Forty Poems* for Forty Pounds

Key Selling Points

• Weight is a constant battle for most Americans with over 30% - approx. 99 million -- overweight and 70 million considered obese. (50/50 M/F)
• Poetry is more popular than ever according to the latest study by the NEA in 2017 with the number doubling to 28 million readers, with the fastest growing groups being young adults and women.
• Poetry is more diverse and more popular and more powerful than ever. In late 2018, Jeff Shotts, executive editor of Graywolf Press was quoted, "From what I'm seeing, this is a renaissance."
• Through social media, poetry is being used now more than ever, in the words of The Atlantic, "... to communicate, comprehend, and cope with language that sounds better and means more."
• Offers an opportunity for anyone wrestling with weight to reflect on their own relationship with food.
• More than anything, it seeks to remind anyone wrestling with weight that they are not alone in their experiences.
• With Bob Dylan winning the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature and Kanye West referenced as "one of the newer poets" by writer Zadie Smith, musicians continue to elevate poetry as an essential art form.

Audience

• Anyone who is wrestling with weight issues and feels alone in the daily battle.
• Anyone who has endured a life-long battle with the external expectations, especially when it comes to physical appearance or weight.
• Parents who raising their family with the constant static of their weight issues in the back of their minds.
• Fans of poetry seeking poems that reflect the real challenges of their everyday lives.