On Sunday, September 5th, The Palm Beach Post reported Palm Beach Cultural Council funding for the grant category that provides financial support to the Festival and other arts organizations was at grave risk. The headline: County Targets Cultural Groups in Funding Cuts. Supporters wrote emails and letters to lend support. Happily, eighty percent of funding was restored by the commissioners in the following week. Some notes to commissioners and posts online follow below: 1. Jim Boring says:
September 3, 2009 at 4:42 pm
I have attended The Palm Beach Poetry Festival for the past three years. The festival is an exceptional gathering of many of the finest American poets reading their work to an enthusistic, enchanted and growing audience. Nothing says South Florida is more than sand and sun than events like these.
1. Julie Larios says:
September 3, 2009 at 5:23 pm
What a shame to think that the already underfunded cultural enrichment events in Palm Beach are now being considered for even deeper and more devastating financial cutbacks. During times of economic hardship, the arts bring people together and remind them of the core priorities: community, celebration, and hope for the future. I sincerely hope you will not feel that arts organizations are the first and easiest of targets just because their effects are and benefits are harder to see - they have more to do with spirit, and they are more long range. Now more than ever we need to nourish and cultivate arts groups. I know from experience that the Palm Beach Poetry Festival brings in people from all over the country - those people then go out enthusiastically to their own communities and say, “Look at what’s happening in Palm Beach!” Come to think of it, funding the arts is not only good for the spirit of Palm Beach, it’s good for the pocket book and good for public relations!
1. Patrick Cotter says:
September 3, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Last February I travelled all the way from Ireland to West Palm Beach for the poetry festival. Between hotel, restaurant expenses and other shopping I spent approx. $3,000 in the local economy and that does not count my tuition fees for the festival itself. There were about a hundred other participants at the festival, mostly from out of state who contributed similar amounts, many of them brought spouses and partners who compounded their spend.
I would never have heard of your part of the world if it were not for the poetry festival. From the perspective of Europe the poetry festival helps to distinguish your municipality from countless other nondescript American boroughs.
Aside from the direct economic benefit of a cultural event, there can be more subtle and far reaching material consequences.
I live in Cork a small city of one quarter of a million on the western edge of Europe. My town is twinned with Shanghai - a city of twenty million people with ten times as many skyscrapers as New York. Shanghai is the economic centre of China - the coming world economic superpower.
When my city courted Shanghai to establish the twinning relationship the strategy was three pronged: educational, business and cultural. The Chinese delegation as they departed said to us (the cultural group) that if Shanghai were to twin with Cork it would not be because of the educational or business attractions but because of the strength of our culture. The twinning relationship has subsequently led to growth and co-operation in the business and education fields, even if they were not originally winning.
Dr Maurice Lee of the University of Arkansas told me that he always advises the parents of prospective MBA students to take an English literature option on their course because while good business heads will rise quickly to middle management, all the top echelon company leaders happen to also have a broad knowledge of culture - literature, opera, dance, art.
Readers become leaders and while not too many poets become wealthy, many wealthy men appreciate poets. Perhaps one of your local schoolchildren will be shaped by encountering the poets of national and international class which attend the West Palm Beach Poetry Festival. Barack Obama wrote and published verse as a student. Readers become leaders in all areas of life, economic, business, military and cultural.
When the junior class of German officers in North Africa during World War 2 heard that the American commander General Patton read poetry they laughed. But the German commander Erwin Rommel did not, he took it as a sign that he was up against a formidable, complex thinking opponent.
Don’t listen to those who find culture risable. They are the people who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. Listen to them too closely and your municipality will be eclipsed by another with a broader perspective - not just culturally but economically as well.
1. Philip Timpane says:
September 3, 2009 at 6:47 pm
For four of the last five years I have visited Palm Beach County, along with nearly 100 others each January, to attend the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, the success of which is dependent in part on the crucial funds this program provides. For the duration of a week the many participants from all over the country ( I come from Massachusetts) stay in local hotels, dine in local restaurants, and shop in many of the local stores for goods and services. It seems to me that this alone would argue against a decision that might jeopardize this and similar fine programs; however, even more valuable to the county should be the way this program encourages young writers from local schools to participate in writing and reading their own work, while simultaneously exposing them to the writings, live readings, and valuable advice of the poets at the top of their field, many of them Pulitzer Prize winners, who teach at the festival. I strongly encourage the Commission to ensure the continued vitality of this and other cultural programs affected by doing its part to provide them with critical funding at levels equal-to or above those it has in the past. I urge the commissioners to add their support and that of the citizens they represent to that of the many local and national business sponsors, my own small company included, who realize the connection between support for the arts now and the richness and success of the community in the future.
1. Phyliss L. Geller says:
September 3, 2009 at 7:01 pm
I have attended the Palm Beach Poetry Festival for the past three years. I am both a poet and a publisher of the ‘Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry’. The festival is integral to the community,especially in a time of economic and political crisis.The arts are what we turn to when we need comforting and inspiration. A community without music, poetry and other forms of art is indeed without the joy that binds us despite our differences.
1. Dorianne Laux says:
September 4, 2009 at 9:46 am
I have visited Palm Beach five times in the last several years, and it has always been to participate in or attend an arts program of one kind or another. During my visits I often rent a car, stay in a hotel, take my breakfast, lunch or dinner at a local restaurant, shop in the local stores, and attend events where I buy books or art. Multiply this by the thousands like me who visit each year and you have a thriving economy as well as an enriched, enlivened and diverse local culture. The Palm Beach Poetry Festival is just one such arts organization that has introduced me to the beauty of Florida. These organizations are at the heart of your community. Please give them your support.
1. James Scruton says:
September 4, 2009 at 11:12 am
As the article mentions, and as several people have pointed out in their responses, the economic impact of arts funding should not be underestimated. I had never heard of Delray Beach, Florida, prior to attending the Palm Beach Poetry Festival in January 2006. Not only have I been back every year since (spending at least as much while here as the average festival-goer!), but my wife and I have returned at other times of the year for various arts and cultural events. The playhouses, Old School Square & Cultural Arts Center, the various galleries–all benefit in countless ways the community as well as visitors like us. But, of course, some things CAN be counted: Every study I know of cites a $3-$7 return for each dollar in arts funding. Why any locality would risk such economic activity is beyond me.
1. Gilda Kreuter says:
September 4, 2009 at 6:01 pm
I am a poet and volunteeer at the Cornell Museum in Delray Beach-
The Poetry Festival and all the arts are important to Palm Beach County. They maintain the cultural aspect of South Florida. Our museums, theatres and festivals are most important to the life of the County and to Florida, and to the many tourists and residents of these locales. To be without the arts, i.e., music,
poetry, museums, would be devastating.
1. Marie-Elizabeth Mali says:
September 5, 2009 at 4:14 pm
January 2010 will be the fourth year in a row that I will attend the Palm Beach Poetry Festival. I’ve stayed locally and eaten out every year. The festival is the only thing that brings me to the area and it would be a shame for it, and other essential programs, to lose funding.
Each year, two renowned performance poets go into two local high schools and perform for them, an experience those kids would not have except for the festival’s commitment to the community.
I hope the Cultural Council will continue to be committed to Palm Beach County’s enrichment through the arts. We, as a nation, empoverish our future by underfunding creative endeavors, the primary things that humanize us.
1. Marjorie Schnabel says:
September 7, 2009 at 12:59 am
I have lived in Palm Beach County for over thirty years, contributing to the community as a public health nurse and private entrepreneur in education. The Palm Beach County Poetry Festival has, beyond all events, been meaningful for me. Art is our place for personal and public expression. It defines,emboldens,and vivifies our community. It brings visitors and accomplished artists to our home. How could you eliminate events that speak so well for us, and that add so much to our lives? It is the elevation of spirit that will help us get through a rough economy. Support for the arts is a necessity at this time.
1. Laure-Anne Bosselaar says:
September 7, 2009 at 10:11 am
My husband and I are both poets, and have participated in the The Palm Beach Poetry FestivaI in one way or another for the last 4 years. Each year we look forward to January: impatient to get some sun and mild blue skies after cold and dark months of New York City winters. During our stays in Palm Beach we stay in a hotel with many other poets and/or participants, go out to lunch and dinners, buy books, clothes, and very much enjoy going to the lectures, readings and other events at the Festival, where we also get to meet new friends from the Palm Beach community. I have recommended Festival to many of my students, and some have now become “regulars” at the Conference. All this is culturally and economically POSITIVE for the Palm Beach community and culture. This profits everyone. And I mean everyone. Please continue giving them your support.
