Relive the Massachusetts Poetry Festival 2013 through the responses of others to the event.  More responses will be coming, including Tom Daley, Alice Kociemba, Laurin Macios, Joey Gould,  Jade Sylvan and Tony Toledo. But if you are feeling down after having a wonderful weekend, here is a quick pick-me-up of remembrance with Lloyd Schwartz, Dawn Paul, Kevin Carey, Don McLagan, and Martha Carlson-Bradley.

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Did you miss the opening day at the Mass Poetry Festival? Then you missed readings, workshops, music, belly dancers, performance poetry, flash mob singing. Poetry in a museum, poetry in cafes, poetry in churches. Poetry and global warming, poetry and war, poetry and nature, poetry and the inner lives of object. A play about Emily Dickerson. Ballads, blues and poetry. Dancers dialoging with poetry and books.

Tracy K. Smith

And you missed wonderful food on a wonderfully sunny day, in a wonderful cobblestone-lovely town.

In the evening featured poets had the audience rolling in the aisles with laughter and awe-struck with mingling of cosmic vastness and intimacy. Nick Flynn imbued physics with the wonder of a child’s mind as it accepts the implausible situations of cartoons, and he gave voice to creatures like bees. Jill McDonough gave life to human foibles and cross-cultural misunderstandings that nevertheless show generosity of spirit. And Tracy K. Smith meditatively blends science and science fiction as they illuminate her memory of her father.

Jill McDonough

There’s still today and tomorrow for experiencing the vast world of the Mass Poetry Festival.The Saturday feature poets are Pulitzer Prize winner Sharon Olds, Terrance Hayes, and Eduardo C. Corral.  And Sunday’s features are Martin Espada, John Murillo, Amanda Torres, Arthur Sze, Gail Mazur, Erica

Nick Flynn

Funkhouser, Kevin Goodan, and Yusef Komunyaaka.

See you there?

If you want to get a feel for the Festival before you come to Salem this weekend, look at what people said about it last year.

Jill McDonough, Pushcart winner and a feature poet for this year, compares the festival favorably to the AWP Convention.

J.D. Scrimgeour, who is a poet and teaches at Salem State University, gives a wonderful sense of the camaraderie at the festival.Richard Hoffman, winner of the 2006 Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize and the New England Poetry Club’s Sheila Motton Book Award, gives us the essence of his presentation on the state of contemporary poetry.

The Morning After describes the exhilaration and wonderful exhaustion the first morning after the festival is over.

Come and see for yourself what the festival holds for you!

The press and radio (WBUR) are talking about poetry and the Massachusetts Poetry Festival. Here are a few of the stories.

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We are so very grateful for the donations made to support the work of Mass Poetry and the extra amounts people are giving when purchasing their festival buttons. Often our on line donors dedicate their support to someone. Here are the dedications we have recorded so far in 2013. If you would like to donate to support Mass Poetry when pre-ordering your festival button, or at any time, and you would honor someone special please do so by clicking on the donate button on our web site or going to https://npo.networkforgood.org/Donate/Donate.aspx?npoSubscriptionId=1003613&code=01

 Michael Ansara, Co-Founder of Mass Poetry

 List of Dedications

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This interview with Arthur Sze is the sixth in a series with the featured poets for the 2013 Massachusetts Poetry Festival (May 3 – 5 in Salem).  Each interview is accompanied by a poem, featured in the left column under “Poem of the Moment.” Arthur’s poem is Comet Hyakutake.

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