Community Guidelines

Finish The Poem

Last updated: 19 August 2026

What this place is

One opening line is posted each day. You finish the poem.

That's it. That's the whole thing. Everything below exists to protect it.

This is a site for poetry. Not commentary, not promotion, not argument, not a place to be heard on something else. If what you're about to post would work just as well as a reply on any other platform, it probably belongs on that platform instead.

We read every line. Not automatically — actually.

Write poems

A verse should be a genuine attempt to continue the day's opening line. That's a wide door: it can be funny, furious, tender, strange, formally perfect or deliberately broken. Short is fine. One line is fine. Twenty lines is fine.

What doesn't pass:

• Posts that aren't poems — announcements, questions, comments about other posts, "first," reactions
• Advertising, spam, link-dropping, or promotion of anything
• Copy-pasted work you didn't write
• Nonsense posted to fill space or farm echoes
• The same verse posted repeatedly

If you want to say something to another poet, their profile has their handle. This isn't a comment section.

What we do not allow

These are not warnings. Content in these categories is removed, and accounts that post it are removed.

Hate speech. No content that attacks, demeans, or dehumanises people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, disability, sex, gender identity, or sexual orientation. This includes slurs, coded language, and "just asking questions" framings that carry the same payload.

Overt racism. Stated plainly because it needs to be: racist content has no place here, in any register — not as satire, not as a character's voice, not as provocation, not ironically.

Anything sexual involving minors. No sexual, romantic, or suggestive content involving or referencing anyone under 18. No content that sexualises childhood. No exceptions, no artistic defence, no framing that makes this acceptable. Accounts posting this are removed immediately and permanently, and we report as required by law.

Content that endangers minors more broadly — anything that could be read as grooming, soliciting contact, or normalising harm to children.

Threats and harassment. No threats of violence, no targeting of individuals, no doxxing, no content designed to intimidate.

Content promoting self-harm. Poetry about despair, grief, and mental illness is welcome and often the best writing here. Content that instructs, encourages, or glorifies self-harm or suicide is not the same thing, and is removed. If you're struggling, please reach out to someone — a friend, a doctor, or a crisis line in your country.

Illegal content, including material that infringes someone else's copyright.

On difficult subject matter

Poetry goes to hard places. That is what it's for.

You can write about violence, addiction, abuse, racism, death, and despair. Writing about a thing is not endorsing it. A poem in the voice of a cruel narrator is not cruelty.

The line we draw is between work that examines something and work that promotes it. We use judgement, we get it right most of the time, and if we remove something you believe we misread, tell us.

Your words stay yours

You keep the copyright in everything you write here. Always.

By posting, you give us permission to do a specific and limited set of things with it, all described in the Contributor Licence:

We display it on the site. Obviously — that's the point.

We may share it on our social accounts. Verses posted here may appear on @finishthepoem on X, Instagram, and any future Finish The Poem account, always with your handle attached. This is how the community grows and how your work finds readers. If you don't want your work shared this way, don't post it here.

We may include it in the annual anthology. At the end of each year we intend to publish a printed collection of the best work from the site. Inclusion is by echo count and editorial selection, and every contributor is credited by handle.

You can opt out of the anthology at any time. There's a setting in your profile. Turn it off and none of your verses will be considered for the printed collection — past or future — regardless of how many echoes they have. Nothing else changes and no one is told. You can turn it back on whenever you like.

You can delete any verse you've posted. Once a verse has gone to print in an anthology, that printed copy can't be recalled, but deleting removes it from the site and from all future editions.

Echoes

An echo means this stayed with me. Use them freely.

Don't organise echo-trading, don't run multiple accounts to inflate your own counts, and don't ask for them in your verses. Echo counts feed the featured verse and the anthology selection, so manipulating them takes something from other poets.

Handles and profiles

Choose a handle you'd be happy to see printed in a book, because it might be.

Don't impersonate anyone. Don't use a handle, display name, bio, or profile photo containing slurs, sexual content, or anything you wouldn't want a stranger's child to read over their shoulder.

You may add your own tip or support link to your profile. It must go somewhere legitimate. We don't take a cut and we don't handle the money — but we will remove links that lead anywhere deceptive.

If something goes wrong

If you see something that breaks these rules, tell us at finishthepoem@tatewickenterprises.com. Include a link to the verse.

We remove work in two ways. Hidden means it comes off the public site but is recoverable — usually for borderline cases or while we look into something. Removed is a harder action for clear breaches.

If we act on something of yours and you think we got it wrong, write to us. We'll look again, and we do change our minds.

One last thing

Most of the above will never apply to you. The overwhelming majority of what gets written here is people trying honestly to finish a poem, and it's better than we expected.

Write well. Be generous with echoes. Come back tomorrow.