17 Poets! Enriches New Orleans Culture
17 Poets! Literary and Performance Series has been a place of community and creativity in New Orleans' French Quarter since 2003. Every Thursday night, 17 Poets! presents featured performers followed by an open mic. Past Performers include Eileen Myles, Anne Waldman, Jerome Rothenberg, Simon Pettet, Alice Notley, and Yusef Komunyakaa. Local poets such as Andrei Codrescu, Bill Lavender, Lee Meitzen Grue, and John SInclair have performed as well. 17 Poets! has hosted shows such as Butoh Performances, Puppet Shows, Mixed Media Performances, Musical Collage in addition to spoken word, poetry, and video presentations. Our space at the Gold Mine Saloon doubles as a performance space and art installation space with local and national artists presenting works in rotating shows. Current works include artists Michael Fedor, Jonathan Kline, Joshua Walsh, and Herbert Kearney. Photo images from past shows have been archived at the literary journal: Big Bridge, Issue 14: http://www.bigbridge.org/BB14/art/Thumbnails.html
Cultural Exchange/ Vital Communities
17 Poets! is a vital part of the poetry community not only in New Orleans, but in the national and international world as well. Last year, 17 Poets! was proud to be involved in a two day event that featured Romanian teachers and students presenting and performing with New Orleans poets and artists. 17 Poets! provides a space every week for poets and artists to share their work, and it also provides the opportunity for national and international writers to perform and to hear the words that are being made in New Orleans. Internationally, we have featured poets from Australia, Italy, Ireland, Germany, Norway, Amsterdam, and Nigeria, just to name a few.
Funding for 17 Poets! keeps this important series alive and free to all who want to participate. It also helps us to continue to bring in writers and performers from around the world to broaden and continually strengthen the conversation between New Orleans artists and the rest of the world.
Funding and Gifts for our Sponsors
We are asking for 2000.00 to fund the fall 2011 season of 17 Poets! (Sept 1 -Dec 15, 2011).This enables us to help poets make their way to New Orleans and to help defray some of the cost of travel and housing. Any and all funds raised by this project will go directly to performers who participate as features in the 2011 fall season of 17 Poets! We already have a full set for the 2011 fall season, and as always we aim to provide the highest level of professional human beings working in their prospective fields. Fall features include film maker Julian Semilian, translator Laura Semilian, Poet and United Artist Publisher Lewis Warsh, Poet Simon Pettet, Poet John Sinclair, Poet Bernadette Mayer, Poet Phil Good, Poet and Publisher of Horse Less Press Jen Tynes, Poet Alison Peregrin, Poet Gina Ferrara, and Louisiana Poet Laureate Julie Kane, and that's not all.
What you Get:
All contributors will help keep every single performance free!
At the 20.00 level, you will receive a signed copy of New Orleans' Poet Lee Meitzen Grue's newest collection: Downtown from Trembling Pillow Press.
At the 50.00 level, you will receive a signed copy of Lee Meitzen Grue's Downtown as well as Bernadette Mayer's latest collection Ethics of Sleep.
At the 100.00 level, you will receive signed copies of Bernadette Mayer's Ethics of Sleep, Lee Meitzen Grue's Downtown, Bill Lavender's Transfixion, and Gina Ferrara's Ethereal Avalanche (All from TPP)
At the 250.00 level, you will receive all of the above as well as a 75.00 credit at our performance space, Gold Mine Saloon and poet Dave Brinks will create a personalized broadside for you with an original poem written and dedicated to you.
Patron Package: At the 500.00 level, you will receive all of the above as well as an 11x17 original artwork, framed and signed by Dave Brinks dedicated to patron.
Patron Package Deluxe: At the 1000.00 level, you will receive all of the above as well as a two night stay at the Maison Dupuy in the French Quarter for a Thursday and Friday evening with a Thursday night Patron Reception Party in your honor at the Gold Mine Saloon.
All Sponsors at any amount over 500.00 will be acknowledged during our series as well as in our print and media sources as Contributing Patrons of 17 Poets! Literary and Performance Series
Spread the Word
Have you read at our open mic or have you attended one of our 17 Poets! Performances? You are our best asset! Let people know how important the work at 17 Poets! is to the New Orleans community. Please tweet, facebook, email, or YAWP it from the highest levees! Let's keep the world safe for poetry, and let's keep New Orleans a vital and irreplaceable part of the conversation. Yeah You Right!
