Come rhyme with me: the best of the books blog poets

It started two years ago, with three rules: first, no plagiarism; second, all criticism must be constructive; finally, everyone is welcome. From there, Poster Poems , the Guardian blog showcasing our readers' poetry, has grown enormously. Today, on National Poetry Day , the best of the verses are published in a collection called Everyone's Sense of the World Is Invaluable. Right from the start, the Poster Poems blog was a place where anyone could post original poetry, and comment on work posted by others. Originally a weekly, the blog now appears once a month with a theme: we might ask for poems about history , or suggest our readers try a dramatic monologue . The idea for the poetry blog seemed a natural progression: the books blog, after all, was already full of comments in verse . The first blogpost appeared on 28 March 2008 and attracted 200 comments, mostly original poems. On the whole, our three rules stuck, and the blogs became a place where the writing of poems was just something that everyone did quite naturally: an ordinary, everyday activity. As the editor of the blog, I've always viewed it as an exercise in participation and inclusivity. There is no house style: doggerel, avant-garde experimentation and all points between have always been welcome, and the range and quality of work is amazing – as the examples below show. Union Street, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by MeltonMowbray In her room she takes a slug of Smirnoff sucks in a Marlboro and blows out a cough, her adolescent lungs unused so far to the caustic bite of CO and tar. So now is the moment to snap the strap, sit down at the mirror and get on the slap. Spotkiller, a shot, a dab of foundation, some blusher, then, a tricky operation, the complicated work around the eyes which costs her half-an-hour to synthesise. Another shot, another quarter-hour, the straighteners working at fullpower, she puts on shoes and silver Topshopblouse, and Carla is ready to leave the house. Carl stands under the shower's steady stream his thoughts on types of moisturising cream. He towels himself dry, then selects a tub and gives his body an extensive rub. He sinks a tube of Stella, then a shot from the gallon of Absolut he got in Faliraki on his holiday, then another because it's Saturday. Then it's the Calvin Kleins, the Firetrap shirt, the Diesel jeans and a final giant squirt of deodorant from the tin of Ice. He checks himself and thinks he looks quite nice. A minute with the tin of styling wax, another drink, and then he's making tracks. Though these two townies never met that night they saw each other in the savage fight at the night-club. As the paramedics massed, she admired his hair: he admired her arse. And though Carla passed out on someone's lawn, woken by a snarling dog at dawn, though Carl was banged up at the station there was another point of intersection: in Union Street their pools of vomit lie venn-diagrammed beneath the morning sky. Dunwich by BaronCharlus I found a fossil A stone stem Amongst the marigolds It came from an ocean-root And all our homes The park, electricity substation Were tenants merely At the brink Cliffs are licked away Like shrine-stair By palmers' boots The brine sucks, Tongues, persuades Like Reynardine "Come with, come with." Bulldozers Shoulder aggregate Flotillas heap Boulders off Waxham In Dunwich, they say You can hear church bells When the wind's right Tolling out to sea Cley: I take a pebble Arc it back Ahead of the rest Gift by Anytimefrances seas wash, daily, all about me since you left – died of course, i mean and the quaysides of cities with leaning houses, quaint, comic and their smell of the sea, leave me with nothing to take home to you. making life, of course, quite pointless Lottery by HenryLloydMoon Barely a pound. Twenty-four weeks of expectancy, two days of finger in the dyke, ten minutes of drama, dash and doubt, five months of plastic doublewide ex-cube interfaced with innumerable machines, one handful of hope, cherished and fortified by three daily visits, sick for seven nights of hell and ear massaging . . . One thousand grams. Now we are four. Blessings are countless. Barely a pound? Now we are millionaires. Unlucky at Cards by Mishari The small scar over your upper lip Makes me weak in the knees. The way you launched yourself At a man beating a donkey (And you just a slip of a girl) Made me wish the whole world Were like you: but they're not. It's why everything I do Is a fire for you To warm your slim hands by. Wm Wordsworth Leaves Grasmere to Find a Supermarket by Freepoland Feet! That oft o'er Loughrigg Fell have trod In search of berries, bright against the sod, And plodged 'mid Grasmere's reeds for stewing pike, Now bear me forth past Thirlmere, irksome hike. Legs! Now take me further, 'neath Helvellyn's shade, To Keswick, on, to where a proper pasty's made. I must declare that I have had my lot Of leaden pyes and puddings made by sister Dot. Boots! As you convey me o'er these paths so rocky, My heart leaps up at thoughts of handmade gnocchi, Of parmesan, of Belgian chocs, of tiram'su, And, sister dear, I'm leaving none for you. Socks! That now ooze moisture where the toes have gone, I'll soon replace you at the Outdoor Zone; I'll buy new boots with warming Gore-Tex lined; And leave that foolish scribbling lark behind. Everyone's Sense Of The World Is Invaluable is co-published by the Guardian and the poets. It is available from blurb.com , £12.95 hardback, £2.50 paperback (includes delivery). nationalpoetryday.co.uk