Success!

On February 3, 2012 we had an amazingly successful Pizza and Poetry Program featuring poet Jehanne Dubrow!

Previously any poetry program we have tried, from open mics to story times, has not been well attended. But before jumping into and failing at another poetry program we took the time to think about what made other programs successful.

One idea came from our Teen Advisory Group and some of our most successful programs. The #1 attended event is our yearly Ice Cream Social during the Summer Reading Program. Why? Probably because the whole event is about giving away food! At the same time we held a TAG meeting and asked what we could do to get better teen participation. Only one answer was unanimous- Feed Us. So with this in mind we decided to serve pizza at our next poetry program.

The second thing that made Pizza and Poetry successful was that we thought about an audience. Usually poetry programs come about because it is National Poetry Month, or a desperate poet thinks they can sell/sign books at the library and promote literacy. With Pizza and Poetry we took time to do our homework. As I was searching for the right poet to kickoff this series I attended a poetry reading at the local community college. The poet was Jehanne Dubrow, a military spouse. Even better her latest collection, Stateside, focused on life before, during, and after deployment.

Jehanne Dubrow was a perfect match for our built in audience, military families. In marketing Pizza and Poetry we focused on the connection Jehanne and her poetry had to the audience and that it was one night dinner would be taken care of. Really focusing in on what our customers wanted, instead of what we wanted them to want, meant we had our biggest showing at almost 50 people- for a poetry program!

Check out the video here!

Reading Poetry is Sooooo... Delicious

This years DoD Summer Reading Program is a great opportunity to do lots of Poetry and Pizza programs. It is an easy program that incorporates two of the three values put forth in the teen slogan- eating and reading! On April 12 we had Slam poet Jonathan B Tucker out to do a reading. His energy was amazing! He had audience members from 7 to 70 fully engaged in his poems. We are inviting him back out this summer to do another reading. We will be piggybacking a workshop off of that reading for middle and high school students to learn how to "spit".

This leaves move.. For this we will have a special Story Time in which we use poems to encourage the kids to move. Simply select a few kids poems that talk about wiggling, running- any kind of movement. As you read the poems have the kids act them out. This encourages creative play and gets kids involved in poetry in a fun way.

The Snow Ball Effect

Some may look at these programs and think "Wow, that could be overwhelming." or wonder how much work goes into keeping the standard once set. The wonderful thing about this is after a very successful kick-off program with Jehanne Dubrow, I have had authors falling in my lap to do a reading! Yes I have put some effort into bringing in some more poets and authors, but the key to this program is poets and writers talk! There is a lot of community in the writing world, take advantage of it. Ask your first poet for recommendations on the next. Ask them to tell their colleagues you are interested in holding events and they should feel free to contact you. The point is once a buzz starts about the literary programs going on at your library, finding new voices to participate will be easy.

Poetry Foundation Offer

The Poetry Foundation is giving away free copies of their April issue of Poetry. You can request them at their website http://www.poetryfoundation.org/npm. The press release said you could request a few for your book club, however, I was able to request 100 copies to give away at the library throughout the month.

Progressing well

Ends are being tied for our February 3rd reading from Jehanne Dubrow. We have submitted ads to the base magazine and newspaper, flyers and posters are going out, and emails have been sent. Poetry and Pizza is sailing pretty well.

The other programs are falling into place as well. For the writing workshop, we are discussing using the Universal Class program provided by the DoD. They have a Creative Writing 101 class that we plan to use as the basis of the workshop. We will have a weekly meet up of the students to workshop their work in the class.

Finding a Poet

As it is called Poetry and Pizza, we decided our first speaker should definitely be a poet, although later events will feature authors of a variety of work. It was hard to figure out how to find a poet. After some brainstorming I came up with a variety of ways to locate local poets and authors though. I started by doing the following:

• Go to http://www.neh.gov/whoweare/statecouncils.html. This will help you find your local humanities council. They usually have a few different events going on and will often know many locals who are active in the humanities.
• Do a search for local bookstores, coffeehouses or other places that hold regular readings or open mic nights. Think about going to a couple of these events you can talk to the authors and poets. Even if the one doing the reading isn't quite right for your library, they can suggest and help you contact someone who is.
• Contact some of the local schools. This is how I initially heard about our first reader. English departments usually have reading series, or at the very least know about ones going on in the community.
• Don't forget about local libraries! Stop in to say hello and ask them if they do readings. If so, do they have any tips?
  

More about Poetry and Pizza

So our first program is going to be Poetry and Pizza. We will invite people to come eat pizza and listen to a poet while they fill their tummies. The aim is to have a simple, casual atmosphere where library users feel comfortable interacting with poetry and its practitioners.
Once up and running this will be a bi-monthly program (once every 2 months).

My current to do list for this program:

• Find local poet
• Figure out how to get pizza
• Brainstorm other supplies needed
  
• Talk with potential attendees to figure out the best day and time