Have No Fear, Poetry’s Here

Getting Patrons Excited about Poetry: Solutions for National Poetry Month and Beyond

Catherine Halley, Director of Digital ProgramsKatherine Litwin, Library Director

Meet the Poetry Foundation

Mission:

The Poetry Foundation—publisher of Poetry magazine—exists to discover and celebrate the best poetry and to place it before the largest possible audience.

Catherine Halley

Digital Programs DirectorPoetry Foundation

Catherine leads the digital initiatives at the Poetry Foundation, where she serves as Editor of poetryfoundation.org, and oversees the development of digital products, including the award-winning POETRY mobile app. Prior to joining the Poetry Foundation, she was the online editor at gURL.com and Domino magazine.

Katherine Litwin

Library DirectorPoetry Foundation

Katherine manages the library at the Poetry Foundation, where she is responsible for developing interactive programing for children and adults and cultivating its collection. Prior to her work with the Poetry Foundation, she was the Library Services Coordinator at the Donors Forum, and a Librarian at the Pierre Burton Resource Library in Ontario.

Poetry Foundation Library

Poetry Foundation Library

The Poetry Foundation library in Chicago is the Midwest’s only library exclusively devoted to poetry. Patrons may access the collection through the use of our reading room. Since we’re a non-circulating library we have a strong focus on engaging patrons with the collection through programming.

Poetry Foundation Websites

poetryfoundation.org

• Curated archive of 20K poems• 3K poet biographies

• Poetry magazine online • Full digital archive of Poetry

magazine• Audio poems/podcasts • Feature articles & educational resources• Harriet blog aggregates poetry news

poetryoutloud.org

Poetry Out Loud

Poetry Out Loud is a national poetry recitation contest for high school students sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Poetry Foundation, and State Arts Organizations. It starts at the classroom level. Winners advance to a school-wide competition, then to a regional and/or state competition, and ultimately to the National Finals. The top three students are awarded $20,000, $10,000, and $5,000.

Patrons and Poetry

Talking about Poetry

Patrons may feel intimidated when it comes to talking about poetry. As do many librarians. It’s helpful to know that everyone feels this way.

Here are some strategies for talking about poetry that you can use in book groups and on a one-and-one basis.

Programming: Book Groups

Don’t be afraid to discuss poetry in your book groups. It’s okay if you encounter a book of poems or a single poem and you don’t know what the poem means.

If you’re worried that patrons will be put off, integrate it with other genres. Try adding a book of poems in the mix.

Once you’re in the room with patrons, read the poem twice aloud. On the second read through, ask the book group to close their eyes.

Close Your Eyes and Listen

The Question of My Mother by Robin Ekiss

The question of my mother is on the table. The dark box of her mind is also there, the garden of everywhere we used to walk together.  Among the things the body doesn't know, it is the dark box I return to most: fallopian city engrained in memory, ghost-orchid egg in the arboretum,  hinged lid forever bending back and forth — open to me, then closed   like the petals of the paperwhite narcissus. What would it take to make a city in me?  Dark arterial streets, neglected ovary hard as an acorn hidden in its dark box on the table: Mother, I am out of my mind, spilling everywhere.

Tips for Moving the Discussion Along:

• talk about how the language makes you feel

• what imagery is in the poem

• who the speaker is

• who the audience is

• line breaks -- why lines are broken as they are

• diction -- what words or lines stand out

• what sounds are prevalent in the poem

Children’s Book Groups

The same strategies that work for adults work for teens and children. In fact, children may be more receptive to experiencing the materiality of language.

Discussing Poetry with Children

• Pick poems that children can related to

• Don’t be afraid to use poems that were written for an adult audience with children. These often work well. We’ve had success with poems by Robert Frost, Gwendolyn Brooks, and W. S. Merwin.

• Stopping by Woods on Snowy Evening, for instance

Caroline Kennedy

Forthcoming

Questions to Ask Children

• Ask the same kinds of questions you ask adults: What lines stand out? What images stand out? Do you like the person speaking in the poem? Would you want to be friends with that person? If the poem is about a place, is this a place you want to visit?

• Include a writing component in addition to reading – ask students to write a poem using the original poem as inspiration.

Open the Door

Collection of essays by poets about how to excite young people about poetry, edited by Dorothea Lasky, Dominic Luxford, and Jesse Nathan.

See starred Booklist review March 15, 2013

“unique and inspiring collection of essays, a roundtable discussion with 18 leaders of literary organizations…and smart and lively lesson plans for poets, educators, librarians, and other enthusiasts …” –Donna Seaman

Open the Door

Sample Exercises:

Travis Nichols: Dream Journal

Matthew Zapruder: Bad Title Exercise

Order Info

April 2013: McSweeney’s

Free PDF at: poetryfoundation.org/openthedoor

Children’s Poetry www.poetryfoundation.org/children

Children’s Poet Laureate

J. Patrick Lewis: Economics teacher turned poet

Monthly Children’s Poetry Book Pick

poetryfoundation.org/childrens

Essential Children’s Collection

Bibliography of children’s poetry books:

poetryfoundation.org/children/essential/ant

Strategies for Developing an Adult Poetry Collection

Small budget, Broad range:

• Order from a variety of publishers: both small press and more established publishing houses.

• Some esteemed small presses are: Graywolf, Coffee House, Copper Canyon, City Lights, FSG.

• More established publishers with good poetry lists are: Norton, HarperCollins, Penguin.

Anthologies

• Anthologies are an easy way to broaden the breadth of your collection and expose readers to poets they may not encounter otherwise.

• Two recent anthologies I’ve enjoyed are: The Arcadia Project, edited by Joshua Corey and G.C. Waldrep, and The Open Door edited by Christian Wiman and Don Share

The Open Door

The Open Door: 100 Poems 100 Years of Poetry Magazine

Edited by Don Share & Christian Wiman

A selection of 100 poems from the history of the magazine. Published by University of Chicago Press.

Community-Based Collection Development

• Look at who’s in your community and what they want to read. Your constituents may be interested in poetry from a particular place or culture. For example, if you’re community includes a large Spanish-speaking population, you’ll want to develop that collection. Examples: Pablo Neruda, Frederico Garcia Lorca, Sandra Cisernos, Roberto Bolano, Raul Zurita

• African-American: Kevin Young, Terrance Hayes, Rita Dove, Natasha Trethewey, Thomas Sayers Ellis

• GLBTQ: Reginald Shepherd, Rafael Campo, Audre Lorde, D.A. Powell, Eileen Myles, Julian Brolaski

Prize-Winners

• National Book Award, Pulitzer Prize, Yale Younger Poets, Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize

Programming: Displays

How to merchandise your poetry books so they get more circulation:

Integrate with other topics – look for thematic tie ins:

• Display about ecology/nature: Mary Oliver

• Display about war: Gary Snyder or Yusef Komunyakaa

• Display about love and being single: Rachel Wetzsteon

• Display about urban life: Carl Sandburg

Programming: Displays

• Travel: pair travel books with regional poets (Spain/Frederico Garcia Lorca, Midwest/Lorine Niedecker, New York/Frank O’Hara)

Programming: Displays

• Television and Poetry: pair “Mad Men” with Frank O’Hara and Dante, “Breaking Bad” and Walt Whitman

Online Resources poetryfoundation.org

Online archive of more than 20K poems

Browse by themes and categories such as:

• love

• nature

• holidays

• occasions

Poet Recommendations

Find poets by:

• school of poetry

• region

• birthdate

• gender

Learning Lab

poetryfoundation.org/learninglab

• educational resources

• discussion questions, teaching tips, writing ideas

• articles for teachers & students

• glossary

• audio

Podcasts

Poetry off the Shelf

Bi-weekly discussion about poetry hosted by Curtis Fox.

Poetry Magazine Podcast

Editors discuss poems and prose from the issue each month.

POETRY Mobile Apppoetryfoundation.org/mobile

Poetry Readers Advisory

When people ask us for recommendations, we’ll start by asking similar questions that one would ask when doing other types of readers advisory.

Who do they like? What do they connect to in the work – subject matter or style? That will help you make a recommendation.

Most People Know The Dead Poets Society

Popular Contemporary Poets You May Not Know

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Poetry Readers Advisory

If someone comes in and they like a particular poet—Sylvia Plath, for example—you can ask them what they like:

Tone

Subject matter

Biographies:poetryfoundation.org

• To find a poet similar to Plath, you might look up Plath on poetryfoundation.org, and look at how she’s categorized on her bio page.

• Note that she’s a “confessional poet”.

One Possible Pairing

Sylvia Plath

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Confessional Poet

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Anne Sexton

Browse for Similar Subjects

If someone says they like Sylvia Plath because she writes about gender, for instance, you could browse for poems by that subject under social commentary.

Finding Similar Poems

If someone has a favorite poem, you can try to look it up on poetryfoundation.org. If it’s there, it may have tags or categories associated with it. You can click on these tags to find similar poems.

Poetry Readers Advisory

People who gravitate to a poet who’s got a strong narrative, will often like other poets with a similar style.

Or if people are interested in a particular theme like war – they will often enjoy war poetry.

Poetry Readers Advisory

Complete novice: What do you like to read in general?

What kind of writers? If they like lyrical novels, they might like poets with similarly evocative language like Joanna Klink or Robin Ekiss or Catherine Wagner.

If they enjoy something with a stronger narrative, they might like poets with narrative-based verse like Sharon Olds or Joshua Mehigan or Robert Hass or Dorothea Lasky.

Web-Based Recommendations

The Poetry Foundation website has a browse feature & poem samplers organized by categories. You can find poems by:

• subject matter

• holidays and occasions

• poetic form

• historical era

• school of poetry

Calliope: Poem Recommendation Engine

Coming in 2014

The Poetry Foundation is working on a web-based recommendation engine to help site visitors find poems similar to the ones they like.

This program will pair similar poems based on a combination of subject matter, style, tone, etc.

Think of it as Pandora for Poems!

New Books

Pink Thunder (book & CD) by Michael Zapruder

Black Ocean Press

Poetry & Music

New Books

No Object by Nathalie Shapero

Saturnalia Books, 2013

Questions?

Catherine Halleychalley@poetryfoundation.org

Katherine Litwinklitwin@poetryfoundation.org

Thank You!