Poetry for the People
Powerhouse poets team up for reading today
Robert Pinsky believes that poetry is alive and thriving in America. The three-time U.S. poet laureate and professor in the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences Creative Writing Program says that we read and internalize poetry far more often in our daily lives than we think; we just need to share the experience more often.
What’s more, Pinsky believes strongly that poetry is meant to be heard.
“If a poem is written well, it was written … for a voice,” he says. “Reading a poem silently instead of saying a poem is like the difference between staring at sheet music and actually humming or playing the music on an instrument.”
Pinsky will host a public poetry reading this afternoon, featuring Frank Bidart, a professor at Wellesley College and a former chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, as part of the University’s annual summer Poetry Institute for Educators. The institute brings together elementary, middle, and high school teachers to learn about how to use poetry in the classroom.
Hosted by the School of Education, the eighth annual Poetry Institute is cosponsored by the Favorite Poem Project, a national initiative committed to “celebrating and documenting poetry’s place in American culture and improving its place in American classrooms.” The Favorite Poem Project was founded by Pinsky and is now headed by Maggie Dietz (GRS’97), a lecturer in the Creative Writing Program. The Poetry Institute has brought to campus a number of award-winning poets, including Dietz, Major Jackson, the Richard Dennis Green and Gold Professor at the University of Vermont, former U.S. poet laureate Louise Glück, Rosanna Warren, BU’s Emma Ann MacLachlan Metcalf Professor of the Humanities, and David Ferry, Sophie Chantal Hart Professor Emeritus of English at Wellesley College and a lecturer in the Creative Writing Program.
Although the institute is designed for teachers, the reading is open to — and intended for — the public.
“This is a unique opportunity to see two seriously entertaining poets reading together,” says Brandy Barents, Favorite Poem Project project coordinator. “Bidart and Pinsky are quite dramatic readers; even those new to poetry will be interested in this event.”
The poetry reading begins at 3:45 p.m. on Monday, July 13, at Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, 635 Commonwealth Ave., Room 101. Admission is free. Readings will take place at the same time and location on Tuesday and Wednesday, July 14 and 15, as well. For more information, visit the Favorite Poem Project Web site.
Devon Maloney can be reached at devon.maloney@gmail.com.
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