User:Thom francis

Thom has been involved in the Albany poetry and spoken word community for ten years. In that time, Thom has published four volumes of his poetry and is currently working on a new book/CD project entitled there. Thom has been featured at such open mics and events as The School of Night (Valentines), Vox (Albany Center Galleries), Web of Consciousness (C@fe Web), Live from the Living Room (Capital District Gay & Lesbian Community Center), Open Spoken (Colony Café, Woodstock), Kill Your TV, Feed Your Ears (Lark Street Bookshop), Third Thursday Poetry Open Mic (Lark Street Bookshop), and the Albany Word Fest 2001, 2002 (Thacher Park), and 2003 (Valentines).

In 2000 Thom was approached by Albany area poet R.M. Engelhardt to serve as Co-Director of AlbanyPoets.org. They worked together in bring more attention to the Albany poetry and spoken word scene by posting a reading calendar and featured poets on the organizations website as well as organizing the first three Albany Word Fests.

In late 2003 Thom saw that things in the organization needed to be refocused and began working on a business plan that would better serve the upstate New York poetry community. With that, Thom brought together the Board of Directors, a new mission, a new website, and a new name…Albany Poets was born.

Since then Thom and the Board have been working hard to bring attention to not only the poets and poetry of this city, but bring attention to the city as a whole. The goal is not just to promote the artists of Albany to the world, but to also promote Albany as a place to come as a spoken word artist and perform. Thom is building relationships with poetry organizations in New York City, Boston, and other cities in the Northeast in order to make the poetry community even larger and to bring fresh new poets to this area as well as have Albany poets perform to a broader audience.

Thom serves as the President of Albany Poets with a strong passion and undying vision to make Albany the cultural and literary hub of the Northeast Untied States.

--Thom francis 20:25, 24 October 2005 (UTC)