Dead Poets Remembrance Day 2014 in Medford MA

2014 Dead Poets Remembrance Day in Medford Announced

The Medford grave of John Holmes, "The Tufts Poet", will be one of the sites for Dead Poets Remembrance Day in 2014 next Tuesday, October 7th.

Read the great article that appeared in Tufts Daily this week about the 1st of its kind event.

Holmes was a poet and Tufts professor whose work and teaching had a major influence on Anne Sexton, Maxine Kunim, John Ciardi and others. He died in 1962 and this 5:30 PM celebration is believed to be the first such gathering at his grave since then.

"This is the 5th years the poetry community has celebrated Dead Poets Remembrance Day in Massachusetts," said Walter Skold "And since Holmes' grave has just been newly rediscovered, it is appropriate to have our 2014 gathering there."

"It is also fitting that in the year of Maxine Kunim's death, we celebrate the poetry of her most-influential teacher, John Holmes," he added.

The public is invited to attend the celebration, which will start at 5:30 PM. The public is invited to bring a poem to read of any of the Tufts-related poets, which are Holmes, Sexton, Kunim, and Ciardi. Other invited readers will be announced as soon as they are confirmed.

Medford resident and Tufts graduate, Charles Skold, will read a selection of poetry from the Puritan poetess, Jane Turell. Turell died young and was buried in the old burying grounds in Medford. It has only been recently she has been resurrected into the early-American literary canon as the voices of women have been more widely acknowledged.

Map to John Holmes' Medford grave

The gravesite of John Holmes, in Medford's Oak Grove cemetery, will be the site of the October 7th celebration. Follow the yellow-marked roads to the Forest section, and you'll see the Poemobile near Holmes' last-known address: EZ-65. (Make sure to use the 3rd gate or you will be heading into a thicket of white graves quite un-at where we'll be!)

Oak Grove Cemetery, 230 Playstead Rd.
Medford

John Holmes

Picture from Tufts University. Digital Collections and Archives. Medford, MA.

http://dca.lib.tufts.edu/features/holmes/index.html

Anne Sexton

Upon the advice of her therapist, Anne Sexton began to pursue poetry. And when she did, she had the good fortune to find herself a student of John Holmes. We'll read an elegy that Anne wrote for her first poetry teacher. Here are some pictures of her grave.

Maxine Kunim

Maxine Kunim studied with John Holmes very early in her career, one that only ended this year after having been a US and New Hampshire Poet Laureate. She developed her life-changing friendship with Anne Sexton in a class led by the "Tufts Poet" John Holmes.

Come to the grave of Holmes on Dead Poets Remembrance Day and help celebrate our poetic heritage here in Massachusetts. The event will begin at 5:30 and go until sunset. Here is a map to the Medford grave.

Jane Turell

 Pictures of her Medford gravesite. Video Below.

 

Two years ago this week the Dead Poet Guy found his 250th grave in Medford. This year we'll have a chance to honor her memory by reading one of her poems, unearthed from the archives. Jane's unearthing will have to wait... 

 

Grave #250 for the Dead Poet Guy -- Jane Turell: Puritan Poetess from Walter Skold on Vimeo.

 

John Ciardi

(From the Poetry Foundation) Influenced by his favorite teacher at Tufts University, poet John Holmes, Ciardi decided early in his college career to devote time to writing verse. He turned to composing juvenile poetry as a means of playing and reading with his own children. His juvenile selections were enormously successful, especially I Met a Man. Ciardi's position as a poetry critic with Saturday Review developed from his own verse publications, but he told Comer that "it was a hobby job," adding, "I think at most it earned me $4,000 a year." 

Ciardi was strongly in favor of exposing poetry to mass audiences. Aware of the linguistic and allusive complexities inherent in "good" verse and acknowledging the public's general aversion to poems, he consciously attempted to address the average reader through much of his work. While not sacrificing his message for popularity and renown, Ciardi nevertheless gained a large public following. Critics acclaimed the intellectual elements in his work, and the reading public derived equal meaning and relevance from his poetry. In his preface to Dialogue with an Audience, Ciardi expressed the hope that some readers "can be brought to a more than merely general interest in poetry."

Deborah Sugarbaker Digges

Deborah Digges (NYT obituary) was a beloved professor at Tufts. There will also be a special reading for her in Amherst, at her grave, on Saturday, Oct 4th. See that event blog for details. After her death in 2009 a resolution was read before the Facutly (full resolution here) 

Resolution on the Death of Deborah Digges
Presented before the Faculty of Tufts University May 13, 2009

On behalf of Lee Edelman, Chair of the Department of English, I would like to read the
following resolution on the death of Professor Deborah Digges and to ask that the
members of the Tufts community join us in remembering and celebrating the
accomplishments of this remarkable poet, beloved teacher, and most generous colleague
and friend.