A poetry project that changed lives, created a close-knit poetry community, and emboldened many to gain the confidence to get themselves published, has launched an anthology of its work at Stratford-upon-Avon poetry festival. Jo Bell’s 52 Project, involving weekly poetry prompts, which won a Saboteur award earlier this year, started back in January 2014. In an article written for Write Out Loud, halfway through the project, the canal laureate explained how it began: “On New Year’s Eve, I was at home on my boat with friend and poet Alan Buckley. People all over the country would be making resolutions the next day, to write more. Yawn. What would be a realistic resolution – a poem a day? Not likely. A poem a week, for the 52 weeks of 2014? That was more like it.

“It had been a difficult year for me, and one in which my own poetry work had fallen by the wayside a little. The poetry community I’ve long been part of had supported me, buoyed me up, given me nourishment when I most needed it. So my own resolution was to put something back into the great ecology of poetry; I would set up a site called 52, and provide a prompt each week.”

Ten other poets assisted by providing prompts. A closed Facebook group was set up for anyone who wanted to share their work and critique it, without making it invalid for publication. In her article she added: “Reader, it went ballistic. Within days there were 3,000 people following the blog – and the Facebook group now has 560 members. It has become something of a poetry cult.”

It certainly has. On Saturday 11 July at Stratford’s Shakespeare Centre, the project launched The Very Best of 52: a poem for every week of the year, which is published by Nine Arches Press, and has also been crowdfunded in spectacular style, raising £7,500, and far surpassing the original target of £3,500.

Jo Bell is also working on her own book of the 52 prompts, which will be out before Christmas, in the hope that others will take up the 52 challenge for 2016. In the video made for the crowdfunding campaign she talks of the “real friendships made” in the 52 group, as poems were critiqued “with robust kindness” and people began “to bloom”.

She told Write Out Loud: “No anthology can really represent the 52 group - not just because of its variety but because it was bloody HUGE. The point was never to make a book, but to make better poets. In that we succeeded with knobs on. In the 52 weeks of 2014 we generated thousands of poems from hundreds of people. Those poems, and the culture of giving and receiving critique, are the real legacy of 52.

“But of course, until now, only those in 52 could see the poems. It doesn't pretend to be a full representation. It's a souvenir for 52ers, and an unapologetic shaking of our tail feathers for a wider audience.

“Many of the poems were blisteringly good. We settled on 'one poem per week' as the best format for the book - a 52 sampling menu. Second-in-command Norman Hadley and I devised a cunning plan to eliminate any subconscious bias. We split 52 in half, each picking out a shortlist for Jonathan Davidson to choose from. Jonathan didn't see the names, and inevitably some poets appear more than once in the book because dammit, they are good.

“The most important names don't appear at all - those who chivvied, niggled and got the best out of every poet in the group. This book was crowdfunded by 52ers and admirers; it happened through the hard work of every person in the group, and Jane Commane of Nine Arches Press who with no expectation of reward edited, typeset and designed the book. We're proud of it. Don't buy it because we're proud of it; buy it for the poems.”

You can buy The Very Best of 52 here 

PHOTOGRAPH: LEE ALLEN PHOTOGRAPHY