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!

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.