For Immediate Release Dead Poets Society of America
Contact Walter Skold: info@deadpoes.org
Columbus Day Boston Poetry Marathon Inaugurates New Literary Holiday
What do you get when you mix Edgar Allan Poe, All Saints Day, the graves of over 30 Massachusetts poets and the Mexican celebration of El Dia De Los Muertos
Why, the Great Boston Poetry Marathon of 2010, of course.
This Columbus Day a caravan of poets is going to make a 12-hr, 48-dead poet pilgrimage from sunrise in Gloucester to sunset in Concord to help celebrate a new literary holiday.
“Dead Poets Remembrance Day is a unique way to enrich our cultural commons by annually “digging up” the treasures of our poetic past and resurrecting them in the public imagination,” says Walter Skold, the Maine-based founder of the Dead Poets Society of America.
“It is fitting that contemporary poets honor the iconic poets who carved a path for American poetry, in the sacred places where they now lie,” says Marjory Wentworth, a native of Massachusetts who is currently the Poet Laureate of South Carolina.
“Sarah Orne Jewett is an ancestor of mine, and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to read her poetry in Gloucester,” said Wentworth, who will read at a sunrise reading at the famous Fisherman’s Memorial.
Wentworth, Rhode Island Poet Laureate, Lisa Starr, and Rhina Espaillat are among the featured poets who will lead visits to the graves of over 30 poets during the unique community event they are calling the Great Boston Poetry Marathon of 2010.
The October 11th marathon will take place in seven major locations around Boston, and end with a special sunset service on Author’s Ridge, in Concord, where Henry Thoreau is set to make a posthumous appearance.
“We’ll be reading from 48 Massachusetts-related poets whose work spans our whole literary history,” said Skold, a poet and former school teacher from Maine who ventured out on the road 2 years ago in search of poets’ graves.
The Massachusetts event is one of ten national events that State Poets Laureate from Maine, Alabama, Kansas, California, and six other states have organized, in hopes that the new literary holiday becomes an annual tradition.
And it will all begin at sunrise in Gloucester, when members of the public read the works of Vincent Ferrini, T. S. Eliot, Henry Longfellow, and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, among others.
“An old friend of Ferrini’s, called the Biker Poet, is going to roll in on his motorcycle to begin the festivities at the largest gravesite in the world – the ocean,” said Skold.
After that the group will travel to the grave of Charles Olson, in Beechbrook Cemetery, for a reading and discussion of the Gloucester poet’s funeral and tombstone.
“Thousands of tourists visit the graves of Emerson, Longfellow, Dickinson and other literary luminaries each year,” says Skold, “But what of the hundreds of poets whose graves few people ever visit?”
"There's all kinds of commemorative dates, for things like National Potato Week or something like that," says Wisconsin's poet laureate, Marilyn L. Taylor. "So it’s high time that poets got some national recognition."
In between the Gloucester sunrise and the Concord sunset, the route includes public readings in Beverly, Peabody, Boston Commons, Cambridge and Watertown.
“Part of the purpose of this whole holiday is to dig up and bring back to life many of the dead poets of the 19th Century who were famous in their day but largely forgotten now,” says Skold.
To that end participants during the 12-hr marathon will read from the works of Charles Sprague, called the Banker-Poet of Boston, John Boyle O’Reilly, a hugely famous Irish-American poet, and Lucy Larcom, a poet and hymnist known for her realistic portrayals of life in the mills of Lowell.
“We are also going to break the literary land speed record of 52 Graves Per Day which we set back in May at the end of our Grand Tour,” claims Skold, who notes that such high numbers can be attained because Mount Auburn cemetery has more poets’ graves than anywhere in the US.
The Grand Tour 2010 was a 34-day, 22-State and 43-cemetery journey with public readings at the graves of more than 75 American poets. It started in Maine, on April 23rd and ended in Watertown's Mount Auburn cemetery on May 25th.
For the first-time celebration of this new holiday Mount Auburn Cemetery is hosting an “American Parnassus” event, from 2 p.m. to 4:30, which will include historical presentations and readings of many well-know poets.
“We are going to have a 21-grave salute to the poets buried in Mount Auburn, and learn lots of fascinating things about their deaths and their tombstones,” says Skold.
"It is quite appropriate that Mount Auburn is the final resting place of so many literary figures," says Bree Harvey, Mount Auburn's Vice President of External Affairs. "Our very name, Mount Auburn, was inspired by a poem, and through the years we provided artistic and literary inspiration for hundreds of individuals."
"We are proud to celebrate this rich literary heritage for such a special occasion," she added.
It was during his trips in 2009 and 2010, when he travelled over 15,000 miles to document the graves of American poets and meet 13 state poets laureate, that the idea for the holiday developed.
And it was in Athens, Georgia, where he met Coleman Barks, the poet and translator of Rumi, whom Skold credits with being one of the instigators behind the idea.
"The areas around the tombs of Hafez and Saadi in Shiraz, Iran, are great continuous celebrations,” says Barks, who has visited the tombs on several occasions. “The same with Rumi's resting place in Konya, Turkey.”
“We have a lot to learn from those ancient cultures about how to enjoy our poets, and poetry in general," he says.
It was advice that Skold and his merry band of poets laureate took to heart.
“We’re out to instigate celebrations like this at the graves of more American poets,” says Skold, who has visited over 200 poets’ graves east of the Mississippi.
“And maybe a little dancing too,” he added.
In New England a day-long reading up the coast of Maine is planned for October 7th and the Frost Farm, a National Landmark, in Derry, NH, will host an October 10th reading that will feature nearly a dozen of that State’s best living poets.
“The Frost Farm is one of my favorite poetry landmarks,” says Skold, who has visited over 20 such landmarks on his journeys.
“On the very farm that inspired Frost to write so many of his beloved poems we’ll honor the memory of New Hampshire poets like Jane Kenyon, Robert Lowell, Celia Thaxter, and Ogden Nash.”
And what of the over 400 graves of American poets scattered across the country, the location of which often remain unknown and buried in musty historical archives?
“This year we are kicking-off this holiday with both a bang and a whimper, with both large and small events,” says Skold. “In the years to come we hope people in all states will join the hunt to dig up the graves and the poetry of our forgotten poets.”
A fitting remark for a group whose slogan is “We dig dead poets.”
The events at each of the seven main locations are free and open to the public and those wishing to attend one or all of the readings can find details on the Great Boston Poetry Marathon blog, at:
http://deadpoets.typepad.com/gbpm/
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