Sonoma Poetry Festival
Project Proposal

Brief Description of the Project:

In April (National Poetry Month, 2019) in Sonoma County, California Poets in the Schools will implement the Sonoma Poetry Festival (actual name TBD), a free (to participants) month-long festival with the goal of every single person in the county encountering a poem.

Community Need:

California Poets in the Schools will implement a newfangled, community-based method for creating spontaneous encounters between Sonoma County's population and contemporary poetry while at the same time generating new audiences for the literary arts. We aim to target underserved populations and neighborhoods (as laid out in the Portrait of Sonoma County), as well as youth and the elderly. We believe that the North Bay is ripe for a creative literary arts festival as we are a community thriving with writers and poets, but with much room for growth in the local literary “scene”. We hope that this community-building approach to poetry will spark excitement in the literary arts - through impromptu engagement in poetry - amongst all sectors of the public, while spreading the messages of hope, beauty and belonging that poetry has to offer.

We will put out a call for, and then accept proposals from the community for community-based poetry projects that both invite and empower new audiences to interact with poetry in their daily lives. Each project will require target audience. Underserved neighborhoods and youth will be highlighted and given priority. Ultimately we hope to have 10-20 projects (funding dependent) happening simultaneously throughout the county during the month of April, 2019. Projects that include collaborations with musicians, dance, art and film will be highly encouraged.