Posted on by kimhaynesjohnson

How to Plan a National Poetry Month Event in Your Town and Throughout All The Land- Stafford Challenge Day 65, Slice of Life Challenge Day 21

Special Thanks to Two Writing Teachers

Last year, Denise Krebs asked me to share what I had done to plan a National Poetry Month celebration in my rural Georgia town. Today, I’m sharing a list prose poem (I think I just totally made that combo form up) of How To Plan A Poetry Event In Your Town. I’m currently, still, and always in the planning stages, so these are some of the things I’ve done to plan this year’s event (and last year’s too). At the end of April, I’ll share a picture tour of these events that began in February this year (we couldn’t wait…). Stay tuned.

Painted canvas in the palette of awakenings poetry – ready for lettering!
21 Steps to a Town Poetry Celebration: A List  Prose Poem 

1.  Ask the local Arts Council to pick a theme that fits your town. Imagine the infinite possibilities when they pick Awakenings after two years of the same theme of Bloom. 
2.  Say a prayer of thanks that your community works together to make poetry happen and has given you the title The Crazy Poetry Lady. (Move over, Crazy Cat Ladies!)
3.  Ask a friend to write a poem on the theme (the one who writes a book instead).
4.  When he writes the book, set him up with a poetry reading and book signing event.
5.  Ask another local poet to read and sign his new book, too, in the coffee shop. 
6.  Think back to Fran Haley's post on The Poetry Fox and invite him to town with his Fox suit and his vintage typewriter to bang out poems in under 70 seconds when folks throughout the land give him a word and then watch them be amazed when he stamps it with his little fox paw print, suitable at once for framing. 
7. When he agrees to come from North Carolina, create canvases for the Chamber of Commerce windows of all the poets' verses. Paint the backdrops in shades of sunrise awakenings. Pretend you are a New York City window dresser and borrow easels and  buy fishing line and eye hooks to hang the artwork, then stand back and wonder if any Crazy Cat Ladies will loan you some poetry cats
to curl up in the window display. 
8.  Set up a Progressive Poetry Walk around the town square (read it in sections on stands). Since people will come throughout the land to see the fox, they’ll need something to read while they wait in the long line. 
9.  Make YouTube shorts of directions on how to write poetry for those who think they can't.
10.  Set up community poetry writing kiosks with QR codes to scan for directions and create a community Padlet to showcase the writing online. 
11.  Ask the Georgia Poet Laureate to come read her poems in the coffee shop, too. Jump out of your skin with excitement when she sends you two poems that will appear in her new book and allows you to put them on a canvas in the Chamber window. 
12.  Plan an Open Mic night so those throughout the land can come listen....read.....recite. Note that 2 other community partners planned them without your prompting this year….and smile that your seeds are blooming. Pray your garden will grow and grow theoughout the land. 
13.  Bask in the glow of what poetry does in a town and a state and a nation and a heart. 
14.  Invite all your writing group friends to  come to 1828 Coffee Company on April 25 at 6:00 to read their poems and drink the best coffee in all the land with you. Because Glenda Funk keeps a suitcase packed and ready, you know. 
15.  If they can't be here in person, invite them instead to record themselves reading a favorite poem or one they've written and send it to you or upload it to YouTube so you can make a QR code and put it in frames all around your town and throughout the land. 
16.  Create canvases of their verses to go in the Chamber windows, too, on your theme: awakenings. 
17.  Wonder why you haven't created a collection and put it out on Amazon.  
18.  Start a Word document of all the poems you'd put in a poetry collection on your theme.
19.  Decide to self publish a short collection and choose a title and create an action plan. 
20.  Bask in the joy of poetry and all the healing it brings to a heart and a town and a state and a nation and a world and a universe.
21.  Don't wonder where you'd be without the gift of poetry.  You don't even want to know.

and then wonder if you can rewrite 21 into a poem all its own…..try a Haiku….

you don’t want to know
where you’d be without the gifts
of life-changing verse

its healing magic
reaches in, awakens souls 
throughout all the land 

…

18 Replies to “How to Plan a National Poetry Month Event in Your Town and Throughout All The Land- Stafford Challenge Day 65, Slice of Life Challenge Day 21”

  1. This is glorious, on so many levels! I am 1) inspired to tackle a national poetry month event 2) love the list poem that has so many twists and turns and 3) the haiku is gorgeous! You have a wonderful Slice here and I am taking it with me into my day!

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  2. Oh my goodness! As I read your list, I started taking notes. This is our first year of celebrating a Poem in Your Pocket day at our school and I have miles to go. I appreciate the ideas you shared. Crazy Poetry Lady has a nice ring to it.

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    1. Margaret, the grand finale will be April 25th, a Thursday night with an Open Mic before our spotlight event – our Georgia Poet Laureate’s (Chelsea Rathburn) reading and presentation. Come to any or all. Clayton is reading March 28th, the library is having an Open Mic April 16th with Ethan Jacobs reading from his book, the Poetry Fox will be here April 11, and we’ll be dressing the Chamber windows April 15. Come share the joy of poetry with us! If you want to do a reading, you know I’ll work on a space and time ~ we’d love to have you!

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  4. You are an extraordinary person, Kim. What a feat! What a wondrous, inspiring event for your community! I am, to steal your words, ‘jumping out of my skin’ at your ingenuity. Just phenomenal. I love your haiku, and I love #13 – “Bask in the glow of what poetry does in a town and a state and a nation and a heart.”

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    1. Maureen, thank you so much! I think you are the extraordinary one taking care of your neighbors and allowing them to have a measure of normalcy as they await their repair. That’s the best!

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  5. OK, Kim, I’ve already shared this with one go-getter person who I hope can help me make it happen in our town. I have a plan hatched for 2025. I love all the mentions of your whys! Basking in the joy of poetry, and those two haikus really cement why you are doing this. Wouldn’t that be fun to come on April 25th in person. I wonder if Glenda will come! I might send a video though!

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  6. Holy moly, Kim, your post today is packed full of great advice and information I need to borrow. Your poetry is such a beautiful end to your post. I love the power of poetry and you celebrate it so well through this post and your poetry. Bravo for doing so much for your community so they, too, can be enriched by the gift of poetry.

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  7. Kim!! What amazing work you’ve put into this event – I feel the electricity already happening, and I know that people will come out and experience their own poetry “awakenings”! I’m delighted that Poetry Fox is coming – stand back and watch people’s faces light up with wonder…and sometimes, smiling through tears. I still have to try & write a few poems for you…speaking of which…your #21 haiku is pure gold. I am applauding every single word – I believe this about poetry, with all my heart.

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    1. Thank you, Fran! You are a big part of the inspiration to add The Poetry Fox this year – I would not have known about him if it were not for you, so thank you a hundred times. I can’t wait to hear him speak and get a poem.

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