Getting Started: Your First 10 Minutes on Stanza

New here? This guide will walk you through everything you need to get started — from creating your account to publishing your first poem and making your first connection. It takes about 10 minutes.

Step 1: Create Your Account

You have two options:

• Email & Password — Enter your email and choose a strong password. You may need to verify your email via a confirmation link.
• Google Sign-In — One click, instant access. Your Google profile info is used only for authentication.

Step 2: Set Up Your Profile

Your profile is your identity on Stanza. Here is what you will set up:

1. @username — Your unique handle. This is permanent, so choose wisely! Other poets will find you by this name.
2. Display name — Shown on your profile and submissions. Changeable anytime.
3. Bio — Up to 500 characters about you and your writing. What inspires you? What do you write about?
4. Profile picture — Optional but recommended. A face (or avatar) makes your profile feel more human.

Later, you can add a header image, links to your other platforms, and select your favorite poetic forms and styles for better recommendations.

Step 3: Explore the Stage

The Stage is your feed — the heart of Stanza. It has four tabs, each offering a different lens on the community:

• For You — Personalized recommendations that get smarter as you read, react, and engage. Initially seeded with popular content until the algorithm learns your taste.
• Following — A pure chronological feed from poets you follow. No algorithm, no curation — just the people you chose.
• Trending — What’s resonating with the community right now. Ranked by reaction scores over the last 48 hours.
• Explore — All public submissions, unfiltered. Great for discovering new voices.

Step 4: Write Your First Poem

Click the Compose button in the sidebar (desktop) or the + icon in the bottom navigation bar (mobile). You will be taken to the Composer.

Choose Your Medium

• Text — Written poetry with rich text formatting
• Spoken Word — Audio recordings with optional transcript

Write and Format

Use Standard Mode for a rich text editor with formatting toolbar (bold, italic, headings, lists), or Advanced Mode for a clean plain text editor with line numbers and character counts.

Add Metadata

Optionally enrich your submission with:

• Poetic Form — Sonnet, Haiku, Free Verse, Villanelle, Ode, Limerick, and more
• Style — Contemporary, Classical, Romantic, Confessional, Experimental
• Tags — Free-form labels like "love", "nature", "grief" for discoverability

Set Privacy and Publish

Choose who sees your work:

• Public — Visible to everyone, appears in feeds and search
• Followers — Only people who follow you
• Friends — Only mutual followers (both follow each other)
• Circle — Only members of a specific Inner Circle
• Private — Only you can see it (great for drafts and personal archives)

Click Publish to share your work, or Save as Draft to come back later.

Step 5: Give Your First Cheer

Find a poem you enjoy on the Stage and hit the gold Cheer button. It’s the simplest way to acknowledge work you appreciate. Save your green Encores for poems that truly move you — you only get 5 per month!

Step 6: Join an Inner Circle

Head to the Community page and browse available Circles. Find one that matches your interests — a haiku workshop, a spoken word collective, a free verse reading group — and request to join.

Inner Circles are where the deepest conversations happen. Share work-in-progress, get structured feedback, and build lasting literary friendships.

Step 7: Create a Reading List

Go to Lists in your profile and create your first collection. Add poems that inspire you, organize them by theme, and share them with friends or keep them private for your own reference.

You’re In!

That’s it — you’re now a part of the Stanza community. Explore, write, react, connect. The Stage is yours.

Every poet begins with a single stanza.