The Dead Poets of New England

Historic Grand Tour Report Now Online

The initial report of the historic Dead Poets Grand Tour 2010 is now online.

It chronicles all the places visited and the names of the poets read. From the Report: 

"We started on Shakespeare’s birthday, in Portland, Maine, the 23^rd of April, and we ended with a bang 6,500 miles later at the first Boston Poetry Marathon, May 25th. During those 34 days, and with the cooperation of 13 current and former State Poets Laureate, we held a Dead Poets Bash in 19 different States and visited 43 cemeteries!

The Grand Tour map can be accessed at the top left corner of the Dead Poets Society of America blog:  http://deadpoets.typepad.com/dpsablog/  

The other readings and interviews we held at poets’ graves and houses were really great as well, including the Lorine Niedecker home, the Carl Sandburg home, the E.L. Masters home, the Sidney Lanier house, The Virginia Military Institute, The Poe Museum, the Longfellow House and the Woodberry Poetry Room, at Harvard.

All totaled we visited the graves of 75 American poets, and heard the amazing poetry of over 100 American poets read. Dedgar and the crew kept up a pace of just over 191.18 miles per day and 2 poets’ graves per day!

The initial report of the historic Dead Poets Grand Tour 2010 is now online.

It chronicles all the places visited and the names of the poets read. From the Report: 

"We started on Shakespeare’s birthday, in Portland, Maine, the 23^rd of April, and we ended with a bang 6,500 miles later at the first Boston Poetry Marathon, May 25th. During those 34 days, and with the cooperation of 13 current and former State Poets Laureate, we held a Dead Poets Bash in 19 different States and visited 43 cemeteries!

The Grand Tour map can be accessed at the top left corner of the Dead Poets Society of America blog:  http://deadpoets.typepad.com/dpsablog/  

The other readings and interviews we held at poets’ graves and houses were really great as well, including the Lorine Niedecker home, the Carl Sandburg home, the E.L. Masters home, the Sidney Lanier house, The Virginia Military Institute, The Poe Museum, the Longfellow House and the Woodberry Poetry Room, at Harvard.

All totaled we visited the graves of 75 American poets, and heard the amazing poetry of over 100 American poets read. Dedgar and the crew kept up a pace of just over 191.18 miles per day and 2 poets’ graves per day!

Updated Schedule for the Boston Poetry Marathon

The Map for the Boston Poetry Marathon has the updated schedule.

No more breakfast in Chinatown. Forest Hills is still 10:00  // Harvard Square is 12:30. // Mt. Auburn is 2:00. Will get going right away; no waiting. //  Concord's Author's Ridge is now at 7:00 to 7:45  //  We will no longer have the Midnight to Sunrise section of the journey.//  We will still meet at sunrise at Gloucester, MA.

Updated Schedule for The Great Boston Poetry Marathon

From sunrise, May 24^th, in Provincetown, to sunrise May 25^th, in Gloucester, the Great Boston Poetry Marathon will take place, during which we are hoping to visit 43 different gravesites, having some readings at some of them.

Nothing like this has been done in American literary history, and the Dead Poets Society of America is pleased to invite poets in the Boston area to participate in this 24-hour event.

Readers can meet up with Dedgar The Poemobile along the route at specific times, or join the caravan from the beginning or in Boston. Approximate times at cemeteries are below:

Those wishing to read a poem or ask about our progress traveling may phone : 207-449-8122

http://deadpoets.typepad.com/the_dead_poets_of_massach/

5:12 AM Sunrise.  Provincetown, MA

1 - 3. Start at the graves of Stanley Kunitz & Elise Asher. Also Norman Mailer

9:00 AM Chinatown

4. Near the plaque for Phyllis Wheatley.

9:15 AM Central Burial Ground (Boston Commons)

5. Meet at the grave of Charles Sprague, the Banker Poet of Boston.

10 AM to 10:45 Forrest Hills Cemetery
6. Anne Sexton; 7 E. E. Cummings; 8. James Freeman Clarke; 9. Eugene O'Neill

11:15 AM Hollyhood Cemetery, Brookline. 584 Heath Street, Chesnut Hill

10. John O'Reily

12:30 Harvard Square.

11. Washington Allston; 12. Richard Henry Dan

2:00 to 4:30 PM Mt. Auburn Cemetery (20 Poets!) (13-33)

Henry Longfellow; Buckminster Fuller; Margaret Fuller; Robert Creeley; Frances Sargent Osgood;

Thomas Gold Appleton; John Pierpont Sr.; Charles Eliot Norton; Fanny Parnell; Christopher Pease Cranch;

John Ciardi; Nathaniel Parker Willis; Maria White Lowell; Louise Chandler Moulton; Amy Lowell; Gamaliel Bradford; Julia Ward Howe; Oliver Wendell Holmes; Thomas Bailey Aldrich; David McCord;

7:00 to 7:45 Author's Ridge, Concord MA

35. Ralph Waldo Emerson; 36. Louisa May Alcott; 37 Nathaniel Hawthorne; 38. William Channing; 39. Henry Thoreau

8:30 PM Malden. (After Mt. Auburn)

40. Michael Wigglesworth

SALEM at 9:15 PM

41. .Jones Very (Salem)

5:12 AM, Tuesday the 25th. New Gloucester Beach.

42. Vincent Ferrini                                                                        Henry Ferrini

43. Charles Olson. New Gloucester Cemetery

 

Poetry Marathon About to Begin

In two hours, at sunrise, here in Provincetown, the Great Boston Poetry Marathon is about to begin.

We can't visit 26.2 graves, but either 25 or 26 would break the land speed record for poets' graves visited within a 24 hour period.

Anybody Got a Magic Bus?

I want it, I want it, I want it, sang the Who, about a magic bus. That's what we need: a Magick Bus to take a whole school of poets around on the Great Boston Poetry Marathon.

If you have a van or school bus, and can use it for 24 hours (need at least one shared driver), then please consider joining our historic Poetry Marathon through the graveyards and churchyards of Boston.

Historic Reading At Robert Lowell's Grave

Join the Dead Poets Grand Tour 2010 at a reading in the historic Stark Family cemetery, in Dunbarton, NH, on Saturday, April 24. This is where Robert Lowell is buried. (Directions from Concord on Google)

We'll be joined by NH poet laureate, Walter Butts, and other regional poets, at 4 PM.

Please contact Walter Skold, at info (at) deadpoes  [dot] org if you plan to attend. There is no rain location as of yet, and we plan to hold the event if there are gray skies or light rain.

Poems for New Hampshire/Dunbarton Reading

This post is for people to list which poems they wish to read at the April 24th, 4 PM reading at the grave of Robert Lowell. Please use the comments to list your poem/s. They should be from past poets from New Hampshire and New England.

I would like for someone to start off with Lowell's "Dunbarton"

Would also be interesting for someone to read "At the Indian Killer's Grave", and "In Memory of Arthur Winslow" (who is buried near Lowell).

Dead Poets of Vermont & New Hampshire Online

The Dead Poets of Vermont & New Hampshire Map is now online. You can find out the grave location of your favorite past poet from Vermont or New Hampshire, as well as help find the location of some not known. (We know this is quite incomplete. You can always send in more names and locations in the comments.)

Dead Poets of Massachusetts is Online

Check out the Dead Poets of Massachusetts Map. Perhaps more dead poets per capita than any State in the Union!