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HomeMy WebLinkAboutNorth Andover Poet Laureate Committee 02-03-2021 North Andover Poet Laureate Committee Meeting Minutes Virtually on February 3, 2021, began at 8:05 pm Attendees: Mark Bohrer, Jill M. Barker, Karen Kline, and Marie McAndrew-Taylor. Marie McAndrew-Taylor was appointed Secretary Pro Tem. It was noted that because the GoogleMeets are recorded, they are available on YouTube at North Andover Poet Laureate and can be accessed to assist in the write-up of the official meeting minutes. PLC Chair Jill Barker mentioned a rotating schedule for the secretary pro temp will commence. The meeting's opening poem was chosen and delivered by Jill Barker. In honor of Black History Month, she read Amanda Gorman's "We come together . . ." Ms. Gorman was honored very recently as the Presidential Inaugural Poet. Comments were shared about her impressive and engaging performance at the Inauguration. Karen Kline mentioned that, like President Joe Biden, in her youth Amanda had some issue with stuttering and found that by reading poetry aloud and repeating it, she eventually overcame that difficulty. Her youthful and riveting performance captured her audience, giving new life to public poetry and an elevated platform for the power of poetry in our national and everyday life. She definitely brought a spotlight to poetry and helped bring it back into the national, public arena. Marie mentioned that Amanda will be reading a poem at the upcoming Super Bowl on Sunday, Feb 7, 2021. Poet Laureate Mark Bohrer gave an update on the monthly Open Mic poetry events which continue (online) on the 41" Tuesday of month. Mark will work with Janet Ouellette at the Stevens Estate to schedule safe in-person Open Mic events outdoors when the weather warms up in the spring. The last Open Mic outdoors at the Stevens Estate was very well attended. Mark attributes some of the good attendance numbers to the fact that he had featured poets presenting at the events, so he will keep doing that. He also mentioned that he is still hoping at some point to work with the Stevens Coolidge Place with the Trustees of the Reservation to offer a monthly short Saturday morning poetry event when the weather improves. Even if a monthly slot in their schedule was not possible, he would like to have at least one event at that site. It is a lovely North Andover landmark well-suited to a poetry event. Mark's latest poetry chapbook is coming out this week on Amazon, That Restaurant Near the Parthenon: with High Tide on the Other Side of the Earth. Also, on February 5, Mark will be a feature spot at First Friday Open Mic hosted by ReachArts in Swampscott. It will be a theatrical presentation of this new chapbook. Everyone congratulated him. The presentation will consist of three poems from the chapbook, theatrically read by Mark along with two North Andover High School students, Aaron Mancaniello and Isabel Durning, and includes music and artwork. He will send out online invites to everyone. Lastly, once weather gets better we could revive pop-up poetry again which was curtailed abruptly due to the onset of the pandemic. Those events, which are held in enclosed public spaces, will most likely have to wait until September or whenever. Discussion of Anne Bradstreet Poetry Contest, currently themed, A New Vision for America from Anne Bradstreet to Current Day. This meeting will help define how the contest will be organized, specifically, who is doing what and when. Jill asked Mary Ellen Osgood, a former PLC member, if she would be willing to assist us in some manner with the contest. She would not be rejoining the Committee as a member but would help where she could. She may also wish to be a judge for the contest. Mary Ellen is a retired NAHS History teacher and her husband Gayton Osgood, now deceased, wrote the book of North Andover entitled, "A Good In-Land Town." The contest discussion continued with Jill asking Karen Kline about the status of the minutes from the last PLC meeting because Jill couldn't confirm what had been decided for the contest outline. Members agreed that we had decided to have four competitive levels: elementary school, middle school, high school, and adult. Karen would be the point person for the elementary and middle schools; Mark for the high school, and Marie and Jill for the Adult level; this would also include them creating a list of judges for those levels. The number of judges per level was discussed. Karen suggested that 3 judges may be a good number just in case there are any ties in the selections for winners. With the recommendations from committee members, Jill will put together a list of judges. Karen and Mark suggested that the judges could overlap levels. Marie asked if Gayle Heney, the very recent former PLC Co-Chair, would be someone to judge. She would certainly be welcome but it was noted that she is otherwise engaged with her artistic pursuits currently. Considering that, Karen suggested that Gayle could be a substitute or "back- up"judge. Karen also suggested that Asst. Superintendent Lorene Marx would be a good choice for a judge at any level. Mark reminded us that we should also be looking for judges in the broader community, for example, people in town government or town businesses, and the like. There was a brief discussion of whether or not current teachers should be judges, but that was determined to be a non-issue because the poem entries will be anonymous when judged. As point persons, each PLC member will be responsible for collecting the entries for their level as well as removing the names from the entry copies that will be given to the judges. The Committee will not review the suggested judges, but will leave those choices to each point person. Mark stated that before we ask judges, we should have an announcement/flyer that will state the description of the contest, the timeline, how the poems will be shared online, etc. Jill mentioned that perhaps Bridget or Latika would help create a flyer. But what is really need right now is the information, if not a full-fledged flyer, so that we can give that informational outline to the potential judges when we ask them if they would like to be a contest judge. Mark offered to create a page with contest information. We will review that page either via emails or at the next meeting. There was a separate discussion about PLC members being judges. Jill mentioned that she was interested in being a judge for the Adult level and Karen stated that she was interested in being a judge for the elementary or middle school levels. It was agreed that any PLC member who wanted to judge the poetry entries could and then 3 additional judges from the community would be included at each level, so there could be 3-5 judges per level (or possibly more depending on the PLC members' interest). If all the entries are sent to a contest email address (that can be set up in Gmail), then Jill could be responsible for organizing the entries into levels and removing the names on the copies for the judges. Of course, the contest flyer would need to include rules for submission that require poets to indicate their level, along with other info like name, email, etc. Discussion on contest name (the theme, as noted previously, will be: A New Vision for America from Anne Bradstreet to Current Day). It was decided to keep it simple and call it the Anne Bradstreet Poetry Contest. On the spot, Mark set up an email for the contest with the address: AnneBradstreetPoetryContest�gmail.com. Timetable for the contest was reviewed before the publicity and awards. Jill suggested that the tentative deadline for the final copy of the poster/flyer be February 13. Then the Committee could review and finalize it, followed by distribution of flyers starting around Feb. 15. But after much discussion, it was agreed that that deadline may need to be more flexible, depending on when we want this event to happen. Upon Mark's recommendation, all agreed to a March 1 deadline for the flyer and its immediate distribution for publicizing it. The poetry submission deadline would be Friday, April 23. The poems would be received and sorted by either Mary Ellen or Jill who would then send the poems, now anonymous, to the point person for each level by April 27. The point person will make sure they are all anonymous copies of the appropriate level before forwarding them to the judges that weekend (April 28-29). The deadline for the judges will be Friday, May 14 and the award ceremony will be Saturday, May 22. Summary of contest deadlines: March 1 (Mon) —flyer and immediate distribution April 23 (Fri) — Poetry entry submission April 27 (Tues) — Point person for each level receives all their entries (now anonymous) and forwards them to their level judges (no later than 4/29) May 14 (Fri) — Judges' decisions May 22 (Sat) —Award ceremony Publicity will be disseminated to newspapers, schools, St. Michael's, Merrimack College, Brooks School, Brightview Assisted Living, Edgewood, and the Senior Center. We would need to have a contact person for each school so that the email flyer can be sent out. Flyer will be posted on North Andover Cam, Facebook and NA Poets Corner (by Mark?) Newspapers would be the Eagle Tribune, the Valley Patriot, the Patch, and the latest incarnation of the N.A. Citizen (Wicked Local). Jill offered to do the publicity for the newspapers. Latika may be able to help publicize with Merrimack College (Adult level). Perhaps Bridget could disseminate flyers to the Senior Center and the retirement/rest homes in town (with hard copies and/or online). Who can post the flyer on North Andover CAM? Houses of worship will probably not be willing to post an outside notice in their electronic bulletins. Jill stated that at the next meeting in a couple of weeks we will discuss the awards possibly three or more Finalists, like 1 St, 2nd7 3rd, and the winner, with no Honorable Mentions. At the next meeting we will also discuss what the awards will be, and how we will publicize it, and who will be in charge of the awards, etc. Jill noted that due to the late hour the Agenda item of discussion on PLC recruitment would be tabled. Jill announced that at the December 14 meeting of the SelectBoard, Bridget Rawding and Latika Karnani were officially appointed to the Poet Laureate Committee. Karen will be sharing her information at the next meeting. Bridget will be Secretary Pro Tern for our next meeting. There was discussion when the next meeting would be. Despite many individual conflicts, we tentatively agreed on Thursday, February 25. Jill will send an email note out to everyone to make certain everyone will be able to attend this meeting. [Note: the meeting was subsequently rescheduled to Monday, March 1, 2021, at 7:00 PM.] Meeting adjourned at 9:10 pm.