World's Longest Poem Project For MandelaWorld's Longest Poem Project For Mandela
June 30, 2000 


CAPE TOWN, South Africa (PANA) - The popular South African student website, Get A Life, Friday launched 'The Nelson Mandela Tribute Poem', a project that will give all Internet users the opportunity to add four lines to a poem paying tribute to Nelson Mandela who celebrates his 82nd birthday next week. 

The idea is being supported by famous South African writer, Nadine Gordimer, and if successful could mean a new world record for the longest poem ever written.

"Many individuals have written tributes to Nelson Mandela, either in the form of poetry or short stories. We want to give the world a chance to work together in creating a single poem in honour of the greatest South African to have ever lived." says John Kuhn, spokesman for the site.

Get A Life is hoping that visitors to the site participate en masse in the project. 

John Fitchard wrote the world's longest poem of 130,000 lines in English in the early 19th century.

In order to surpass that record, at least 35,000 people have to participate in the Nelson Mandela tribute poem for it to be entered into the Guinness Book of World Records.

The poem has a built-in mechanism, which will make it rhyme.

At the end of the first line, writers will have to select one of a few hundred words with which to end the line on. 

On selecting the word, the programme automatically produces a selection of rhyming words with which writers can end the fourth line on. Hence every fourth line of the poem will rhyme. 

The project will run on gAL.co.za for six weeks, after which time South African writer Nadine Gordimer, Nobel Prize laureate for Literature, will select five quatrains from the tribute poem to create a short poem in honour of Nelson Mandela.

"We hope people warm up to the idea and partake in some never-ending global poetry, even if they don't consider themselves writers... this is not about coming up with the best four lines. It's about being part of a tribute to a man who is unquestionably deserving of it," Kuhn said.

You can add your four lines or merely keep track of the poem by logging onto www.gal.co.za 





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