The Boston poetry tea party

This weekend 88 poets will gather in Cambridge as the Boston's poetry marathon returns after a half-decade hiatus, once again headed by vocal poet/organizer/rabble-rouser Jim Behrle. The idea is the same as it was back in 2004: each poet gets exactly 8 minutes, but the marathon's got a new name this year, one that reflects the program's desire to stay current with the times -- Out: Boston Poetry Massacre. In: Boston Poet Tea Party.

Eugenia Williamson talks with Behrle for the Boston Phoenix about the Party:

Those who attend this weekend's event will encounter a poetic landscape far different from the one in which the last Boston Poetry Massacre occurred. "I think things were even more polarized in 2004," says Behrle. "The line between [different kinds of] poetries isn't as clear anymore. Some of the people that are coming this year — that have been in years past — they've been published in the New Yorker. Their work hasn't changed; someone in the New Yorker decided to start publishing them." Behrle ascribes this shift to the Internet: "All of a sudden, everybody knows what everybody else is up to."

Behrle says this increased awareness has forced poets to raise their game. "There's so little room," he says. "It's sort of like the D Green Line train . . . you have to fight for your one inch of space or they will pick you up and throw you out."

The organizers have ensured that the poets can continue to size one another other up over drinks each night of the marathon. "Poet parties can be kind of nice," Behrle says. "Everybody is so awkward that it cancels out other people's awkwardness."

Can’t make it to Boston but still want to enjoy some poetry and/or drinking? Check out tonight’s Printers' Ball in Chicago, or San Francisco's own poetry marathon this Saturday.