An Afternoon of Poetry, April 27

Linda Miller

For the last 14 years the Rensselaerville (NY) Library has sponsored a reading during April as part of the Favorite Poem Project, which had been started by Robert Pinsky in 1997 during his tenure as the US Poet Laureate. We were welcomed on this Saturday afternoon by the Library Director, Kim Graff, as we awaited the arrival of the MC, Claire North. In the meantime, Linda Miller, the coordinator of the event filled in until Claire arrived later, & talked about the history of the Favorite Poem Project here.

The readers were:

The Logans read James Wright

• Diane Sefcik — poems by Joy Harjo, Sandy Cameron & Adrienne Rich, & later her own pantoum
• Patricia Britten — her own one page comic, a dragon fantasy.
• Tom Bonville — William Stafford
• Linda Miller — Marie Howe
• Paulette Rider — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• The Logans (Nora & Bill) — James Wright
• John Haynes — Grace Paley
• Dan Wilcox — Bob Kaufman
• Virginia — her own poems
• Netta Dickerson — Mary Oliver
• Claire North — her own poems

The folks who read are exemplary of how wide-spread poetry is in our culture, despite the moaning of academics & other cultural pundits. Many of the readers had a deep understanding of the life work of the poets they read, & even when they were drawn to a poet by a quote on, say, Facebook, they had made the effort to track the entire poem. A few of the poets have actually ventured off the mountain down to the big, bad city to seek out open mic venues, but those that haven’t it was gratifying to think of them curled up the home fires with a book of poetry & a cup of hot chocolate, or glass of bourbon.