Hey, poetry poeple! A local organization just offered the Boston Poetry Slam a chance to get involved with The Big Read, a big literary push to get folks to (you may have guessed) read more. Their mission statement is as follows:
The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts, designed to restore reading to the center of American culture. The NEA presents The Big Read in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and in cooperation with Arts Midwest. The Big Read brings together partners across the country to encourage reading for pleasure and enlightenment. (from thebigread.org )
They are hoping we will run a poetry event as part of the Boston program, which sounds like good fun and good publicity for us. Our communities' selected book is Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God.
My question to you guys: has anyone else been involved in this program before? Or does anyone know anything about it? I'd love to hear what experiences people might have had with last year's initiative. I'd also be open to hearing anyone's ideas for how to create a poetry slam related to Hurston's novel.
