How to publish your first poem

Overview

Publishing a poem on GS Poetry comes down to three things: write it in the composer, set a few details, and click Publish. This guide walks the composer top to bottom so your first poem goes out exactly the way you want it. Nothing here is permanent until you publish — you can save a draft and come back at any point.

Open the composer

Click/tap Compose a Poem from the global header (the feather/write button), or open the Poems tab on your profile and choose Create. Either one opens the poem composer at /poems/create, a single page with every field you’ll need, from top to bottom.

Write your poem

1. Title. Give your poem a title at the top — up to 200 characters, with a live counter. As you type, GS Poetry fills in a matching web address (the poem’s URL) just below; you can edit that if you’d like, or leave it as is.
2. The poem itself. Write your poem in the Write Poem editor. Your line breaks and stanza spacing are kept exactly as you type them, so the shape of the poem on the page is the shape readers see. Poems can run up to 50,000 characters — there’s no minimum, so a two-line couplet is just as welcome as an epic.

The editor toolbar gives you the essentials: bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, text alignment, bulleted and numbered lists, indentation (the indent arrows, handy for stepped lines), a blockquote, and a few text sizes. There’s no need to know any code — the editor doesn’t accept pasted HTML, just your words and the formatting buttons.

Add the finishing details

Beneath the poem are the optional touches that help it land well and reach the right readers:

• Poem Photo Banner. Drag in or choose a cover image (JPG, PNG, or WEBP, up to 10 MB) and drag it to frame the crop. It becomes the hero image on the poem’s page.
• Mature content. Tick the mature-content checkbox if your poem isn’t suitable for readers under 13. See Content warnings and sensitive topics for what this does.
• Categories. Pick at least one category (up to three) so readers can find your poem by theme. The first one you choose is your main category — it’s marked with a star and does the most work in discovery. More on this in Tagging, categories, and forms.
• Poetic Form. Optionally tag the form — sonnet, haiku, free verse, and more. Just one form per poem.
• Backstory. Add up to 500 characters of context — what inspired the piece, or a note to readers.
• Additional options. Comments are on by default; untick to turn them off. You can also Highlight this poem on my profile to feature it. A Year Written field is there if you want to date the piece.

Choose who can see it

The Privacy dropdown sets your audience. New poems default to Public, but you have three choices:

• Public — anyone can see it; it appears on your profile, in streams, and in discovery.
• Followers Only — limited to the people who follow you.
• Private — only people you send the link to can open it.

Not sure which to pick? See Understanding poem visibility for the full breakdown.

Publish

At the bottom of the composer you’ll find the action buttons:

• Publish Now — sends the poem live immediately. It lands on your profile and in your followers’ streams right away.
• Save Draft — keeps it private in My Poems → Drafts to finish later. See Drafts and auto-save.
• Schedule for Later — a GS Pro option to pick a future date and time. See Scheduling a poem for later.
• Cancel — steps away without publishing.

Click Publish Now and you’re done — you’ll see a confirmation and be taken to your new poem’s page, ready to share. (If you published a Private poem, you’ll get its shareable link to pass along.)

If the Publish button won’t go

The composer runs a couple of quick checks and points you to anything missing:

• “Poem title is required.” Add a title at the top before publishing.
• “You must write a poem before publishing.” The poem body needs a little content — at least a line — not just a title.
• “Please select at least one category.” Choose one to three categories so readers can find your work.
• The web address is taken. If the auto-filled URL clashes with an existing one, edit it to something unique and the error clears.

Where to go next

Now that your first poem is live, learn how visibility shapes your audience, how categories and forms drive discovery, and how drafts and auto-save keep work-in-progress safe. Want to bring over poems you wrote elsewhere? See Import poems with PoemShuttle. Any snag — contact support and we’ll help.