1.) Create and Fund a Tezos Wallet

As discussed on my page about how to mint NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain, creating and funding a wallet is a mandatory initial step. How many Tezos you load your wallet with is up to you, but you will need at least a very small amount in order to create and store non-fungible tokens (as in pennies under the current market conditions) and I’d suggest loading up enough to be able to collect any exciting NFT poems you discover as well! Of course it’s not advisable to keep a large amount on any hot (i.e. connected to the internet) wallet–but that’s a whole ‘nother post!

I personally use Kukai, which is a fun word to attempt to pronounce, and has an attractive interface for connecting with various Tezos NFT platforms. This step is not specific to poetry which is great in that there are far better guides than I to walk you through this part of the process. Here’s an article from Medium to help with the creation of your digital wallet. Here’s another guide that focuses more on the many options for funding your wallet. 

If you have no experience with cryptocurrency this step will be the most arduous, but I promise it is getting the hard part out of the way immediately! If you're like me, it is akin to completing your mandatory math homework in order to enjoy crafting preposterous vocab sentences for extra credit in English class. The other good news is that there’s a ton of information on how exactly to do this online, including YouTube videos if you prefer following along in that format instead of the articles I linked to above.

2.) Start with a Simple Platform

You’ll sync your Kukai wallet with the platform by signing a transaction in your wallet (“signing” just means approving the window that pops up in your wallet after confirming that it looks correct). Perhaps the best place to start is the simplest interface that I’ve minted with that came out recently–Typed.art. To mint, all you do is select “Mint” on the upper right, type in your text, add in the number of editions (i.e. copies) of your poem, then click “mint.” 

Hooray, at that point you have already created an NFT Poem! In order to list it for sale, click on “swap” then the number of editions followed by your asking price. You’ll be asked to sign again on your wallet and voila–now you have not only created an NFT poem, but made it available for others to collect!

3. ) Expand to Different Platforms

If you want to create more traditional NFT poems that involve an image, or even just a screenshot of your poem typed in a specific font, Objkt is another platform that I enjoy minting on. Once you’ve synced your wallet, click on your profile image on the upper right to open the dropdown menu, then select “create.” There you’ll be prompted for all of the info to create your NFT poetry! 

(Quick and very specific note so I can spare someone from encountering an issue that forced me to burn one of my tokens: if you upload your NFT poem as a PDF, it will require a separate cover image–so I recommend avoiding that file type unless that is part of your plan.) 

4.) Bonus Steps

Not unique to our poetic realm, a lot of artists show up to the forest of non-fungible tokens with the idea of selling their work without becoming collectors themselves. I suppose it is possible to do that, but I see NFT poetry as allowing us the unprecedented opportunity to take poetry mainstream! 

It is more fun (and radically more productive) to build sandcastles together than trying to construct a new kingdom all on our own. Sometimes you’re the one digging the moat, or filling it with water–but no one should just be throwing sand!

So, check out other poet’s NFT poems and collect them if you feel so inclined. Come join us cheering each other on over on Twitter, as we want to celebrate your poetry and invite you to keep building our sandcastle.