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THIS WILL BE THE SEASON OF SIDEWALK POETRY

9/22/2016

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Picture
​Those of you who have watched the stop-and-start progression of the idea of sidewalk poetry for the last couple years may be relieved to know that during this 5th season of London Open Mic Poetry there will be four people working on it, so that now I can guarantee that the idea is definitely going to be refined, thoroughly researched, a proper proposal written and then, finally, the submission made to the London Arts Council (LAC). 

Three energetic young students of Manina Jones' third-year class at Western, "Canadian Literature, Creativity and the Local", have volunteered to pour themselves into the project as part of their class work, and because they are very enthusiastic about the idea. 

For those of you unfamiliar with it, the idea is to get the city to stamp poems into the city's sidewalks as they are being repaired with new cement. An annual city-wide contest would decide on a few poems to be made into stamps each year for all that year's repairs. The poems would then be pinpointed on a map on the city's website. Citizens could use it to chart a route between poems, for a foot, bicycle or car adventure. My own motivating fantasy is that a child on the way to the bus or school would step over and look at a poem every day, and, as the years passed and as the child's mind developed, it would gain new insights into the deeper meanings in the poem, which would then become a part of the person's entire life, and poetry would become one of the pleasures of the grown adult. 

The three students working on the project are (in alph. order) Jennifer Ball, Leizel Rafanan, and Noelle Schmidt.

We will keep you informed of progress, and hopefully keep you excited about the project. Let's face it; the more support we have, the more likely it will be that the city goes for it too.

Photo: This is one of over 700 impressions of nearly 50 poems in the sidewalks of St. Paul, Minnesota, the first city to institute this idea, and, as far as we know, the only one. During their first year, 2008, over 2,000 submissions were made!
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FOUR VOLUNTEERS WANTED

6/26/2013

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London Open Mic Poetry Night is a group of amateurs. There’s not a professional bone amongst us. Which makes for many interesting situations, risks and ruffled feathers. It’s an adventure. 

You’re welcome to join us if you can do one of the jobs below. 

THE REWARDS: Each working volunteer earns a spot in our organizing committee, a vote in our major decisions and a blog on our website, which has been averaging about 120 visitors a day during the last couple months, and rising. Members are totally responsible for the contents of their blogs, and can post prose, poems, photos and YouTube videos, all automatically shared to any other social media selected -- Facebook, Twitter, etc. Thanks to Erik Martinez Richards for paying for a website upgrade, bloggers can see how many visitors are coming to each posting on the blog, where they came from and what search words they used, if that was their route. These volunteer blogs should deepen the website itself even further, attracting more visitors. 

POSITION #1: INTERNET MANAGER, which would mostly involve constructing postings out of incoming material, basically keeping the website and Facebook page up to date and in good shape. 

POSITION #2: VIDEOGRAPHER. This volunteer must own a hand-held video camera. Eric Martinez Richards, our chief photographer, wants to expand his department with videos of all the readers, featured and open mic. Individual videos of the readers would be posted on YouTube, and from there onto our website. We would have a special page for videos of each  month’s readings. Of the 15 readers at our last reading/open mic on June 5th, there were at least 10 whom some attendees would have loved to see again to further digest their poems. A poem read once is difficult to get because the mind wanders, but if it can be watched two or three times, it can really be appreciated. Also many people who can’t make it to our readings can watch the videos. And we have many visitors, a growing number, from beyond London, even from outside Canada, who of course can’t come. The videos would also form an archive of our events. Years from now some of the early readers may obtain notoriety, and fans may one day wish to watch their early readings. We already have a couple open mic readers who seem to be on their way. 

POSITION #3: SECOND STILL CAMERA. This volunteer would need a good still camera, and would be expected to replace Eric Martinez Richards when he can’t make it to an event. Also the person would work together with Eric after the events, helping to crop, brighten, etc, the photos and post them to the websites. 

POSITION #4: EBOOK EDITOR. This is a bit more tentative than the other positions. We have an idea that possibly we could produce an ebook at the end of each year featuring the year’s poets. However this may not be possible, costwise, or whatever. We haven’t really looked into it yet. But if anyone knows about it, or wants to look into it a bit (google it) and finds it can be done cheaply somehow, we would then be happy to make them a member and get it going.  

These four positions are for poets or poetry aficionados. Volunteers must have two qualities: They must be able to do the task well, at least after a short learning period. And they must be very responsible, which means the task must be fulfilled properly whenever it is needed to be done, unless there is some specific reason that it can’t be and other arrangements are made in advance. 

Please email Stan at burfield@live.com

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