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Dear Friend,

It’s always been easy to find the Bowery Poetry Club – “located across the street from CBGBs.” But with the closing of CB’s (can you believe Hilly’s moving to Vegas?!), what are our new coordinates? “Located across from huge ugly new apartment complex emblematic of gentrification and disneyfication of the Lower East Side”?

I think we’ll stick with “across from CBGB.”

Like the phantom buildings in Managua – “Turn left at the hospital” but the hospital hasn’t been there for forty years -- the palimpsest of the explosion of punk still rocks the Bowery, and in the Bowery Poetry Club you still can hear it.

We’re proud of our place in the lineage of populist art: the Yiddish theater, burlesque and vaudeville and beat and punk that gave the Bowery its name before it slid to skid row, before its current resurrection as hot new Downtown high-rent zone.

By resisting the contemporary blanding of so much of Downtown, by staying true to our roots while exploring new ways for poetry and its sister arts to find places in the daily lives of the citizenry, the Club is, as the NYTimes says, “a Beacon on the Bowery.”

“Will poets drink enough at the bar to support their poetry habit and get the Club’s rent paid?” was the originating question of the BPC. After four years of running in the red, I think the answer is, plainly, No. Why? Because we’re the only bar in the world that asks the customer to Please shut up and listen to the poem, as opposed to Another round?.

Meanwhile, this year has been as active as ever – we had Praise Days for Robert Creeley, Pedro Pietri and Barbara Guest; a Symposum on the 50 th Anniversary of Ginsberg’s “Howl” featuring John Giorno, Edward Sanders; Patti Smith sitting in on clarinet with Janet Hamill and Moving Star; the artist Jim Dine giving his first-ever poetry reading; our Study Abroad on the Bowery program went all the way to the CUNY Grad Center to present readings by Alcalay, ABerrigan, Hernandez Cruz, Troupe, Sapphire, Patricia Smith, Vicuna, Notley….

If you’re convinced – Stop! Now! and send us a contribution… If you want to hear more, read on – there is LOTS more, only some of which will be in this appeal…

For these programs not only to succeed, but to thrive, we need your support. Bowery Arts and Science is hoping to raise $66,000 to support these evolving endeavors. That’s an average donation of $50 -- but, from everybody.

So here we are, “a Beacon on the Bowery” (New York Times), a home of an “anarchic blend of spoken word, music and theater hijinx” (Time Out New York), and “a word playground where traditions can coexist and be passed on” (Village Voice). We’re asking for your support so we can not only be true to these words, but also broaden the opportunities for more to find their (poetic) homes here.

The possibilities, it could be said—are up to you.

Poetically yours,

Bob Holman

Executive Director, Bowery Arts and Science

Proprietor, Bowery Poetry Club

You may also send a check to "Bowery Arts + Science, Ltd." to:

Bowery Arts + Science, 310 Bowery NY, NY 100012