For Global Astronomy Month 2020 (27) - 10-Year Jubilee of Astropoetry Blog

Text by Andrei Dorian Gheorghe, design by Valentin Grigore

Published: Tuesday, April 14 2020 20:06

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"Astronomy is more than just a science because everybody has feelings about the night sky.”
-Mike Simmons,
from an interview taken by Andrei Dorian Gheorghe
at the International Year of Astronomy Opening Ceremony,
UNESCO, Paris, January 2009

At that extraordinary event, Valentin Grigore and I made a unique cosmopoetry (astro-photo-poetry) stand of the Romanian Society for Meteors and Astronomy (SARM), which included photos and verses by the best Romanian contemporary creators of this kind. 

On that occasion, Mike Simmons appreciated that stand as a “great presentation” and told us about his plans regarding Astronomers Without Borders, a world organization in which he wanted to promote all types of creativity. 

His plans included also astropoetry and he told me about his friend, the excellent astropoet Bob Eklund, suggesting a future cooperation between him and SARM’s long experience in this field. 

After the success of SARM’s international on-line project “Astropoetry to the International Year of Astronomy” (which was nominated for the IYA Prize of Excellence), I talked by email with Mike, Bob and Valentin about the inclusion of astropoetry in the AWB activities, and SARM (as a devoted member of the AWB family) assumed to organize a special official project during the first edition (2010) of Global Astronomy Month. 

In April 14, 2010 (10 years ago!), Bob Eklund launched the AWB Astropoetry Blog.

In April 29, 2010, SARM organized the first GAM astropoetry gala (reading of international astropoetry - recitals of Romanian astropoets along with moments of astronomical poetry from around the world - including haiku poems by Bob Eklund -,  selected and read by me) at the Admiral Vasile Urseanu Bucharest Municipal Observatory (our traditional partner).

In July 27, 2010, SARM published the first astropoetry mini-anthology (in my English translation from Romanian) in the Astropoetry Blog, “In Celebration of GAM” (texts by 15 astropoets).

From then on the Astropoetry Blog “exploded”, publishing over 1,200 episodes, hosting GAM international annual contests of astropoetry and becoming the most viewed world tribune of astropoetry.

I personally was honored to have a wonderful cooperation with its founder editor, Bob Eklund, and its publishers (especially Thilina Heenatigala, Zoe Chee and Andrew Fazekas), and now this cooperation continues at the same level with its current coordination team, Andee Sherwood and Frances Azaren.

Before our three works significant for the beginnings of astropoetry in AWB, I wish the Astropoetry Blog to be immortal and I gratefully end this celebration text with another quote:

“Astronomy is a science, but it is more than it, astronomy is a part of our history, a part of our culture, a part of ourselves.”
-Mike Simmons,
from an interview taken by Andrei Dorian Gheorghe
at the International Year of Astronomy Opening Ceremony,
UNESCO, Paris, January 2009