blueprints

248 | toolkit: sandpaper, wallpaper, and paint
not mortifying. Mortifying is claiming you’ve made your best offer and
then coming back shortly after being declined with a better one you could
have made in the first place.
Build Package Deals
If you need to cobble together a coalition of partners, don’t limit
your thinking about partnerships only to literary groups. Think of every
group that might have reason to be interested in this specific poet. If, for
example, your poet writes about biology and the environment in a way
that is credible to scientists, your university’s biology department or a
local environmental group might be interested in some sort of partnership.
If the poet moonlights in art criticism, a museum might want to
sponsor a talk. If the poet has consulted on a film or even been its subject,
your local independent film theater or organization might mount a
screening. If the film is about computer-generated poetry or New York
painters during the 1950s—well, you get the idea. Your local library might
be interested in a partnership if the poet is well known enough to draw a
large audience.
Some poets are especially interested in bringing their poetry to specific
kinds of groups—churches, schools, prisons, or hospitals, for example. Such
groups might be able to chip in only a few hundred dollars, but the combination
of a little extra money and the chance to reach out to a particular
community might be persuasive. As a side note, partnerships and outreach
programs, especially with and for organizations working with underserved
groups such as seniors, at-risk teens, people with disabilities, and/or ethnic
and religious minorities, are often persuasive to granting organizations.
Some poets have already prepared specific workshops or other kinds of
events that are ripe for partnerships. Nevada poet Shaun Griffin, for example,
frequently works with hospital patients and has materials already prepared
for that work. Ask your poets if they have specific outreach or other
kinds of materials already developed and ready to go.
Whenever you get something from a partner, you will need to provide
something of value in return. The best arrangements benefit all partners
both in specific instances and in a larger sense. It’s excellent for your program
if you can broaden its reach; you may find your audience expanding
beyond the usual poetry suspects. Poets, too, will be happy to reach as
diverse a group as possible in as many ways as possible during the time they
spend in your community. In the luckiest circumstances, your partners will