Poetry Reading in Amherst

I went to a reading on the “Poetry of Aging” at the Amherst Senior Center on Thursday. John Berkowitz and Pat Schneider were the featured reading poets, although both shared many poems of other poets.

Pat Schneider is a Pioneer Valley fixture as a founder of Amherst Writers and Artists and author of 10 books of prose and poetry. She read, “Truth Enough,” a poem about aging that won First Prize in the Kudzu Poetry Contest and several other writers from the well-known Mary Oliver to local June Gillam. John Berkowitz read “Old Ones” about people and trees from his book of poetry, Saving and Savoring the World, as well as several other local poets. Schneider and Berkowitz were a delightful combination. Berkowitz does readings on aging at various places in the valley and Schneider also comes out occasionally to read. Look for both of them under “Readings” in local papers.

March 23, 2015 by .

Mass Poetry

Mass Poetry is having its annual festival in Salem from April 30- May 3. It features Richard Blanco, Rita Dove, Stephen Burt, Denise Duhamel, Nick Flynn, Regie Gibson, Jorie Graham, Edward Hirsch, Richard Hoffman, Adrian Matejka, March Piercy, Rachel Wiley and Holly Wren Spaulding. I have never attended this event, but am thinking of going. Some of the workshops that particularly interest me are Karen Sharp’s on Social Justice, Tragedy and Poetry as Witness.” Holly Wren Spaulding’s “Wild/Nature: Writing in the Natural world.” And one stand alone, “What Can a Poet Do? Raising Voices Within Our Communities.” Rita Dove and Richard Blanco are speaking together on Saturday night. Have you ever attended this festival? Was it worthwhile? Have you ever been in Salem? The witches of Salem put me in mind of “She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry.” I hear it’s a beautiful port town on the coast.

March 6, 2015 by .

Poetry -Spring Is Like a Perhaps Hand

spring is like a perhaps

Hand in a window

(carefully to

and fro moving New and

Old things,while

people stare carefully

moving a perhaps

fraction of flower here placing

an inch of air there)and

without breaking anything.

–E. E. Cummings

March 1, 2015 by .

Poetry-From Glanmore Sonnets

I dreamt we slept in a moss in Donegal

On turf banks under blankets, with our faces

Exposed all night in a wetting drizzle,

Pallid as the dripping sapling birches.

–Seamus Heaney

In addition to winning the Nobel Prize in Literature, Seamus Heaney was awarded the Lifetime Recognition Award from the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry. He was born in Northern Ireland, but spent his later years in Dublin.