An amazing year, full of amazing people...

Dear P4 Community...

It seems like every year the holidays go by more and more quickly.  Perhaps that's just a product of age, or perhaps it is because, like everyone else in this community, there are just so many exciting things going on that I don't stop often enough to take stock of it all.

This has been an exciting year for P4.  Even though we have been around for several years, working quietly in the background, it felt like this was the year that we finally got some traction and things began to come together.  So before the rest of the year slips away, and we all go back to our intensely busy and productive lives, I wanted to take a few minutes to let everyone know how grateful I am for the work that has been done this year.

First and foremost, I want to thank the P4 Board, without whom there would literally be no Performance Poetry Preservation Project.  Thanks first and foremost to Tom Bouliane, my conscience and collaborator, for working so tirelessly this past year on the cataloging, indexing, and financial management of us as an organization.  Tom has put in more hours on P4 than anybody, myself included, and we'd be lost without his good sense and determination.

Thanks as well to the rest of our Board: Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, Karan Garabrandt, and Marty McConnell.  Each of these special people bring their own unique perspectives, skills, and (passionately held) opinions to the work of capturing the history of the poetry slam movement, and they all deserve huge rounds of applause.

Special thanks as well to the people at Randforce Associates, who have spent countless hours this past year sifting through the indexing information and helping us to develop a cataloging model for the extremely diverse set of materials we're bringing together under the P4 Banner.  Thanks to Doug Lambert, Melanie Morse, and Michael Frisch.  For these folks, the effort has only just begun!

This past year also saw the completion of a special indexing project of 250 poems, using a model workflow and cataloging model developed by Randforce.  A crew of 20 volunteers logged hundreds of hours listening to and indexing all this material, and the results of their efforts has already resulted in a newly revised and streamlined indexing model that we'll be rolling out early in 2016. 

Lastly, I need to send out a special and HUGE thanks to the guy who has turned the P4 website from a static and confusing collection of information, into a robust platform upon which we can build all the features we're going to need.  The website you're looking at is completely the creation of Matt Kuhrt, whose skill, good humor, and incredibly fast response time made the creating of this site a joy.  Besides being a kick-ass web designer, Matt is also a poet, and he brings a poet's eye to his design work.  This is just the beginning, and what Matt does for us from here on out is going to be exciting to witness.

Lastly, I need to thank all of you out there, the Poetry Community.  As I wrap up a ten year project over at IndieFeed, and move my energies here to P4, I'm excited to bring with me all the support and enthusiasm of the past decade, working with the most amazing and passionate people in the world: Poets and fans of performance and slam poetry. 

Here on the last days of 2015, I'm extremely grateful to each and every one of you.  And I look forward to continuing with you on this journey in 2016.

Happy New Year!!!!

--Mongo