The end of April will see the end of National Poetry Month for this year. Glance through the events and resources below. With a click or two, you can enjoy some of them all year.
Reading Aloud is Still Allowed
Thanks to Zoom, your fellow OLLI members can share their favorite poems with you by reading them aloud. We will update this section throughout the month. Today, we invite you to enjoy….
Al Carlson reads “The Knight Whose Armour Didn’t Squeak“ and “As Into the Garden.…”
Anne Strozier reads “Smell the Roses, Damnit!” by Robert Strozier.
Joyce Carpenter reads two poems. The first is “What the Chairman Told Tom” by Basil Bunting. The second is “The Ponies” by Wilfred Wilson Gibson. She also reads the Pub Scene from TS Eliot’s “The Wasteland”.
Pindie Stephen reads “Grandchild“ by Maxine Kumin.
Barbara Brown reads “Fern Hill” by Dylan Thomas.
Simone Leal reads two poems by João Cabral de Melo Neto. You can learn more about him here. She reads each in the original Portuguese, then reads the English translation.
Shelly Belzer reads “Some Foreign Letters“ by Anne Sexton, “An Adventure” by Louise Glück, and “Musée de Beaux Arts” by W.H. Auden.
Poetry and the Creative Mind
There will be a gala on April 29, to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of National Poetry Month, The 18th annual Poetry & the Creative Mind will begin at 7:30 pm EDT. Click here for more information on the background of the gala.
Eckerd College
“Spread the Words“ is the title of a month-long series of poetry readings at Eckerd College. Every Thursday evening at 7 p.m.
Poetry at the Dali
Poetry at the Dali, introduced by St Petersburg Poet Laureate, Helen Pruitt Wallace, takes place on the 2nd Thursday of the month. Several have been saved to YouTube, such as this one from September 10, 2020, featuring Susan Lilley (Orlando Poet Laureate), Gianna Russo (Tampa’s Wordsmith) and Peter Meinke (Florida Poet Laureate) You can still stream the April 8 live performance of Poetry at the Dali Online.
See the Dali’s YouTube channel and scroll down to Performances at the Dali for the January, February, March 2021 readings
Mouth of the Mural
The Mouth of the Mural is “an ekphrastic (i.e. visual art into words) event that unites visual, literary and performance artists with business owners in an effort to celebrate community, connection, and conversation”. Learn more about them here, and find out about their upcoming event for this month on April 26 here.
Share and Receive Poetry
Share poetry with Nation Poetry Month’s “Poem in Your Pocket” invitation.
Receive poetry with “Poem-A-Day” from Poets.org.
A few more treats:
Art and Poetry
Spoken Word Poetry in the UK
People’s Faces, Kate Tempest
My Shakespeare, Kate Tempest
Poetry in America, bringing poetry into living rooms:
https://www.favoritepoem.org/
https://www.poetryinamerica.org/tv-series/#featured-episodes
Podcasts
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/podcasts/series/74633/poemtalk
https://web.archive.org/web/20201025062330/https://audioboom.com/channel/faber-poetry-podcast
https://www.commonpodcast.com/
https://interestingpeoplereadingpoetry.com/
https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/poetry
A retreat for poets and writers:
May 15, Sandhill Writers Retreat 2021 (on zoom this year) – for poets and writers of fiction, nonfiction:
Return to OLLI Connects home page
Love the readings Shelly, Anne ,Pindie, Barbara, Simone! Wonderful choice of poems and lovely to hear so many different voices reading poems so beautifully.
I listened to all the readings, bewitched. THANKS! Waiting for more.
Bob: You are so darn universal: plays, musicals, essays, poems, humor . . . . Wow! May God give you many more years of creative genius.