The Big Idea   

For the Love of Camden is a grassroots endeavor by poets Andrea Walls (Camden, NJ) and Cynthia Dewi Oka (Collingswood, NJ) to put the illuminating and healing powers of poetry in service of a remarkably diverse and resilient community. We are bringing Jimmy Santiago Baca, one of the most important and acclaimed poets working in the world today, to offer poetry workshops to Camden's young people and inmates, and a reading and conversation with the community-at-large. These events are scheduled for February 13-15, 2014. 

JIMMY SANTIAGO BACA was born in New Mexico of Indio-Mexican descent. He was raised first by his grandmother and later sent to an orphanage. A runaway at age 13, it was after Baca was sentenced to five years in a maximum security prison that he began to turn his life around: he learned to read and write and unearthed a voracious passion for poetry. His first book, Immigrants in Our Own Land,  was published in 1979, the year he was released from prison. He earned his GED later that same year. He is the winner of the Pushcart Prize, the American Book Award for his book of poems Martin and Meditations on the South Valley, the International Hispanic Heritage Award and for his memoir, A Place to Stand, the prestigious International Award. In 2006 he won the Cornelius P. Turner Award, which recognizes one GED graduate a year who has made outstanding contributions to society in education, justice, health, public service and social welfare. Baca has devoted his post-prison life to writing and teaching others who are overcoming hardship. He has conducted hundreds of writing workshops in prisons, community centers, libraries, and universities throughout the country. Baca is the author of numerous books including Black Mesa Poems, Healing Earthquakes, Working in the Dark: Reflections of a Poet of the Barrio, The Importance of a Piece of Paper, A Glass of Water, Stories from the Edge, and others. He is also the screenwriter for the critically acclaimed film, Blood In, Blood Out (1993). 

Why Camden?

Camden is often maligned as a "dangerous" place, marked by decay, corruption and violence.  Statistically, Camden is ranked as the poorest city, and its Black and Latino populations some of the most intensely criminalized groups in the United States. As poets and survivors who come from similarly stigmatized communities, we know that there is much more to the story than what is depicted by dominant language which reflect the beliefs of the ruling classes.  Yet as writers, we also understand the power of public language to name our selves and experiences, to teach us what to expect from our lives.  Earlier this fall, Cynthia interviewed Andrea about being a poet in Camden; this is what she had to say: 

"The way Camden is spoken about as a dangerous, impoverished place is refuted by my experience of the place.  Those labels are not about making people who live in Camden safe.  The people who use that language want to make it safe for trespassers. When you read about how dangerous it is, it’s never about what we’re in danger of, it’s how we endanger them, the trespassers.  How they are endangered by our very existence in a way that makes them ashamed to witness us." 

Camden has been home to a few of the nation's most important poets, including Walt Whitman and Nick Vergilio.  It is in this tradition that we invite Jimmy Santiago Baca to assist in the reclamation and transformation of language in/around this city. Poetry - the most distilled, boundary-defying and emotive form of language - has the capacity to save and affirm lives through witnessing, remembering, revealing and bringing into existence what is yet only a dream.  The great poet Audre Lorde has called poetry "the most economic form of art," because anyone can practice it.  We believe this act of creation to be a human capacity and a right that is even more urgent in conditions that would otherwise silence and condemn us to despair. As Andrea puts it, 

"Poor people are creative because they’re desperate and they need to be.  The electricity is off and you don’t have any heat and you haven’t eaten and your kids can’t read or do math and you have to respond in some way that saves your life.  You can’t teach that in school, that deep down I-need-to-come-up-with-something-or-I’m-gonna-die."  

We want to introduce poetry as a vehicle for this creativity in the way Camden is talked about, imagined, believed in, and this event as a contribution to re-establishing the creative writing arts as a means of reflection, transformation and amplification of the many voices in Camden. 

See Andrea's full interview at http://cynthiadewioka.com/2013/09/19/poet-in-camden-an-interview-with-andrea-walls/

For the Love of Camden: the Founders   

Andrea Walls is a Pushcart Prize nominee and author of the poetry chapbook Ultraviolet Catastrophe (Thread Makes Blanket Press).  A Voices of Our Nations (VONA) and Hedgebrook alum, her poems have been published in H.O.W. Journal, Kweli Journal and Callaloo. She was first runner-up in Solstice Literary Magazine’s First Annual Literary Contest and recently finished her first full collection of poetry, The Black Body Curve. She is the Poetry Editor of the forthcoming VONA Alumnae Anthology, Dismantle. She has been active in her two home communities of Camden and Philadelphia, working with pre-adjudicated youth and developing arts curriculum for community-based organizations. She serves as a Board Member with Camden's Sister Cities Girl Choir and is working with the Steering Committee for Camden's newly minted Fireworks Arts Initiative. 

Cynthia Dewi Oka is a poet, former teen mom and author of nomad of salt and hard water: poems (Dinah Press).  She is currently serving as poetry editor of Generations Literary Journal.  Her poems have appeared in Kweli Journal, 580 Split, Borderline Poetry, Briarpatch Magazine, Zocalo Poets, Ozone Park Journal, Boxcar Poetry Review and JMWW Magazine.  She is a contributor to Stay Solid! A Radical Handbook for Youth (AK Press) and Dismantle: An Anthology of Writing from the VONA/Voices Writers' Workshop (Thread Makes Blanket). In addition to writing, Cynthia is also an anti-racism educator and community organizer, with experience in campaigns for migrant justice, living wages, childcare and ending violence against women. 

Both of us are working-class, community based poets who believe poetry belongs in the hands of the people, in the streets and corners of our lives. We are thankful to our community partners, IDEA Arts and Sister Cities Choir, as well as the group of writers, poets and artists who have so generously donated their talents to this campaign. 

What We Need 

We need to raise $7000 for this series of events to be successful. This what YOUR contribution will allow us to achieve: 

With $5500, we will cover Jimmy Baca's travel to/from Camden, accommodation for 3 nights, and honorarium (a working artist's got to eat and pay bills like the rest of us!). 

With $6500, we will cover the cost of booking the IDEA Performing Arts Center on Camden's waterfront (already booked) and print color posters and flyers for community outreach. Camden's own Sister Cities Girl Choir has also agreed to perform at the community reading. *We will be providing tabling space for grassroots organizations in Camden at the reading to facilitate connections between them and attending community members who might be in need of their services.* 

With $7000, we will cover the cost of booking an additional space for the workshops (we are still shopping for this) and provide nutritional snacks for participants. 

If we can reach $7500, we will be able to rent a school bus to transport people from Camden to the IDEA Performing Arts Center, thus minimizing barriers for people with disabilities, young children and/or those who do not have alternate means of transportation and cannot afford public transit. 

If you help significantly exceed our goal, we will use the excess funds to seed our next event. Our longer term vision is create a series of events featuring other phenomenal poets. 

What You Get: Details on Our Perks! 

IMPORTANT NOTE: Donate a minimum of $10 and get the chance to be featured as Poet of the Day on our website. E-mail your original poems to workingpoets@gmail.com. Browse our perks in the gallery. Thank you for giving! 

$10 - THE SALT 

Receive our thanks and be listed as a contributor in our public materials (website, Facebook, posters). 

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$25 - THE KINDLER  

Be listed as a contributor and receive two e-books for your Kindle! 

ultraviolet catastrophe by Andrea Walls (Thread Makes Blanket). On May 13, 1985, a Philadelphia Police Department helicopter dropped a bomb onto a row home at 6221 Osage Avenue, the headquarters of the group MOVE. Eleven people lost their lives, five of them children, and inexplicably, despite heavy fire department presence, 61 houses on the block burned to the ground.  Writer Andrea Walls grew up just blocks away from the bombing and witnessed its aftermath, and now, a quarter century later, she’s telling the story of that night into morning through her poetry. With empathy, bravery and electric twists of phrase that speak to her project as both poet and witness, Walls brings light to this crucial moment in West Philadelphia history.

AND 

nomad of salt and hard water: poems by Cynthia Dewi Oka (Dinah Press). Oka’s book alternates between wailing lamentation and aphorism, mothersong and immigrant litany. Oka’s nomad suggests blessing and barter: ‘Trade your compass for mine.’ It’s true, the maps need new legends and luckily they can be redrawn entirely with this book of trickster verse. I love the variety of landscapes set down in these poems and the ways the poems themselves become varieties of landscape–tropics, desert, sea, city, the body itself–sometimes familiar, sometimes otherworldly, oftentimes fragmented. It’s exciting to read a debut collection that is so strange, so loving, so fierce. -Patrick Rosal 

UNLIMITED SUPPLY. 

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$30 - THE UP-N-COMER

Be listed as a contributor and receive ONE of the following books (your choice), signed by the author. 

Carving Ashes (CiCAC Press) by Hari Alluri, poet and community facilitator who has offered writing, media arts, violence prevention and empowerment workshops through multiple award-winning organizations. With work in several anthologies, his poetry has appeared in Cutthroat, Kartika, Kweli, Lumina and other literary magazines. He is a member of the editorial collective member for Stay Solid! A Radical Handbook for Youth (AK Press) and an alum of the VONA / Voices, Port Townsend and Las Dos Brujas Writers Workshops. 5 AVAILABLE.

The Butterfly Lady (Flaming Giblet Press) by Danny M. Hoey Jr., Ohio native with stories published in WarpLand, Women in REDzine, Mandala Journal, Connotation Press, African Voices Magazine, SnReview, The Writer's Bloc, and The Hampton University First-Year Writing Textbook. The Butterfly Lady is winner of ForeWord Firsts' Winter 2013 debut fiction award. 5 AVAILABLE.

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$50 - THE CANON BUILDER 

Be listed as a contributor and receive ONE of the following (your choice). 

Jimmy Santiago Baca's top 25 must-reads list. This is like getting (at least) a year's curriculum in a writing program, except better, because it's the canon used by one the world's most celebrated poets. UNLIMITED SUPPLY. 

Generations Lit Journal 1-year subscription and 3 copies of Issue 5. Generations publishes the original works and ideas of both emerging and established artists in an effort to encourage conversations across the generational gaps. The gaps can come from almost anywhere—misunderstandings, lack of communication, apathy, cultural differences, time, access, or distance. 1 AVAILABLE.  

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$75 - THE RADICAL BOOKWORM 

Be listed as a contributor and receive ONE of the following (your choice). 

Thread Makes Blanket Press is offering their books in print: ultraviolet catastrophe by Andrea Walls, Letter from Tombs Prison, 1917 featuring Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman with essays from contemporary writers-organizers, and Justice, Justice Shall You Pursue: A New Jewish Agenda by Ezra Nepon.  2 AVAILABLE.

Dismantle: An Anthology of Writing from the VONA/Voices Writers' Workshop, with foreword by the Pultizer-winning author and VONA co-founder Junot Diaz - get an advance copy accompanied by a handmade journal from poet, mixed media book artist and creative guide Kiala Givehand (http://www.kialagivehand.com). 1 AVAILABLE.

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$75 - THE AVANT GARDE 

Be listed as a contributor and receive an original mixed media visual arts piece (woodcut bolted to metal) by Sgt. Merritt, professionally appraised at $100. 

Sgt. Merritt has deployed to Helmand and Farrah Provinces in Afghanistan during his years as a machine gunner with the United States Marine Corps. (2006 - Present). Art has always been a part of his life, though in the past he used it as more of a distraction from the things that bothered him. "Looking back, I'm the only one who knew what I was going through. Now I am able to use art to tell stories that words alone cannot explain.  Instead of using it as a distraction, I channel my feelings into it."  Sgt. Merrit experiments with a variety of media, including paper making, watercolors, acrylic, sculpture, and has recently been working with sidewalk chalk.  He also writes poetry.  Sgt. Merritt is currently stationed in Quantico, VA.  See more at http://www.operationdovetail.com/joe_merritt_visual_art/#sthash.fDAtHKtv.dpuf

1 AVAILABLE. 

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$100 - THE PRIZE READER 

Be listed as a contributor AND one of the very first people to get your hands on these much anticipated titles!   

The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon (Penguin Poets) by acclaimed Nuyorican poet Willie Perdomo, FRESH OFF THE PRESS and SIGNED in spring 2014! Perdomo is the author of Where a Nickel Costs a Dime and Smoking Lovely, which received a PEN Beyond Margins Award. He has been published in the New York Times Magazine, The Harlem Reader and Poems of New York. His children’s book, Visiting Langston, received a Coretta Scott King Honor and his follow-up, Clemente! received a 2011 Amerícas Book Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature. He has been a Puschart Prize nominee, a Woolrich Fellow in Creative Writing at Columbia University and is a three-time Fellow in Poetry from the New York Foundation for the Arts. He is on the core faculty of the VONA Writing Workshops, and currently teaches in Exeter. 3 AVAILABLE.

Song of the Shank (Graywolf Press) by award-winning author Jeffery Renard Allen, FRESH OFF THE PRESS and SIGNED in spring 2014! Allen is the author of two collections of poetry, Stellar Places and Harbors and Spirits, the widely celebrated novel, Rails Under My Back, which won The Chicago Tribune’s Heartland Prize for fiction, and the story collection Holding Pattern, which won the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. A Whiting Writer’s Award winner, his essays, reviews, fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous publications and anthologies. He holds a Ph.D in English (Creative Writing) from the University of Illinois at Chicago and is currently Professor of English at Queens College of the City University of New York and a faculty member in the Writing Program at the New School. 5 AVAILABLE. 

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$150 - THE WORKSHOPPER 

Be listed as a contributor and receive professional close-reading and feedback on your writing.  Send our workshop team up to 10 pages of poetry (2 AVAILABLE) or up to 12 pages of memoir (1 AVAILABLE). Our workshop team members are: 

Hari Alluri (poetry, see bio above) 

Seve Torres (poetry) is a poet & writer based in New Jersey.  A graduate of the Rutgers-Camden MFA program, he is a founding member of the Cinderblock Poets collective and a proud VONA alumnus, with work appearing in two Poetry for the People anthologies, Stay Solid! A Radical Handbook for Youth (AK Press) and Dismantle: An Anthology of Writing from the VONA/Voices Writers' Workshop (Thread Makes Blanket Press, forthcoming).  He teaches creative writing at Rutgers-Camden and composition at Camden County College, and is currently working on on his first full-length poetry manuscript, Here We Become Islands. 

Vanessa Martir (memoir) is a NYC based writer and educator. She's currently completing her first memoir, A Dim Capacity for Wings, and chronicles the journey in her blog vanessamartir.wordpress.com. Her most recent publications include an essay in Portland Review and a memoir excerpt in the upcoming Dismantle: An Anthology of Writing from the VONA Writers' Workshop. Vanessa facilitates the Writing our Lives workshop at Hunter College. She is a five time VONA alum and the editor of the VONA newsletter.

E-mail manuscripts to workingpoets@gmail.com. 

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$250 - THE SUPER WORKSHOPPER 

Be listed as a contributor and receive professional close-reading and feedback on your writing. Send our workshop team up to 25 pages of poetry (1 AVAILABLE) OR up to 30 pages of prose - fiction, non fiction or memoir (1 AVAILABLE) to receive professional close-reading and feedback customized to your needs. Our workshop team members are:

Cynthia Dewi Oka (poetry, see bio above) 

Sharline Chiang (prose) is a writer and journalist based in Berkeley, CA. For 12 years she reported for newspapers across the country, including the New York Daily News and L.A. Daily News. A graduate of Rutgers, she holds a master’s from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and is a proud, long-time member of VONA. Currently she works in nonprofit education, most recently as director of strategic communications for the National Writing Project. Her writing has appeared in 580 Split, SCHOOL, Calliope, the anthology Shout Out: Women of Color Respond to Violence (Seal Press) and most recently in Mutha Magazine. She has been a finalist for Glimmer Train's Short Story Contest and Short Story Award for New Writers. Her memoir "Beijing Blues," about her year as a journalist in China, is represented by FinePrint Literary Management in NYC.

E-mail manuscripts to workingpoets@gmail.com. 

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$300 - THE ARTIST FOR LIFE 

Be listed as a contributor and receive one of the following unique personal development sessions with two very trained and talented working artists. 

Arts Facilitation Coaching with Nadia Chaney, an International Senior Trainer for Partners for Youth Empowerment (pyeglobal.org) and a professional poet and performer. She holds a Masters in Imaginative Education and a postgraduate diploma in Dialogue and Negotiation. Since 2002 she has facilitated or performed over two thousand events, workshops and trainings on four continents. She specializes in creative risk-taking, arts facilitation, and improvisation (especially freestyle rap). She has been commissioned to write and recite poetry for the Governor General of Canada, Simon Fraser University, and Sinha Danse, among many others. She believes the centre of the universe is at the heart of every moment.  

Nadia is offering 5 sessions of 20 min-1 hour of one on one arts facilitation coaching by Skype.  These can include program design consultation, coaching on style, tips and ideas on how to work with resistance in groups, or how to create engaging spaces for transformative learning, issue based conversations, debriefing of a project or session or any combination of these and more.  These five sessions must all be used by the same person and cannot be shared. 1 AVAILABLE. 

Self-Discovery and Healing through Writing with Seema Reza, a poet and essayist based outside of Washington, DC, where she is contracted to coordinate and facilitate a unique military hospital arts program that encourages the use of the arts as a tool for narration, self-care and socialization among a military population struggling with emotional and physical injuries. She has studied writing, poetry and the relationship between writing and healing with Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Jocelyn Cullity, Walter Butts and Jimmy Santiago Baca. She is currently completing a collection of essays and poetry, to be published by Red Hen Press. Her work has appeared on-line on HerKind, Pithead Chapel and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. Seema serves on the council for the Transformative Language Arts Network.

Seema's workshop will include a preliminary discussion (via Facetime or Skype) about the benefits of writing and healing, self-care through the practice, and a discussion about what the individual client is looking to discover/struggling with.  There will be an initial writing assignment followed by two more Facetime/Skype writing sessions, each spaced a week apart.  1 AVAILABLE. 

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$300 - THE IMPRESARIO 

Be listed as a contributor and receive an original 20 x 20 inch visual arts piece by Sgt. Merritt (see bio above): 5 layers of painted and etched glass in heavy metal frame. Professionally appraised at $350. 1 AVAILABLE. 

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$400 - THE AUTHOR 

Be listed as a contributor and receive professional close-reading of your full-length poetry manuscript (up to 75 pages) by Hari Alluri or Cynthia Dewi Oka. You will receive customized, detailed feedback within one month, accompanied by a Giving Hands handmade journal. 2 AVAILABLE.

E-mail manuscripts to workingpoets@gmail.com. 

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$750 - THE AUTHOR DELUXE 

Be listed as a contributor and receive professional close-reading of your full-length poetry manuscript (up to 75 pages) by BOTH Hari Alluri and Cynthia Dewi Oka PLUS a signed set of FIVE of Jimmy Santiago Baca's books: Working in the Dark, Healing Earthquakes, The Importance of a Piece of Paper, A Place to Stand, and the brand new Singing at the Gates, to be published in 2014.  You will received detailed feedback on your manuscript within one month. 1 AVAILABLE.

E-mail manuscript to workingpoets@gmail.com. 

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$1000 - THE VISIONARY 

Original charcoal drawing by Charles White (1918-1979), one of America's most renowned and recognized African-American & Social Realist artists. He worked primarily in black & white or sepia & white drawings, paintings, and lithographs. His artwork encompassed an incredibly skilled draftsmanship and artistic sensitivity and power that has reached and moved millions. Common subjects of his artwork included scenes depicting African-American history in the United States, socio-economic struggles, human relationships, and portraits. White received numerous honors and awards and has been exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago, Whitney Museum, Metropolitan Museum, Smithsonian Institution, National Academy of Design, and elsewhere throughout the world. He was elected to the National Academy of Design in 1972.  1 AVAILABLE. 

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IMPORTANT: Andrea and Cynthia are organizing this whole initiative on a volunteer basis. We are doing this, literally, for the love of Camden. We have been very blessed by our community of giving artists, but we do have limited supplies of most of the perks we are able to offer.  We appeal to you above all, to give from the goodness and generosity of your hearts.  Please note, you can opt out of receiving any of the limited-supply perks so that another donor who might need it more than you can access it. 

What Happens if We Don't Reach Our Goal? 

We've still got options! 

1) If we are only short by a few hundred dollars, we will host a fundraiser party with local artists to raise the remaining amount. This however, would mean additional organizing work that would take away from planning the main event. Another back-up plan we have is to charge sliding-scale tickets ($5-10) for the community reading on February 15th, but ideally we really want this event to be accessible to low-income and broke people, so each donation from you helps to make attendance possible for one of these folks. 

2) If we are short by no more than $1000, we will find an alternative space to host the community reading and conversation. We are currently in the process of securing back-up places and will keep you posted on our progress. The theater, however, is ideal because of it can seat over 120 people; it also has excellent lighting and acoustics for maximum impact and comfort (no distractions!). 

3) If we are short by a few thousand dollars, we save the money, reschedule the event, and organize another fundraising campaign because at least then we won't be starting from zero again. We are not giving up! 

The point is, we are determined to make this happen, but we need YOUR help. 

Other Ways You Can Help

If you can't contribute financially but wish to support our project, PLEASE help us spread the word about this campaign. Send our Indiegogo page as far and wide as you can, to your friends, families, co-workers; your dentist, hairdresser, cable guy; your pastor, priest, rabbi, sangha...anyone and everyone you can reach out to. 

PLEASE SHARE THIS CAMPAIGN ON YOUR TWITTER (#fortheloveofcamden), FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM, PINTEREST AND ALL OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA NETWORKS YOU USE!!!  We are counting on you, for the love of Camden. 

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