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It's fundraising time for Manchester. Most of the team will be driving from New Hampshire to St. Paul, MN. I'll be driving from Tennessee. Then we have a hotel room or rooms to pay for. Oh, and food. We like to eat. Not huge amounts, mind you, but enough that are voices are louder than our stomachs when we're on stage.

For those of you in Manchester/Portsmouth/etc. there will be activities and fundraisers and features and so forth. In fact, we're plotting a 7-day 24-hour reading. That is, every person on the team, including the coach and assistant coach, will read for 24 hours. Back to back. Seven days of poetry, with only 15 minute breaks every once in a while for bathrooms and food. I'll let you know more about that as plans come together.

In the meantime, we've got a PayPal account set up. If you'd be willing to donate something, even a dollar, that's one less dollar that comes out of our pockets while we're at Nationals. I'm devoted to my art and, for the duration of the competition, to the sport aspect of it, but I don't want to go hungry, I don't want to sleep in my car (with several other people), and I don't want to nervously watch my tank get emptier and emptier as I cross the great expanse of the rural Midwest, hoping that there's a gas station coming up soon and that my card will be accepted there. So, please, take a look. Toss us an amount you think worthwhile.

In fact, just to tempt you further, I'll re-post the link to Arts & Crafts, my free album of poems, essays, and conversations in both audio and video formats: http://www.jeffstumpo.com/stage.html. If you like the kind of stuff you hear from me; if you want spoken word that plays with the boundaries of what spoken word can and should do, donate. If you don't like what you hear - hey, we've got a team with diverse voices. There's a good chance you'd be supporting somebody whose poetry you like. You want a sestina about Ol' Dirty Bastard from the Wu-Tang Clan? We've got it. You want a poem from a woman to the person who used to be her girlfriend, then was her boyfriend, and is now just a friend? We've got it. You want towering toasts to the everyday folks who could, if nobody was looking, be gods? We've got it. You want a poem about what would happen if the author had a talking hamster? We've got it. You want a piece in sign language, written for three people? We're working on it ;-)

Take a look. Take a listen. Take a chance (on me... yeah, now that song is stuck in your head). Help send us to NPS.

http://sites.google.com/site/slamfreeordie2010/