Thank You from Lisa and Poetry in America
[{"sender": "Lisa New ee", "recipients": ["Jeffrey Epstein [jeevacation@gmail.com]"], "timestamp": "12/19/2016 4:36:41 AM", "subject": "Thank You from Lisa and Poetry in America", "body": "Dear\nJeffrey\n(and please see note at bottom),\n\nThis end-of-the-year letter is to catch you up on developments and to report progress made in 2016\nby Poetry in America, by its associated non-profit production company, Verse Video Education, and\nby (and with) our new Harvard partner, the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning. Whether\nyou are a longstanding adviser and supporter of Poetry in America, or you’ve more recently joined our\ncircle of proponents, your contributions, thought partnership and enthusiasm have made this year’s\nsuccesses possible.\n\nLast fall, | knew this would be a crucial year. Goals for 2016 included moving our co-produced\ntelevision series, Poetry in America, toward a concrete release date (now entering post-production,\nwe launch nationwide in April 2018), converting our six HarvardX MOOC modules into for-credit\ncourses (now complete and being offered by Harvard’s Division of Continuing Education), and getting\nthe word out on our first course developed especially for K-12 educators, Poetry in America for\nTeachers: The City from Whitman to Hip Hop. With a mission of creating and distributing the highest-\nquality humanities content for a wide variety of learners, our projects now rely on a salaried\nproduction staff of five, a rotating corps of part timers and contractors, and a growing cohort of\nHarvard graduate students, undergraduates and interns whom we train in the public-facing\nhumanities. Growing fast, in 2016 we more firmly established Verse Video Education as a nimble and\nstable producer of humanities-based content (now including an archive of over 120 separate\ninterviews with distinguished discussants), while also defining a forward-looking partnership and\ngrowth strategy with Harvard. As 2016 draws to a close, | have much progress to report.\n\nVerse Video Education: Independent 501c3\n\nIn April 2016, Verse Video Education, the fledgling production company |’d founded in 2014, received\nIRS approval and became a 501c3. Now capable of accepting philanthropic contributions, Verse\nVideo Education has also begun to generate revenue by producing high-quality educational media for\nother institutions. Clients within our first year included Greenwich Country Day School, YIVO Institute\nfor Jewish Research, Schlesinger Library, Harvard Institute for Global Health, and Project Zero. While\nphilanthropic donations remain essential, work for clients allows us to amplify the impact of\nphilanthropic donations, not only permitting additional investment in our flagship partnerships with\nWGBH and Harvard, but also fostering development of new partnerships and projects. These include\na video series on poetry and science now running with award-winning magazine Nautilus, a\ncollaboration with distinguished poet Robert Pinsky and his Favorite Poem Project, and an expansion\nof our poetry film series with partners at The Nantucket Project. Advised by a stellar and diversely\ntalented board, Verse Video Education is looking toward sustainability. We are now discussing\ndistribution of new content with a variety of stakeholders, including media providers in China.\n\nNew Harvard Partner: Bok Center for Teaching and Learning\n\nMeanwhile, Poetry in America has deepened its partnership and formulated a plan for growth going\nforward at Harvard. This fall, Harvard's Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Mike Smith,"}]