Dear V-Vs,

I must admit that I'm surprised (and delighted) that so many of you are such ardent gardeners.  I wasn't too sure about the appeal of the FLOWERS theme for May (because it's so simple and perhaps overused), but it's been a total success.  The flower poems in this issue are amazing. What a display of pure creativity and profound inspiration.   

The (optional) theme for June is TWO.  PLEASE send poems (about TWO or anything else) ONLY
during the first two weeks in May. 

Google Analytics [GA] reports that Verse-Virtual is read in many countries of the world.  The top five countires for the month of April were:  US, UK, Australia, Greece, and India.  Most visitors come by way of Social Media — followed by Organic Search, Direct Links, and Referral (from other websites). These data clearly show that Social Media are our most important and popular sources of visitors. We have a very lively group page on Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/versevirtual.  (The link is also at the extreme right in the navigation menu at the top of all V-V pages; it says "FACEBOOK.")  Those V-V poets who are active users of the FB group page tend to get more visitors to their pages.  Yes, I know that many of us are not quite comfortable with FB.  But for V-V it provides a direct and live connection to our community. That, and our primary focus on the use of group and personal email exchange, make for the warm interaction that defines Verse-Virtual.  Another interesting and positive statistic from GA tells us that the average session-duration for visitors is three minutes and 15 seconds; this is wonderful news.  In April there were more than 20,000 pageviews.
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Verse-Virtual appears to be making its mark in the world of online poetry sites.  It is quite a phenomenon; more than I ever expected.  To be sure, I never had a real plan for it: it just kind of happened.

Thank you for your warm and strong support of our virtual village.

Sincerely yours,
Firestone