Captions are available! Click the “Live Transcript” button at the bottom of your zoom screen.Need assistance? Send a direct message to one of our volunteers.Need help with Zoom or can’t access an event? Call the Festival Helpline: (978) 230-7110Remember to be kind and respectful!

Kerouac and I share a birthday:)

The pursuit of knowledge was freedom to me, the right to declare your own curiosities and follow them through all manner of books. I was made for the library, not the classroom. The classroom was a jail of other people’s interests. The library was open, unending, free. Slowly, I was discovering myself.--T. Coates

Origami Poems Project: https://www.origamipoems.com/

“a poet who has been re-released into the wild” I love this

Captions are available! Click the “Live Transcript” button at the bottom of your zoom screen.Need assistance? Send a direct message to one of our volunteers.Need help with Zoom or can’t access an event? Call the Festival Helpline: (978) 230-7110Remember to be kind and respectful!

https://www.artandwriting.org/programs/national-student-poets-program/

And: https://www.favoritepoem.org/

One of the most successful Poet Laureate signature projects!

IN FAVOR OF A FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY SYSTEMSometimes disturbed people go to the Public Libraryand shout their secrets into the silence. One may shout“They say I’m schizophrenic. What the hell does that mean?”Or else “My husband says I’m frigid. How do I look that up?”Then the readers look up from their reading, sanely disturbedand often some well-read person starts talking quietly with them,or else a compassionate librarian shows them the way to the catalog.Then the library returns to the silence of its function:the transmission of the words of the past in the presenceof the dust motes moving in the single sun-beamcoming down from the window to the check-out desk,

and if you think those dust motes are ‘dancing like stars’and are metaphors for some universal order or chaoswell, don’t panic, keep quiet, don’t start shoutingfor meaningful advice from some well-read person:ask a compassionate librarian to show you the wayto the American Poetry section where under 811 D or DUGyou’ll find in my Collected Poems the palliative answerto your stupid questions and the answer as to whythat liar Nietzche wrote “I don’t like poets: they lie.”-- Alan Dugan, Poems Seven, Mass Book Award in Poetry 2002

Please raise your hand to ask a question or, if you prefer, type it into chat and we'll ask for you.

College of the Holy Cross Campus Poetry Walk:Link to brochure and map:http://crossworks.holycross.edu/poetry2021/26Link to virtual version: http://crossworks.holycross.edu/poetry2021Article from student newspaper (captures student reactions to the poetry walk)https://hcspire.com/2021/05/07/behind-the-story-of-the-poetry-walk/(Many of the poems came from student work created during their Intro to Creative Writing: Poetry class. This class also wrote Ekphrasis reactions for the Senior Art Concentration Exhibit, and were displayed with the artwork in the Cantor Art Gallery on Campus.

You can “Raise Your Hand” in zoom by clicking the “Reactions” button at the bottom of your zoom screen and choosing “Raise Hand.”

Would be great to have a state Poet Laureate!

Sharon Shaloo, Exec Director, MCB shaloo@massbook.org

If you're interested: https://www.loc.gov/rr/main/poets/current.html

No state PL in MA as well as MI, NJ, and PA

And once-upon-a-time:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet-books/2014/12/a-poet-laureate-for-massachusetts-

It does feel to many people that there is a “\right answer.”

Jarita, I love the idea of the long game!

If you want to learn more about the Holy Cross project contact Lisa Villa directly at LVILLA@HOLYCROSS.EDU

It is a fear of not being “in the know.” Of not understanding and looking foolish

poetry, in the same language, can turn around your thinking - your sense of what is possible to express in words - much like learning a foreign language

Thanks so much!

Thanks to all!

thank you everyone!

Thank you all!

thanks to a great panel. tremendous!

Kerouac @ 100 events: https://jackkerouac.org/ Our library's website: https://lowelllibrary.org/

Thanks everyone!!

I’m an high school English teacher of 33 years. It was my own English teachers who brought me to poetry. Sorry to hear the system isn’t reaching out.