effort create the poems according to the prompts that I will provide on the blog during January. I assume the adult will listen to the child and create a poem according to this conversation, but the child might write the poem and listen to you. Either say is fine as long as teammates agree.
2. You need to create a team name – “The Rocking Tigers” or something like that.
3. When you come up with a name for your team, please submit it to us along with a short description about yourselves in the comment field for this blog post. Please let us know by December 28th 2012 so we can get your team’s page ready for you!
4. In your comment, please also include a link to a web-site describing either your surroundings, your nation, or your area; make sure there are some inspiring pictures there which can form inspiring conversations.
5. When your team name appears on our notice board, you will then have your own team page and you’re ready to go.

The Poeming Month

1. The initial team entry in the comments below and your team’s poems must be in English.
2. You can only post one poem per prompt. On your team page on the Notice Board, you can edit and delete so you’re sure that you have entered the poem you want to be there.
3. The lengths of your poems should be one poem per single-spaced page.
4. The prompts will relate to the teams’ links to places. If there’re not enough submissions, I will create the prompts and add a link. Hopefully we’ll cover a lot of places around the Earth.
5. There will be 4 prompts a week. Each team can write 16 poems altogether.
6. Inourbooks.com will be ready with awards in February 2013. There’ll be an award for the best poem and one for the best collection of 16 poems.

Questions and answers:

Q: Can grandparents form teams with their grandchildren?

A: Yes, they can. Uncle and  nephew, mentor and student, any adult and child pair who would enjoy working together, please join us.

Q: Does one of the team members need to be a poet?

A: No, you just write the best poems you can.

Q: Do we need to write all the 16 poems?

A: No, you don’t, but see the rules above.

We look forward to your joining us!

[one extra FAQ from ina] Your child team member doesn’t have to write poetry, or even write at all! You can make this a full-on collaboration, you can follow your baby around and listen to them name objects and use their words as their prompt, you can do what I used to do and pick out their choicest sentences and make found poetry from them – it’s up to you! Many of us have kids in our lives who will be active collaborators, but a wide variety of options is available to your team – just choose how your team would like to work, or vary it from day to day!