The Dodge Poetry Festival 2008 . . . and counting?

Greetings!  I was very pleased to see the below in my inbox this morning and thought I would share it with the RR and other readers.  Let's everyone stash away a $20 (or more?) to throw in the direction of the beloved Festival, should things fall into place...

Peace.

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To: The Poets, Poetry Teachers, and Poetry Lovers who have been part of the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festivals

Since my letter in January, many of you have reached out to us in friendship and support, asking how you can help keep the Dodge Poetry Festival alive in 2010.  We deeply appreciate that response.

Simultaneously, representatives of several possible new venues for the Festival – mostly town centers with strong infrastructure in place – have contacted us, raising the possibility of our partnering with them to produce a Festival.

Encouraged by both of the above, we are reconsidering the idea of canceling the 2010 Festival cycle.  We cannot promise anything yet, but we wanted to give you a sense of what is happening.

We have written a “Request for Information from Prospective Partners,” which we have sent to a number of groups throughout New Jersey with whom we have had exploratory conversations.  We are looking for details on both the technical capacity to host a large, multi-stage Festival and local assets that could enhance the event.  We will make this document available on our website in the next few days, for your information and that of other prospective partners.  We will explore the responses we get to this request during the summer, and we hope to be able to make a decision about a 2010 Festival in September.  I am cautiously optimistic at this point, but we will need Dodge Trustee approval of a specific plan and budget before we can proceed for certain.

At that time, if we can commit to a 2010 Festival, we will announce the founding of a “Friends of the Festival” group, as a number of you have urged us to do.  With funding from Dodge, contributions from individual supporters, and local sponsorships, we hope to be able to create a 2010 Festival worthy of the ones that have come before it.

With best regards,

David Grant, President and CEO
The Dodge Foundation