I am sharing a link to the Dodge Poetry Festival, because it is such a fantastic event, held every two years since 1986. But, earlier this year its sponsor, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, reported a loss of $90 million of its $306 million base, adding that it would have to cut costs. Among them, the festival in 2010.
Some of you may have seen on PBS or read the Bill Moyer’s book based on the festivals, “The Language of Life.” I have it beside me as I write this. It includes some of my favorite poets, like Stanley Kunitz and Jane Kenyon and Li-Young Lee. And, it inlcudes a whole bunch more I like, including Linda McCarriston, Robert Bly, Robert Haas, Galway Kinnell, Adrienne Rich, and many more. And, it introduced a lot of people to the joy and thrill of poetry.
Anyway, the festival may go on after all, since many people are responding to the notice of cancellation with horror and contributions to keep it going.
On the website, if you click on the You Tube info, you can actually hear some of the poets from past festivals, including Billy Collins (another of my favorite poets, not included in the Moyers book), and Ted Kooser and Maxine Kumin. (Thanks, Marcia Molay, for leading me to this!)
I leave you today with a poem by Mary Oliver (not included in the Moyers book, either. See, there’s just so much out there!).
Wild Geese
———————-by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile, the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the word offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
North Shore Poets' Forum 