Site History

7th December 2003  

HQ Poetry Magazine pages moved here.

18th January 2004  

Verse forms (VF) section added.
Links page added.

25th January 2004  

Printer's Devilry (PD) section added (Fruit only).
History page added. 
Home page renamed Vole Central. 
Site tracking introduced.
E-mail address added.

26th January 2004

Discovered to my consternation that The Vole and Vole Central might be thought by some to be references to Mr Gates and Microsoft. Hastily modified home page to make it clear that I am only interested in cricetid rodents. 
First attempt to attract the attention of Google.

29th January 2004

Widespread renaming of pages to eliminate upper case characters from URLs.
Submitted site to AllTheWeb and AltaVista.

1st February 2004

Added Found Poem (FP) page - a poem the BBC mysteriously wouldn't allow me to post to their message board. 

2nd - 3rd February 2004

Added Rondeau, Virelai Ancien and Luc Bat to VF section. 

10th - 11th February 2004

Added Rictameter, Than-Bauk, Nonet  and Triolet to VF section.

14th - 15th February 2004

Not very romantic, but added a Tessellations (TS) section.

25th February 2004

Added Shairi (Rustavelian Quatrain) to VF section.

29th February 2004

Added Englyn and Pathya Vat to VF section.

2nd March 2004

First referrals from Google. Widespread rejoicing. On 3rd and 4th, first referrals from 2 other search engines: AOL and Yahoo.

14th - 15th March 2004

Added Song That Luc Bat and Rondel to VF section.

21st March 2004

Added Glose to VF section.
Added first half of the Devil's UK Tour to PD section.

6th - 8th April 2004

Added Stanzas page to VF section.
Added second half of the Devil's UK Tour to PD section, together with (reluctantly) some answers.
Registered domain name www.volecentral.co.uk.

24th April 2004

Joined Poetry Kit webring.

3rd May 2004

Added pages on Metre, Feet and Rhyme to VF section.

9th May 2004

Tried out free submission to multiple search engines using this site:

Search Engine Optimization and Free Submission

I'll let you know how it worked out. Initial signs are not good, since the site did not submit to four of the major search engines it said it was going to. Slightly later signs are no better; all that has been achieved is a torrent of technospam to the e-mail address I gave them (which I had chosen carefully, fortunately.) No new search engines have yet found me. Provisional verdict is: never again.

27th May 2004

Added Issue 29 to HQ section.

3rd June 2004

Added a page on Why write in standard forms? to VF section; also pages listing the 10 most Popular and 10 most Unpopular verse forms on the site. 

26th June 2004

Added a page on Sonnet Variations, including the Scupham sonnet, to VF section.

9th August 2004

Added Villancico page to VF section.

19th October 2004

Hit count for the site quadrupled for the day. Still wondering why. (Mainly people searching for "verse form" or "verse forms".)

24th October 2004

Added Balassi stanza page to VF section.

21st November 2004

Add Virelai Nouveau page to VF section.

24th November 2004

Added pages for Burns stanza and Spenserian stanza to VF section, and updated the rhyme page.

28th November - 1st December 2004

Added Parodies (PA) section, with parodies of Auden, Betjeman, Blake, Chesterton, Clare, cummings, Hemingway, Hopkins, Kipling, Lennon/McCartney, MacNeice, Masefield, McGough/Patten, Milton, Nash, Shakespeare, Shelley and John Hartley Williams.
Added Lai and Rhyme Royal to VF section.

16th December 2004

Added T S Eliot to PA section.

3rd January 2005

Added Kyrielle to VF section.
Still not a single hit for the Chesterton parody!

24th January 2005

Chesterton parody page gets its first hit, after just under 2 months.

22nd February 2005

Added Issue 30 to HQ section.

22nd March 2005

Added Language (LA) section, with Rules for Good Writing and Polish Insect Vocabulary.

22nd May 2005

Added Frank Kuppner parody to PA section.
Added Roundel to VF section.
(What is it about the 22nd of the month?)

8th-9th June 2005

Added Rondine and a Recent Additions page to VF section.

21st June 2005

Added Robert W Service parody to PA section.

10th July 2005

Added a Non-English syllable counters page to VF section, covering two verse forms, the puSlogh vagh and the Wayra. This is part of my continuing campaign against non-Japanese syllable counting forms. The puSlogh vagh is a "genuine" Klingon form. The Wayra is a spoof of my own. According to my indispensable Quechua phrasebook, its name means "wind", and the example given translates as: "I cannot eat freeze-dried potato; that makes me ill. Please bring me some more beer."

12th-14th July 2005

Added Ottava Rima, Sicilian Octave, Caudate Sonnet, Ya-Du and a page of Recommended Forms to VF section. 

31st July 2005

Added Roundelay and Rimas Dissolutas to VF section.

9th August 2005

Added Zejel to VF section.

14th September 2005

Added reviews of books about poetry to VF section.

23rd-24th October 2005

Added Deibhidhe and Hymn Measures to VF section

19th-20th March 2006

Added Henry Reed and Hilaire Belloc parodies to PA section.

26th March 2006

Added Issue 31/2 to HQ section. Delighted to see the Wayra starting to appear in lists of verse forms on the web. (See 10th July above).

9th May 2006

Added Onegin stanza to VF section.

22nd-29th August 2006

Added William Carlos Williams and C K Williams parodies to PA section.

3rd October 2006

On a whim, added a ratings page to the main section. I find it mildly amusing, and I am in charge here, when all's said and done.

3rd January 2007

Added Chaucerian roundel to VF section.

12th January 2007

Added Issue 33 to HQ section. 

12th-16th February 2007

Added Edward Thomas, Dylan Thomas, R S Thomas and Hank Williams parodies to PA section.

5th-8th March 2007

Added Canzone and an Index by Title to VF section.

15th March 2007

Added Urjuzah (with Rajaz, Hazaj and Ramal metres) to VF section.

December 2007

Migration of site from Pipex to HostHere.

27th March 2008

Added Copla de Arte Mayor to VF section.

20th April 2008

Added Abhanga, Deibide Baise Fri Toin and Utendi/Utenzi to VF section.

15th June 2008

Added Issue 34 to HQ section. 

9th April 2009

Added Dansa to VF section.

27th May 2009

Added Cro Cumaisc Etir Casbairdni Ocus Lethrannaigecht to VF section.

6th June 2010

Added Hir a Thoddaid and Ch'i-Yen-Shih metre to VF section.

1st August 2010

Added Issue 35/36 and Issue 37 to HQ section. 

13th November 2010

Added Issue 38 to HQ section.
Added Ronsardian Ode to VF section.

7th May 2012

Added Ghazal to VF section.

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This page last edited 13/11/2010