It is Time

to get the show on the road!

Budget?

Sorry I've slacked off on this project. What's holding me up, I'm just beginning to admit to myself, is that it's pretty clear the first thing we need to do is come up with a budget, and I have absolutely no idea on earth how to do that. When I envision "budget," all I see is a bunch of columns full of mysterious numbers I don't understand that came from somewhere I don't know anything about. Then I start to whimper a little bit and look around nervously. I can't even record things coherently in my own checkbook. Does this mean we're doomed? Is anybody else out there good at this sort of thing?

Thoughts

Hi Everyone--


Nice to see how quickly things are moving along. At the risk of adding unnecessary complications at such a tender early point, I thought I'd bring up a couple of things.

First, I think that the name of the conference isn't really as important as whatever text might follow this name--on the conference's website, in brochures, etc. At a certain point, the discourse surrounding the conference will be absorbed by the name--whether its good or bad or neutral or whatnot. Kind of like booktitles. You come to love books with bad titles or ugly covers, no? With that said, of course, I think ARK is fine (and I too like the connotation; next year in Ararat?). I'm not wild about the term "alternative"--vitiated as it is by various kinds of non-alternatives that claim it as an adjective for lifestyle-marketing purposes. But like I said, I don't think it's really crucial. For me, at least.

I did wonder if it might not be a good ideal to specify a thematic, question or concern for the conference. Not one that is too limiting, and that dictates what kinds of things people can or can't organize, but that gives people some guidance and begins to indicate some of the conference's content. This kind of thing can go a long way in making meaningful distinctions in opposition to the sometimes not so meaningful binaries of altnernative/mainstream; experimental/traditional.

In the comment-storm on Josh C.'s blog it seemed that much of the concern was about the place of poetry: poetry's relation to specific places (its geographic location), poetry's place within institutions (MFA programs, the AWP, academia in general, "theory"), the place of poetry publishing (not-for-profit, for profit), poetry's placement in the virtual world of blogs, listservs, online journals, YouTube, its autonomy from culture at large (at least in this country), the place of poetry in global war(ming) capitalism, etc. I think that actually existing poetry's weak positionality--both institutional and, at the same time, autonomous--makes for a good deal of the rancor. Poets turn against each other--or themselves-- because there is nowhere else to turn. Not that this is a bad thing necessarily; it's probably good that there's no money in the system, nor non-practitioner readers to be found. Just look at what speculative money is doing to art right now. But at least this is a conversation we could have. That is, if there's anything to say. . .

Perhaps the conference could ask for or organize some kinds of meditation/conversation/panels on this topic. Obviously, too much discussion like this gets tedious, and I wouldn't want it to preclude focus on poems and people who write them/love them. But it's a thought, for what it's worth.

Second thought: since many of us have children, is there any interest in setting up a free (or $1) cooperative daycare, run in alternating shifts by those who would avail themselves of it? I have no idea what the liability/legality issues would be here, or if there's sufficient interest. But, needless to say, this is the kind of thing that can make such a conference feasible/do-able/affordable for certain parents.

Update

I went to the SOU Housing Office yesterday and spoke to the Conference Coordinator there. She gave me some info about in-house rates (roughly $20 a night per person for a shared room, and $40 for a private room, and that's with air conditioning). We've got a max capacity here of 900 persons (I'm almost positive we won't hit half or even a third of that number for the first year), and it might also be possible to get reduced rates for attendees at the Timbers Motel across the street. She seemed very enthusiastic about the conference idea, and said that if we're going to book dorms for summer 2008, we probably need to act soon.

I'm starting to love the working title (with the Ronald-Johnsonian acronym ARK), so unless anyone else has a better idea, I vote we stick with it.

Funding is clearly our top priority right now, and I've already gotten lots of helpful advice from several people. One thing that's come up is that applying for grants can be a big time and energy drain with minimal payoff. I'm going to look at state arts funding and maybe some private/corporate benefactor possibilities (we can hash out the ethics as need arises), and please, anyone with any leads, pass them on.

I would like to have a working committee based here in Ashland, or at least Oregon, so we can set up the distribution of labor across different persons. I have a couple of people in mind already (I'm sure you can guess who you are).

Conference Emphasis

Amen on the international and vispo emphases, Johannes and Jess. Here are some of the things I'd personally like to see highlighted in the conference:

* small press & DIY culture
* online communities and publishing
* international work
* visual & sound work
* cross-genre writing
* the work of younger writers as well as older, more established ones (and by "younger," I don't just mean my age--I mean like in their twenties and thirties)

And I could go on--but it would quickly just turn into a list of specific preferences on my part. Any of us could, and eventually should, do the same. The trick is figuring out how and whether such elements add up to some total defining "flavor." Part of the difficulty of defining the conference's focus, I think, is that I'm sensing a lot of pressure (maybe mainly self-imposed, I'm not sure) not to take the easy route and just label it "experimental." I'm sure we've all struggled with the problems with that term and others like it (innovative, avant-garde, etc.), chief among those problems being that the terms don't really explain anything. The negative approach--saying, for example, that the conference is not meant to showcase "mainstream" work--is equally meaningless. Most of us think we know the difference between these two(?) categories(?) when we see them, but our frequent inability to articulate the exact characteristics of that difference (or at least to agree on it) makes it hard to pinpoint exactly what it is we want to include and what we want to exclude except on a case-by-case basis. Even by using "alternative" as a temporary marker, I've waded into this swampy area of vagueness and confusion.

Should we just charge ahead and go with "experimental" or "innovative"? And if not, following up on Johannes' question, how do we differentiate this conference from others? Or should we just call it something generic like "Contemporary Writers' Conference" or whatever and have faith that the kind of writers we're interested in attracting and not attracting, respectively, are both going to be able to smell what's going on and know either to show up or stick with the AWP and other existing conferences?

Content? Structure?

Of course I like the ideas offered here, but I feel like there should be some discussion of what this conference will be....

Or is that self-evident?

Is this going to be yet another academic conference? A less professionalized AWP? A poetry festival like they have in other countries? None of those seem perfect, though they all provide some points of interest.

Let me beat my dead horse: Let's invite poets and writers from other countries/communities. As well as artists working in various media. I think that would make things lively and interesting.

As for possible locations: I think Oregon is the most beautiful state in the country.

More Beginnings

The good advice is flowing in so fast I don't know what to do with it. The first priorities appear to be:

1. coming up with an estimate of the total cost (let's say we were looking at an attendance figure of around 200?)
2. scoping out grants and other funding sources
3. seeing how much support SOU is willing to provide, and in what form
4. deciding pretty soon who is on the central planning committee, and in what official capacities (do we need to start an organization or something?)

One other thing: a kind and concerned friend has pointed out to me that if I'm conceiving of this conference as an annual event, which I am, I will go mad trying to organize it every year by myself or even with a few other helpmates. So it occurred to me: what if the conference rotated between three or four different locations, with three or four different versions of me at the helm? And by "versions of me," I mean "other people." So for example, the first year could be in Ashland; the next year might be in, say, Oakland, CA; the third year in Olympia, WA; and then back to Ashland; and so on. That example was on the west-coast model, obviously, but it could be at places all over. Is this a good idea? and is anyone immediately interested in being one of the other conference-meisters?