The Boston Book Festival presents a smorgasbord for readers of all interests. Altogether there are over one hundred writers and presenters, many of whom have won national prizes and have their names on bestseller lists. The list includes a number of distinguished poets. The Massachusetts Poetry Festival is co-sponsoring and managing the poetry events at this year’s BBF.

Thursday Evening Sizziling Poetry Slam at Berkeley

Most of the Festival occurs Saturday, October 16, but one poetry event starts early. At 7:00, Thursday, October 14 at Café 939, the Festival features a slam reading that has some of the pizzazz of a gladiatorial face off.

The slam reading features four teams, each hoping to qualify to compete for the National Slam prize by winning on Thursday night. The teams represent the familiar rivalry seen in regional sporting events, with two teams representing the Boston area and two representing New York. The teams are Nuyorican (New York), Mill City (Lowell), louderARTS (New York), and the Lizard Lounge (Boston).  The winner automatically has a place in the National Slam competition.

The same contest between poetry teams made slam night a highlight of last year’s Massachusetts Poetry Festival.

Saturday readings and workshops

On October 16, as people are gathering in the Copley Square area for all kinds of literary events, the festival presents two poetry readings and three workshops. Each of the readings features three prominent poets.

The first reading features Kevin Young, who is the author of six books of poems, his latest being The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief & Healing, an anthology of contemporary elegies. Meg Kearney is the Director of the Solstice Creative Writing Programs of Pine Manor College.  Her most recent collection, Come Home Now, published by Four Way Books, won the 2010 PEN New England L. L. Winship Award. The third reader in the series is Jill McDonough, who, among other awards, has been a recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fine Arts Work Center, and the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.

The second reading includes Elizabeth Alexander, who is a poet, essayist, playwright, and teacher. Her latest book, American Sublime (2005), was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize and was one of the American Library Association’s “Notable Books of the Year.” The second reader in this series, Edward Hirsch, is a MacArthur Fellow and a winner of National Book Critics Circle Award for his collection, Wild Gratitude. The final reader, Ellen Doré Watson, is Poetry and Translation Editor of The Massachusetts Review and Director of the Poetry Center at Smith College. She is a winner of the New York/New England award from Alice James Books for her collection Ladder Music.

Workshops

The three poetry workshops offered on Saturday are presented by three of Boston’s premiere poetry supporting organizations. Grub Street, a creative writing center in Boston dedicated to nurturing writers, is offering a poem generator workshop, a very popular exercise at last year’s Massachusetts Poetry Festival. PoemWorks, a series of workshops run by Barbara Helfgott Hyett, will offer an exercise in free writing. PoemWorks has been described by the Boston Globe as “One of the best places for workshops.” And finally, the Master of Fine Arts program at the University of Massachusetts Boston is offering a poetry workshop and café for teens, a place where young people can write together and share the poems they have written.

Don’t miss these exciting poetry events, and check the Boston Book Festival website for more details.