Response poems: replying to a poem with a poem
Write a poem in reply to another poet's work, see who has responded to yours, and — with GS Pro — feature your favorites and track how they perform.
Reviewed regularly to match the current app.
Overview
A response poem is exactly what it sounds like — a poem written in reply to another poem, rather than a comment. It’s one of the warmest ways poets talk to each other on GS Poetry: a piece that answers, echoes, or argues with another. Writing and receiving response poems is free for everyone. GS Pro adds two extras on top — featuring your favorite responses and analytics on how they do — and those are called out clearly below.
Writing a response poem
- Open the poem you want to reply to. Beneath it you’ll see a Respond to This Poem card (it appears when you’re signed in and it isn’t your own poem).
- Click Write a Response Poem. This opens the composer with a “You are writing a response to” pill showing the original, so the link between the two is kept.
- Write and publish as usual. Your poem publishes as its own piece and is connected back to the one it answers.
A response poem can be Public or Private, but not Followers Only — since it’s tied to someone else’s public poem, the Followers-Only option is hidden in the privacy selector. For the full picture of poem visibility, see Controlling who can see your poems.
Seeing responses to your poems
When other poets respond to your work, their responses gather on your poem’s page, and their avatars appear on the Respond to This Poem card (“3 poets have responded · View all”). Anyone can open the list and read them — no GS Pro needed.
With GS Pro, you can feature up to three of the responses to your poem. Featured responses appear in a highlighted strip on your poem page — visible to everyone — each with a ★ Featured badge. Open the responses list on your poem, and toggle the Feature star on your favorites. Free members see the Feature button with a Pro badge and an upgrade prompt.
GS Pro members also get a Response Poems panel in Analytics Pro (Analytics Pro → Response Poems). It shows how many response poems your work has drawn over time, how often a read turns into a response, the reach of those responses, and which of your poems spark the most replies.
Where to go next
For the norms that keep exchanges kind, see Commenting etiquette (they apply to responses too). To go deeper on the analytics, see Going deeper with Analytics Pro. For everything GS Pro includes, visit GS Pro pricing. Questions? Contact support.