note: I'm posting this in a separate thread in hopes of it's being more readily noticeable--moderators, feel free to merge this with the other thread, preferably after some replies have come through.
Hey guys!
It's really great to see such a large and varied list of EC candidates this year; I wish I could be in Denver for the meeting, I'm sure it's going to be a fight to remember. 
That said, here are my questions for the EC candidates this year.
1) The following is the second of five amended articles of incorporation for PSI as listed on the website:
"To enhance the perception of literary merit and legitimacy of performance poetry as an art form."
What the above mean to you? Do you believe that we are currently successful in the enhancement of perceived literary merit and legitimacy of performance poetry? If not, what do you, as a member of the EC, hope to do in order to further this process? Or, for incumbents, what do you see as roadblocks to achieving further literary merit for our art form? Can you propose a way to circumvent these roadblocks within your next term?
2) There has been a lot of talk regarding the possibility of PSI events being held within a limited number of host cities. How do you feel about this idea? Are your for or against it? Explain your position.
I think I answer both of these in the main thread, but I don't mind rewinding a little bit.~Suzi's first question addresses some of the first & I put my position on looking at the sustainability of rotating events in my bid.
I do think PSI sponsors both poets and poetry in a gigantic way, and has done so for 20+years by providing a vehicle for getting poetry out there and advancing the idea that stories from all walks of life are valid, necessary. It's done through events, and workshops and inviting audiences in to participate inthe echange.Further, poets gain confidence to seek work in this field of poetry and stories, going from local to a national level and then beyond. I would like to see an accessible on-line archive,links to resources like INdiefeed & Write Bloody books of bringing poetry into classrooms---I would like to see these things funneled trhough our site. Part of it is my own fatigue with facebook or other social media re-iterations of the question " I am going into a middle school/high school and need some non-explitive poetry to share" and other similar questions or even "it's April and I'm trying to write 30 poems in 30 days and I need prompt and exercises"---I want to be able to point to our site and say "look over there, it has what you are looking for." Whether or not Erik has enough time, help, energy and copyright to make that a reality, I'm not sure, but I'd like to explore that as a way to continue to advance our community's role.
I don't think it is sustainable to continue the way we do---either for teams traveling or for PSi or for host cities & in some ways, I think we may have to take a hard look at how many teams make it in if we are to decide to go on the path we're going on now.I think of WOW and IWPS as more of the feeder slams, perhaps those are more manageable in size, to some extent, to keep them on the move. I advocate a kind of grounding that would, say, pick four regions and rotate between them.That way, host cities would have a kind of break between re-hosting, but also, teams traveling wouldn't be looking at coming primarily east or going south in august.I am also thinking that we could then develop a system that would rely more on regional help in hosting than putting it all on one city's crews, even every 3-4 years--develop more regional participation and responsibility.
Another alternative might be to have NPS every other year---which might be a really hard sell locally and to newer scenes.We may also have to look into being more rigid about things like W &I---taking only teams that do it and only teams with wins or ties, to make the growth of NPS more capped. I"m not necessarily saying I think these are the best options, but that we should be talking about how to make NPS easier to host. I feel like Simone & co. just set the bar, remade the template. Now we have to figure out how to replicate that. I look forward to seeing how Charlotte will throw down--they've been amping toward it for awhile with hosting IWPS.
I hear Inkera, too. Maybe NPS should stay on the move and IWPS & WOW should stick to a kind of regional rotation. I don't think I or any one of us has one right answer for this, but we should be talking about all of these variables as well as asking the cities who have hosted over the years what their very experiences have been (and maybe catalog them, as Logic suggests ;-).
Thank you for asking these---I hope I didn't start off sounding snide. It is worth it to brainstorm all around these questions.
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