Palm Beach Poetry Festival

Lexa Pennington's picture

Long a lover of poetry, I am so pleased to share one of our nation's pre-eminent poetry festivals with our Wandering Educators. The festival? The Palm Beach Poetry Festival.  I was lucky enough to sit down and talk with Miles A. Coon, Director of the Palm Beach Poetry Festival. Here's what he had tosay...

 

WE: Please tell us about the Palm Beach Poetry Festival...

MC: The 5th Annual Palm Beach Poetry Festival will take place January 19-24, 2009 at Old School Square Cultural Arts Center, 51 North Swinton Ave., Delray Beach, FL.  Complete listings of all the events are found on the festival website: www.palmbeachpoetryfestival.org 

In the U.S., many of us were taught poetry as if it were a riddle.  The teacher would have someone read a poem aloud, sometimes one with archaic language that sounded foreign to us, and then would ask, “what does this mean?”  Students often found themselves confounded and when they ventured an answer, often the teacher would say, "no, that’s not right." If you come away from poetry feeling you are not smart enough or sensitive enough 'to get it', then you avoid it.  Our goal at the festival is to have our audiences experience great poetry, written by true masters of the craft, in the language of everyday speech, and read by the poets themselves.  For the public, we offer six readings, each featuring two exciting poets, whom I know are wonderful readers of their poems.  We want the festival to be about discovery — and primarily the discovery that poetry is the most alive, most human language.  We also offer “craft talks” this year with Denise Duhamel and Gregory Orr, who will explain how poems work effectively.  This is not just for writers of poetry, but also for the general public who want to learn more about how poems are made, and the work that each part of the poem does to move the reader/listener both emotionally and physically.  Poems are not Rubik’s Cubes; rather they are windows into our common experiences.  

 

WE: This is the 5th anniversary - what is the history of your festival?

MC: Our first festival was in January 2005 and was co-presented by Poets of the Palm Beaches and Lynn University.  It was a weekend featuring four poets, one of them being Billy Collins, former U.S. Poet Laureate.  We were a huge success, attracting poets from around the world who traveled to participate in our workshops. After the first festival, we formed our own non-profit corporation and obtained 501(c)(3) tax status.  We expanded the festival from a weekend to four days and increased the number of workshops from four to eight.  And as we did the first year, all workshop seats were filled.  We partnered with Old School Square that second year and we’ve stayed with them.  One could not have a better venue for poetry readings than the Crest Theatre; complete with classrooms, the vintage gymnasium for social events, and Delray Beach’s restaurants, art galleries and beautiful library all within walking distance. 

In the third and fourth years we expanded the festival by including individual conferences with workshop leaders, a Florida Poets’ reading as well as a lively performance poetry event on the last night of the festival.  We now are one of the largest and most well-respected poetry events in the country.  Our participants come from all over to study with our faculty poets.  We’ve had participants from the U.K., Australia, Ireland, the Grand Bahamas, and almost every state in the U.S., including Hawaii, California, Oregon and Washington.  

 

WE: You have an array of distinguished poets for the festival -  can you
please tell us more about them? 

MC: Denise Duhamel teaches at F.I.U. in the graduate writing program.  Her poems are full of word play and will delight the audience.  

Martin Espada teaches at U. Mass at Amherst.  He is a lawyer by training who represented tenants denied their right to a decent place to live.  He advocated on their behalf.  I would say his poems also advocate for those without a voice in our culture.  His poems are moving, passionate and beautiful.  

Kimiko Hahn teaches at Queens College, City University of New York.  Her poetry reflects her Japanese heritage in its use of certain forms of Japanese poetry.  But her voice is American and it is an unusual thing to listen to poems striving to bring those two cultures together.  

Dara Wier is an exciting award-winning poet.  Her work is edgy, charged with great energy and wit.  She directs the MFA Program for Poets and Writers at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. 

Thomas Lux teaches at Georgia Tech and was my teacher at Sarah Lawrence College.  His poems are unique; and his reading style never fails to captivate the audience.  His is the poetry of imagination, wild juxtapositions, full of outrage at injustice and love for the making of poems.  He has been with us every year of the festival.  

Ann Marie Macari and Gerald Stern are partners in life and in poetry.  Ann Marie directs and teaches in the Drew University MFA program where Jerry also teaches.

Gerald Stern is one of America’s most beloved poets.  He wanders in his poems, a troubadour, a hobo, a rabbi, and a lover of this “lucky life.”  

And Gregory Orr teaches in the graduate program at University of Virginia (my alma mater), a program he founded.  His poetry serves his strong belief that poetry is essential for human survival.  His book “Poetry as Survival” is one of the most widely read books about poetry and its essential role in the lives of human beings in every society throughout history.  

Every year we invite two Florida Poets to read their work at our Floida Poets Reading.  This year, Kelle Groom, a Florida Book Award Winner, and Michael Hettich, author of twelve books and chapbooks of poetry, will be featured on Thursday evening.  Just before their reaading, we will have our Palm Beach County High School Poetry Contest Awards Ceremony.  The contest winner and four runners up will read their poems if they choose to do so.

And finally, we have two performance poets, Lynne Procope and Taylor Mali, who have both appeared on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam and have won numerous National Poetry Slams.  They will knock your socks off. 

 

WE: I see you have workshops offered - can you please share more about the instructors and topics? Are all levels of poetry writers welcome? 

MC: As of today, we do have openings in Kamiko Hahn’s advanced workshop and in Denise Duhamel’s intermediate workshop.  The goal of a workshop is to create a place where the teacher can help you create new poems and/or to develop skills to revise existing poems.  Complete descriptions of the workshops are found on our website.  All of our faculty poets teach in Graduate Creative Writing Programs; they are all renowned poets having won major prizes for their work, and they are all engaging readers of their poems.  For beginning poets, we offer auditor seats which is a great way to learn from the workshop without having to share your own poems or to comment on other’s work.  Auditors observe, take notes, receive all handouts and receive tickets to all festival events as part of their tuition fee. 

 

WE: Are there educational events for visitors and the community? 

MC: Absolutely!  There are eight ticketed events to which the public is invited:  our eight faculty poets will read at four evening readings.  Two other readings feature our Florida poets and Performance poets.

In addition, there are craft talks on Tuesday, January 20th at 2 pm by Denise Duhamel and Gregory Orr that explore how poems work.  Denise will be talking about humor in poetry; and Greg, about writing from “the threshold” that place where we enter into our subconscious mind.

Dr. Blaise Allen, the festival's community outreach director, has visited about twenty high schools in Palm Beach County to encourage students to enter poems into the festival sponsored county-wide high school poetry contest.  This year over three hundred and fifty students sent in their poems and we will announce the winner and four runners up soon.  They will receive cash prizes and certificates of achievement at the High School Poetry Contest Awards Ceremony on Thursday, January 22nd at 8:00 pm.  They will have an opportunity to pose for photographs with the festival's world renowned featured poets, and will be invited to read their poems to the audience that evening.  The contest is judged by Dr. Jeff Morgan of the English Dept. at Lynn University.  The students' poems will be published on the festival website.

 

WE: Are there ways to give back, for visitors? 

MC: The festival needs help from the community; not just money, which we certainly do need, but also helping us get the word out about the festival in your neighborhoods, condos and gated communities.  We seek volunteers to help us during the festival with myriads of tasks.  If one wishes to volunteer, e mail Laura McDermott, our festival coordinator at laura [at] palmbeachpoetryfestival.org 

The festival also presents poetry events at museums, nature preserves, senior care facilities, high schools and we also offer free workshops for Mother’s and Father’s Day.  If you wish to arrange a poetry event in your area, contact our festival outreach director, Dr. Blaise Allen, drblaiseallen [at] aol.com 

 

WE:  If there anything else you'd like to share with us? 

MC: On Inaugural Day, January 20th, the festival will present a special reading of Inaugural Poems.  We are inviting the public to write a short eight-line poem to commemorate this historic moment and to read it in the Crest Theatre.  Our participants, staff members and volunteers will also read.  This event starts at 3:30 and will end between 5 and 5:30.  We are hoping that teachers will ask students to write such poems and recite them in their classrooms.  This is not about politics, it is about honoring our new President as he takes office and faces the overwhelming challenges of our time.  An outpouring of poems from the heart of America couldn’t hurt.  

 

WE: Thanks so much, Miles. How exciting this event is! Congratulations on creating such an important  and vibrant event.

For more information on the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, please see:
www.palmbeachpoetryfestival.org

Tickets to the public events are available at the Crest Theatre Box Office, 51 North Swinton Avenue Delray Beach, 561 243-7922 ext 1.