Poets of An Tir

Incipient guild charter

“The Poets of An Tir Guild strives to enable period poetry in the kingdom of An Tir. We will support and inspire, educate and promote, the creation and sharing of period poetry. Membership is open to anyone who wishes to join us in this quest. To provide communication between the Guild, its members, and others in the kingdom and Society, we will identify a Guild Envoi, who will report and facilitate communication as needed.”

Poets Point sign.

Origins

At Twelfth Night in An Tir in January 2023, several of the poets in An Tir gathered for breakfast at the invitation of Sir Richard Fitzalan. The intent was “to talk about what we might do to encourage the poetic arts in the kingdom.” The breakfasts (we held two that weekend) included Master Arontius of Bygelswade, Baron Dunstan M'Lolane, Sir Brand aux Deus-Leons, and Sir Richard Fitzalan. We developed seven approaches toward the goal of increasing awareness and access to diverse period poetic forms, while agreeing there were certainly additional approaches we could add too.

Goals

1. Poet’s Point. Individual aid at various events from other noted poets (aka Herald’s consultation). Help with everything from choosing style and form to editing written poems. (Would anyone actually use us or would we just sit alone writing?)

2. Performing more poetry at events in diverse styles, noting the culture, time and form to bring more awareness of the many forms. (Can we perform more and in styles not our personal favorites?)

3. Teaching classes at educational events to teach the broad scope of period poetic forms and how to choose based on many criteria. Overview or survey course of period poetry. (Will anyone be interested in taking such a class and who might teach it?)

4. Written support material. A new work/booklet on various forms organized and indexed by culture and time and style to aid poets in researching diverse forms. (Like the Ars Poetica Societatis?)

5. Online/social media support. Both providing examples and to provide a poets’ community for sharing and reaching out for further help. (Or is this just a lot of work to reach a very small subset of folks?)

6. Establish a kingdom award for poetry.

7. See the work of An Tir Poets published in ways that bring awareness of poetry across the kingdom. Social media and SCA media, such as The Crier.

Achievements

Poets Point at Atheneum in 2024.

Poet’s Points were our #1 approach. We began holding them the next month, February 2023 at Kingdom Arts & Sciences and Queen’s Rapier Championship in Ocean Shores. Several have been held every year since in various branches as our members travel.

Various of our members have performed poetry at several events and some have won bardic championships doing so.

Some members have taught some classes, but these have generally not been organized within the Poets of An Tir group nor have been group panels.

No written work has been published by the Poets of An Tir. Our first Envoi, Sir Richard Fitzalan solicited poems from members to see if there were enough to produce a book, but submissions were too few. So instead these submissions were sent to The Crier to support item 7.

Our Facebook group Poets of An Tir on Facebook was established and supported with the posting of our Poet’s Points, individual poems, and announcements about bardic events of interest.

Duchess Miranda, who was the Queen that established the Wordsmith award, stated that she intended it to be for poetry and prose and that she would advocate for its correction in the Order of Precedence. It was then corrected so it now reads: “Awarded to those who distinguish themselves as crafters of period written or spoken words which add to the authentic atmosphere. This includes wording for charters, scrolls, court wording, prose, poetry, performance pieces, letters, speech, and ceremonies.” Since then, several of our members in Poets of An Tir have been awarded Wordsmith.

Several poems by members of the Poets of An Tir have seen publication in The Crier and these have been shared on our Facebook account in an attempt to make poetry more visible.

At the recommendation of several members of the Poets of An Tir, and in support of the goal to make poetry more visible and support our kingdom’s poets as a group, the Poets of An Tir decided to establish a kingdom guild.

In August 2023, we received this notification from Duchess Dagrun Stjarna, the Kingdom A&S Minister:

“I have discussed your Guild with TRMs and they would like to make you an incipient Guild. I have asked that it be announced in Royal Court at September Crown. You will need to be an incipient for 1 year. My hope is that your group can petition the Crown to make the Poets of An Tir a Chartered Guild at September Crown 2024.”

Our petition and charter: “The Poets of An Tir Guild strives to enable period poetry in the kingdom of An Tir. We will support and inspire, educate and promote, the creation and sharing of period poetry. Membership is open to anyone who wishes to join us in this quest. To provide communication between the Guild, its members, and others in the kingdom and Society, we will identify a Guild Envoi, who will report and facilitate communication as needed.”

The group became an Incipient Guild at September Crown, 2023.

The work and joy of poetry continues…

Envois (Officers)

Sir Richard Fitzalan served as our first Guild Envoi. Rowena Jade of the Lion Isles has served as our second Envoi.

Social Media Page

Poets of An Tir on Facebook