As many of you already know, the Massachusetts Poetry Festival takes place this weekend, Friday, May 13 and Saturday, May 14 in Salem.  I thought I’d take a moment to let you know about a few items and tell you what I’m most excited about/signed up to attend.

During the day Friday, more than 600 high school students will descend on Salem State University to participate in writing workshops from the likes of poets X.J. Kennedy, Sarah Kay, Jericho Brown, and Brian Turner. In the middle of the day the acclaimed documentary Louder than a Bomb will be shown, with an introduction by Adam Gottlieb, one of the featured poets, and Anna West, co-founder of the Chicago slam poetry contest that is the focus of the film. Incidentally if you cannot make it to this screening of the film it will be shown on Saturday also at the Salem Cinema and in June at Boston’s Coolidge Corner Theatre starting Friday, June 3 and at the Salem Cinema starting Friday, June 17.

Workshops for the non-student population begin Friday afternoon. At 4:15 p.m., there’s a presentation on Anne Bradstreet and one on Elizabeth Bishop (some of you may have had the pleasure of listening to Lloyd Schwartz when he came to the Hamilton-Wenham Writer’s Guild back in February or when he presented at the Salem Athenaeum in March). I’m signed up for a program with Richard Hoffman and Robert Gibbons that takes place at The Gathering called “The Rhythm of Resistance and Desire” which promises to help me “find expression that creates a second life in language” by exploring examples of new writing.

At 5:30 p.m., I’ve signed up for a session hosted by Newburyport poet and Powow River Poets founder Rhina P. Espaillat regarding Federico Garcia Lorca (I love him!). During the presentation which takes place at the Peabody Essex Museum, vocalist Ann Tucker will sing five of Lorca’s poems accompanied by guitarist and composer John Tavano. The “melopoeia,” an ancient art form, is a combination of poetry and music. I’ve seen Rhina present a “melopoeia” arrangement before at the Newburyport Arts Association a few years back and it was terrific. I’m sure this event will be great too.

Then, at 7:30 p.m., at the Peabody Essex Museum, there will be readings by four featured poets including:

• Brian Turner, author of Here, Bullet, a prize-winning book about the poet’s experience in Iraq, and most recently, Phantom Noise, which was shortlisted for the

  

  2010 T.S. Eliot Prize.

• Aimee Nezhukumatathil, author of three poetry collections: Lucky Fish; At the Drive-in Volcano, winner of the Balcones Prize for the best collection of poetry published in 2007; and Miracle Fruit, winner of the Tupelo Press Prize.
• Jericho Brown, author of Please, his first book, which won the American Book Award, and recipient of the Whiting Writers Award and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Krakow Poetry Seminar in Poland.
• Enzo Silon Surin is a Haitian-born poet, writer, playwright, advocate and the author of Higher Ground (Finishing Line Press, 2006), which was nominated for the Massachusetts Book Award. Surin’s poem, Blues Prelude (Chicago), is a Pushcart Cart nominee and his poem, Events on Paper Smear, won the Boston Mayor’s 2010 Poetry and Prose Competition.

If you’re not exhausted by the time the featured readings end, head over to the Gulu Gulu Café for the “intercollegiate poetry slam” that takes places from 9:30 to 10:15 p.m. I’m not sure my stamina will take it, especially as I’ll need to be awake to volunteer at 9 a.m. the next morning, but I bet it will be a blast.

There is so much going on I think I’ll end this blog post here and talk more about Saturday’s events in a different post. Are you going to the Festival? What events are you looking forward to most?