An Invitation to Attend “Poetry & Our Times”
The first ever Massachusetts Poetry Festival is less than two weeks away. The schedule is filled with different workshops and readings. We hope you are periodically looking at our website for the news and all the details of the schedule. For example, it has just been announced that poet and memoirist Nick Flynn will be reading as part of the Headline Reading on Friday evening. But so much is being planned, I wanted in particular to draw your attention to a workshop on Saturday, October 11 at 3 PM at the Whistler House Museum of Art that I am helping organize that could be a remarkable opportunity to not only hear 3 skilled poets read, but also to participate in a small group discussion with them. Please read on ….
War. Torture. Terrorism. Globalization. iPODs & iPhones. Katrina. Sub Prime. Economic collapse. Inequality. Poetry exists in a context. Poets grapple to make sense of the world around them. How can poets bring a moral perspective to their work and still maintain poetic integrity? How do we write about the issues of our time without writing propaganda?
You are invited to a discussion with three exceptional poets – Martin Espada, Richard Hoffman, and Ann Killough – each of whom engage the issues of our time within poems of beauty, integrity, and craft.
As with most of our programs at the Poetry Festival, this unique event is free and open to the public, so please invite friends and family. It is sure to be a fascinating hour of poetry, thought, and discussion.
Thanks for reading, and I hope to see you at the Fest.
Michael Ansara
Executive Planning Committee








