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
  

The Programs

This is a list of the poetry/literature programs being planned at Andrews Base Library. At the end of each description is the key word I will use to identify a blog post related to that specific program.

Poetry and Pizza (P & P)- kick-off program where we invite customers to a reading from a poet and everyone (poet and patrons) gets pizza. This event, especially, will have a casual, welcoming feel. We want to take the intimidation factor out of poetry and being able to understand it. P & P will run at least every other month.(blog post tag: reading)

Writing Workshop- I will be talking to some of the local English departments to see if they have any creative writing graduate students who could come run a 4 week creative writing workshop at the library for a nominal fee and/or credit towards their degree.(blog post tag: workshop)

Andrews Annual Literary and Arts Journal- The library would take submissions of poetry, short stories, and visual arts to be published in a small journal. (blog post tag: journal)

Andrews Literature and Art Festival- This is where we would premier the journal. this will be scheduled in April to coincide with Library Week and National Poetry Month. This would be a community event featuring those who were published in the journal, other writers, artists, and crafters.(blog post tag: festival)

Hopefully, the journal and festival will be "the first annual...".

Introduction

Over the next 5 months Andrews Base Library is planning 3 programs and 1 journal. I am totally excited to be managing these projects. The point of these programs is to bring more literary programming for adults into the military libraries. This blog will be a “how-to/what I did” for other libraries that would like to plan these programs. I will be blogging about who I met with for what, regulations we have to follow, planning the program, and everything else- including after action reports and hopefully some video of the programs.Hope you find this helpful!