Sidebar by Lynda La Rocca
Poetry – March 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
While Sparrows looks forward to its seventh successful year, another popular poetry festival, Poetry on a Platter, is no more.
Also inaugurated in 2001, PoP, as it was known to its fans, was a “traveling poetry tour” that celebrated National Poetry Month in April by bringing regionally and nationally known poets to rural communities for a series of free workshops, readings, open mike events, and special school programs.
Salida, Gunnison, and Montrose all participated in PoP, which was originally funded by the American Library Association. From its inception, Salida Regional Library’s former special projects and archive librarian Kathy Berg coordinated local PoP activities. But even before Berg moved from the area last summer, the festival’s days were numbered. (Montrose and Gunnison have also discontinued it.)
“Poetry on a Platter was a really great program, and obviously, I have mixed feelings [about its demise],” says Salida Regional Library Director Jeff Donlan. “But in the end, I think everyone involved in organizing, planning, and promoting it kind of got burned out.”
Distances between participating communities created logistical problems. Expenses also became an issue; PoP cost approximately $8,000 annually, money acquired through grants, sponsorships, fundraisers, financial and in-kind donations, and the library’s own budget. Another issue was the amount of time devoted to PoP by library personnel. And stagnant audience-growth levels certainly didn’t increase the festival’s odds of survival.
The library currently promotes the arts through “Arts at the Library,” a regularly scheduled series of receptions, readings, lectures, and presentations featuring authors and artists working in a variety of genres.
“These free programs take up the slack left by Poetry on a Platter and allow us to continue to actively support poetry, literature, and the visual arts,” Donlan explains. And that gives the public even more reasons to visit the local library.
