Dodge Poetry Fest: "The opposite of stuffy"

The annual Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival kicked off yesterday in Newark, and while the largest city in Jersey doesn't exactly scream capital of cultural to much of the outside world, it very well might soon be just that, suggests Newark mayor Cory A. Booker in the New York Times:

“We’ve got the big Mo, as they say in sports — the momentum.”

The truth of that statement will be put to the test by an expected audience of about 20,000 poetry lovers at the festival, which is held every two years. They will interact with dozens of the most celebrated poets in the world, appearing in a lineup that this year includes Billy Collins, Rita Dove, Kay Ryan, Mark Strand, Mr. Baraka, Martin Espada, Sharon Olds and Galway Kinnell. The streets will be transformed into a “poetry village” of readings, discussions and performances at the performing arts center, as well as at the Newark Museum, the New Jersey Historical Society and several nearby cultural institutions. At various points during the festival, events will be held simultaneously on 10 stages.

Does Newark's evolution parallel that of the art of poetry? A few prominent poets seem to think so:

“Going to Newark is actually wonderful; poetry is used to unlikely settings,” said Ms. Dove, one of four of the country’s former poet laureates scheduled to attend the festival. “It’s time we moved it into the streets, so to speak.” The move “will give the festival its standard audience and interest people who are passing by, so it’s an added audience,” she said.

Ms. Dove is an English professor at the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, but she said “poetry’s lifeblood is not in the ivory tower.”

Mr. Collins, another former poet laureate, agreed that Newark was a metaphor for where poetry is now. “Poetry itself is in a postpastoral condition, and the mood in Newark might reflect major changes in poetry over the last 50 years,” he said.