Planning for the next eight months

Hi everyone,

My term as Missouri’s poet laureate is set to expire a little more than eight months from now at the end of September so I’ll need enough columns for Poetry from Daily Life to last that long. This will bring the total number of weekly episodes in the series to 100. To make sure this happens, I’ve been sending out invitations to poets we haven’t heard from yet and asking for a second column from those who have already contributed once. As of this morning, I have enough columns finished and on hand to last through May and enough promises of columns to come to complete the final four months and finish the series.

The second part of my project — to record each guest contributor to the column reading his or her work — has made tremendous progress. Our videographer, BRIAN SHIPMAN, is about set to release the first 30 (or more) videos as a free video library under the umbrella title of Poetry from Daily Life. This will be available at no charge anywhere in the world where viewers have access to them. Each week Brian is adding more readers to the growing library. I have enough funds on hand to record 60 of the 100 episodes and am now at work to raise the funds necessary to complete the project to include them all.

The column now appears in six newspapers. They are Springfield News-Leader — our host — plus Columbia Tribune, Hermann Advertise Courier, Kansas City Call, Brookings Register (SD), and Cunningham Courier (KA). Every week more than 100,000 readers in three states have access to Poetry from Daily Life and deans of schools of English and Education on five university campuses in three states receive the online links to distribute among faculty members and students.          

I’m proud of where we are and where we’re headed. Thank you for sharing the column with others and thereby extending the effort of remind people of all ages that poetry is part of our lives in more ways that we might realize, were it not for the wonderful poets who bring us their perspectives every week.