Collaborative or collective poetry is a different and creative way for more than one person to write poetry together. The main goal of collaborative poetry is to create poems that include contributions from many different writers. In one common example, several authors may work together to form a single voice in the poem while still showing each person's unique style.

In recent times

One of the most famous examples of collaborative poetry-writing in modern times was the poem collection Ralentir Travaux by Surrealist French poets André Breton, Paul Éluard, and René Char. The poems were written together over five days in 1930. The Surrealists had created the art of collage and collective creative activities, such as the Exquisite Corpse, where groups of people combined words or images to make a single piece.

In the 1940s, American poet Charles Henri Ford created what he called the "chain poem." In this method, each poet writes one line and then sends the poem to another person far away by mail. In his Process Note, Ford explained the chain poem: "After the first line is written, each poet must write a line that both 'contradicts' and continues the previous line. The chain poet may try to include their own style while making it clear to the poem. In this way, the poem grows logically and naturally." In the 1970s, some feminist poets used this idea to explore their "collective feminine voice."

More recent examples of collaborative poetry include the works of American poets Denise Duhamel and Maureen Seaton, who have written together for 15 years. They have published three collaborative books: Exquisite Politics (1997), Oyl (2000), and Little Novels (2002). Duhamel described their collaboration: "Something magical happens when we write—we find this third voice, someone who is neither Maureen nor I, and our ego fades into the background. The poem matters, not either one of us."

Also, the collaboration between poets Melissa Studdard and Kelli Russell Agodon was featured in the 2020 Emmy-nominated short film Meet the Queens of Quarantine Poetry. In the film, Studdard and Agodon share the poem When We Get Lonely, It Will Be Together and discuss how creative collaboration helps people stay connected.

In 2007, the "first definitive collection" of American collaborative poetry was published under the title Saints of Hysteria: A Half-Century of Collaborative American Poetry. Edited by Denise Duhamel, Maureen Seaton, and David Trinidad, the anthology included 140 poems by more than 200 authors. These poems were collected from magazines, old books, and unpublished works.

Another recent experiment is the "Poem Factory," a group poetry-writing project by an Arabic-language web magazine called Asda' (or Asdaa, Arabic: أصداء). The project uses MediaWiki (the same software used by Wikipedia) to write modern poetry in Arabic. The poems are then published in the magazine under a Creative Commons license. The goal of the "factory" is to "free poetry from the disease of ownership and its harmful effects, such as the obsession with fame and copyrights, which have become common in creative work." It also aims to "discover the collective inside us as poetic beings" and "encourage readers to be active participants." The first poem created by the Poem Factory, titled Shoes, was published on the magazine's website in January 2008. This poem was written by at least five people.

In 1989, Ashira Morgenstern, a poet living in Jerusalem, started inviting colleagues to write lines for suggested titles. Contributors do not see what others have written until the moderator combines the lines according to a set pattern. The order of the lines is based on the date the material is received. Only punctuation is changed; no words from the original poems are altered.

Another recent experiment in collaborative poetry is "TAPESTRY POETRY," developed by Avril Meallem, a poet in Israel, and Shernaz Wadia, a poet in India. They created guidelines for this new form of collaborative writing: Each poet writes a poem on a title chosen by one of them, without discussing the theme. The poems are exchanged and then combined into one complete piece that can stand on its own. Editing continues until both writers are satisfied with the final "Tapestry." The basic rules are:

Since 2011, the English poet S.J. Fowler has helped over 500 poets from more than 21 countries collaborate through the Enemies project. These collaborations are presented in performances and have often resulted in collaborative books.

Lastly, the Rengay is a type of collaborative poetry written by two or three poets. They take turns writing three-line and two-line verses similar to haiku, forming a six-verse poem with a shared theme. Garry Gay invented rengay by combining his last name with "renga," a traditional Japanese form of linked verse. He and Michael Dylan Welch wrote the first two-person rengay together in 1992. Michael later suggested a three-person version.

In education

Collaborative poetry-writing is used in schools and universities to help students create poetry. This activity has a social aspect that aims to help students find ways they are connected to each other. According to Maria Winfield, "collective poetry is an activity that helps students use a common structure to combine their voices into a shared rhythm."