The P4 Blog

The Role of Poetry

Submitted by Tom on

"...there’s something inherently small-scale about poetry that I want to call the local and I want these narrow limits to be understood to be a good thing. Despite the global reach of the internet, for instance, poetry communities are small in number; their geography may be diffuse but they are, essentially, still local communities. Groups, factions, friendships, affiliations. We live our lives in relationships; we experience art in similar ways."

THANK YOU to our #GivingTuesday Donors

Submitted by Mongo on

Fundraising is a new challenge for P4.  For the past several years we have subsisted through ongoing donations from our staff, Board, and a few very generous friends that have kept us afloat.  But we have always believed that to fulfill our mission, it is important that P4 become widely supported and embraced by the poetry slam community.

This #GivingTuesday, we flexed our fundraising muscles for the first time, unsure of whether or not we would be successful.

Repository Partnership, Here We Come!

Submitted by Mongo on

One of P4's primary ambitions is to enter into a long term partnership agreement with an academic repository, such as a College or University Library, for the perpetual storage and preservation of our archive of slam poetry recordings and historical documents.  We're pleased to announce that we have taken a big step in that direction in recent weeks.

Become a P4 Fundraiser!

Submitted by Mongo on

P4 is excited to be participating in #GivingTuesday, a national campaign that encourages generosity and philanthropy, as an antidote to Black Friday and Cyber Monday.  This year, Giving Tuesday will be held on November 29th.  We'll be reaching out to friends and supporters as our year end fundraising campaign gets underway.  But did you know that you can participate with P4 as a fundraiser this year?

On Poetry Slam and Satire

Submitted by Mongo on

This morning I ran across a Bad Lip Reading Poetry Slam Satire of the second presidential debate.  And setting aside the fact that Bad Lip Reading is pretty much the best thing to happen to the internet since "Leave Britney Alone" (arguably the greatest slam poem of 2007!), watching this new Bad Lip Reading video has me thinking a lot about slam satire, and our ability to laugh at ourselves.

P4 To Begin Fundraising Campaign!

Submitted by Mongo on

Well, we knew it had to happen!

P4 has survived and prospered due to the generosity of a handful of donors for the past five years.  We have accomplished incredible things with the help of only a few individuals (and one major anonymous donor in particular). But as we begin to seriously gear up our operations to capture and preserve the history of the slam poetry movement, we have to broaden our base of support within the community we hope to serve.

Data Migration: 1,640 Poets added to the P4 Database!

Submitted by Mongo on

Another behind the scenes look at our progress!  As the P4 collection has been growing we've been creating cataloging data on every object we've been gathering up: CDs, chapbooks, tapes, ephemera, etc.  But until now all of that data has just been in a gigantic collection of huge spreadsheets.  A big challenge for us has been to design a full scale cataloging database system in a web environment, so that it can be searched and updated by the poets themselves.  We've had a designer working behind the scenes for almost a year on that effort.

Imaging Our Collection

Submitted by Mongo on

A quick peek behind the scenes!  Pictured is the imaging rig we have set up to snap cataloging images of every item in the P4 collection.  Featured is our Solo 8 document imaging camera, and associated software.  Even as we continue the detailed cataloging of every CD, tape, chapbook, and piece of ephemera in our collection (all the way down to individual poem names and other details!), we're also developing the search interface into our collection.

Pages