Meet our Grantee-Partner: Brick Street Poetry
Mission: Brick Street Poetry, a nonprofit organization, endeavors to build avenues of poetry, brick by brick, by providing equitably diverse opportunities to connect and share individual experiences through poetry.
Joyce Brinkman noticed that her community in Near North Indianapolis had very little artistic activity, so she set out to start a poetry reading series. She recruited Barry Harris, the editor of the Tipton Poetry Journal; and Susan Miller, a freelance newspaper writer who was connected to several poets in the area. They were soon joined by John Hawn, a poet who was writing for the Indianapolis Star at the time. Together, they founded Brick Street Poetry Inc. in 2010.
Brick Street Poetry Inc. (BSPI) now publishes the Tipton Poetry Journal and produces world-class poetry events and workshops that are offered to the public at no cost. The organization connects poets worldwide, providing them with publishing credits, prizes, and paid opportunities to read, display their work, present workshops, and lead other programming. It operates on the belief that exchanging the personal through poetry leads to a better understanding of the universal and a more vibrantly connected world.
Photo courtesy of Brick Street Poetry Inc.
Youth programming is based out of Indianapolis’s Neighborhood Literary Art Park, but it extends throughout the region to other local parks, Boys & Girls Clubs, hospitals, rural areas, and beyond. The Poetry Alive program connects youth to poetry with costumed characters and book giveaways. BSPI also provides poetry workshops inside Central Indiana retirement homes. Its reading series and other programming are attended by community members of all ages.
Collaborations with other organizations allow BSPI to reach audiences outside its immediate service area. A longtime relationship with the Eiteljorg Museum brings Native American poets to the museum for readings and workshops. It reaches global audiences through the Off The Bricks podcast and the Tipton Poetry Journal, which is published in print and online four times a year.
BSPI’s Poetry Programs, Partnerships, and Innovation grant from the Poetry Foundation went toward revitalizing the Neighborhood Literary Art Park. Since the revitalization project, the park has hosted summer poetry workshops conducted by some of the leading poets in Indiana, and provided more free books to young readers. The grant also allowed for a collaboration with Blazing Brilliance LLC. Dr. Shawnta Barnes, who has a doctorate in education, helped BSPI develop a more structured and consistent stream of programming that will enable the evaluation of future programming success.
Recent efforts will take the organization’s reach far beyond Indiana. A collaborative poem that BSPI published in the Indiana Bicentennial Book has been selected to be sent to the moon on a NASA flight as part of the Νουα Collection, which is launching to the Lunar Southern Hemisphere November 15-20, 2023. BSPI also has been commissioned to curate and publish a world anthology that will be sent to the moon on another NASA flight as part of the Polaris Collection, which is launching to Nobile Crater on the Lunar South Pole November 2024. These works of poetry will reside on the moon indefinitely, to be rediscovered by generations to come.