The south-west poetry organisation, Poetry Can, has launched a last-ditch attempt to prevent its entire funding from Bristol city council for the next three years from being axed. The council is due to ratify the move at a meeting on Tuesday 1 July.

If it goes ahead, Poetry Can's £15,000 annual funding from the council will end on 31 March next year. Three other arts organisations face losing their funding as well. Accoring to council documents Bristol's overall arts budget has not been cut, but remains at around £950,000. 

The news comes a critical time for many other arts bodies, who will learn on Tuesday 1 July if their bids for Arts Council funding have been successful.

In a message to supporters Poetry Can appealed for help, saying: “Bristol city council are proposing to entirely cut Poetry Can's funding for 2015-18. This decision will be ratified on Tuesday 1 July, the same day that we receive notification if our application for continued funding from our major funder the Arts Council of England has been successful.

“Poetry Can asks everyone who has worked with Poetry Can, who has taken part in Poetry Can activities, attended Bristol poetry festival or who has received support, information or advice either in person or through the website, or who simply believes in poetry and the importance of poetry development agencies like Poetry Can to please email Bristol city council and ask them not to cut Poetry Can's funding and tell them why.”

On its website the organisation says: “As everybody knows, times are hard... Poetry Can is producing remarkable work in increasingly difficult circumstances. Like all arts organisations we have suffered our share of cuts in funding over the last few years, and there are more on the way. Just to give you an idea of some of our costs: the average cost of an event at Bristol poetry festival would be £750; placing a poet in a school for a morning or an afternoon would cost £150; a poet working for a morning, an afternoon or an evening with a community group would also cost £150.”

Poetry Can says of its work: “We aim to increase opportunities for everyone to participate in and enjoy poetry and to support the creative and professional development of poets of all ages and levels of experience particularly in the south-west of England. We present and support a range of high profile events each year, including the Bristol poetry festivals. We provide advice, information and support to individual poets and poetry enthusiasts, groups, agencies and organisations through our website, monthly e-bulletin, individual poetry surgeries, and by responding to face-to-face, telephone and email inquiries enquiries. We initiate work in which poetry's role in lifelong learning is explored and extended.”

It adds that Poetry Can has organised poetry projects and activities with a wide range of community-based groups and organisations, including schools, colleges, libraries, museums, prisons; projects with children and young people; Bristol refugee organisations; young parents; Afro-Caribbean communities; people with disabilities, and with dementia; elders of the Chinese community in Bristol; groups in communities of particular identified need in Bristol, Bath and South Gloucestershire; people dealing with grief; carers groups; and young women who self-harm.

As part of its appeal to help retain council funding, Poetry can has listed the email addresses of Bristol’s mayor, George Ferguson and a number of councillors. More details