About:

Children’s books spark the imagination, provide insight into cultural values, and inspire artistic design. The Western Libraries collections (which includes both circulating and special collections) contain a wide range of prose, poetry, and illustrations that reflect the breadth, continuing evolution and complexity, and the challenge and controversy of literature written for children and young adults. With a special emphasis on growing a unique poetry collection, we are actively building a comprehensive collection of children and teen poetry. Currently there is no similar university-based project in the United States. The geographic focus of this collection is the United States, but there is interest in representing selected international items, particularly our Canadian and Coast Salish neighbors. For more information, go to https://library.wwu.edu/poetrychat

Vision:

To achieve our dream and build a comprehensive collection in the United States dedicated to poetry written for children and teens, an investment by community partners is essential.  Established in 2015, the vision of the Poetry Collection for Children and Teens - PoetryCHaT -  includes the following three areas:

Build a Scholarly Collection by:

Acquiring books that have received national poetry awards for children and teens; acquiring rare and collectable poetry anthologies and individual works; Obtaining oral histories from poets that will be become part of our digital archives; Collecting the comprehensive works of all the poets published in the United States.

Establish Programs and Educational Outreach

Examples include: bringing a poet to Western annually; offering workshops and support for local educators; hosting a biennial “Poetry Camp” for educators, librarians and poets.

Establish an Endowment to fund an Annual Fellowship

This fellowship would be available to poets, educators, librarians, and scholars through an application process with awards of a stipend to be used on-site at the Western Libraries. Fellows will be required to present the result of their work. Examples might include the creation of a poetry collection, innovative classroom curriculum, research, or a scholarly publication.

Impact:

PoetryCHaT at Western Libraries has the potential to become a comprehensive and thorough assortment of materials unlike any other in the country.  It will have practical academic, teaching and learning attributes and further connect Western with the local community and beyond. 

The PoetryCHaT collection and its programming has already made a tremendous impact.  Here are some examples of our sponsored and cosponsored programs hosted at Western and in the larger community:

• Poet Kwame Alexander - Event at Bellingham High School for area youth

• Speakeasy 16: A Celebration of Poetry By and For Children - Othermind Press, Bellingham

• Poetry at the Bellingham Farmers Market and on WWU Red Square

• Poetry Camp (For Grown-Ups!) - A two day workshop for poets, educators, and librarians

• Spoken word poet Neil Hilborn - Co-sponsored with the WWU Poets & Lyricists student club

• The Arbuthnot Honor Lecture - A visit to campus by poet Naomi Shihab Nye

Your generous gift will support PoetryCHaT and is an opportunity to be involved in an innovative and unique endeavor.