On love, on grief, on ev’ry human thing,
Time sprinkles Lethe’s water with his wing.

With Walter Savage Landor’s two-line poem, U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky illustrated the relevance of poetry as a form of human expression as elemental as music or dance.  The theme of this funder briefing, “Poetry in Hard Times,” demonstrated how the arts can flourish in an economic depression.  Pinsky spoke about the founding of the Favorite Poem Project and his involvement with the Massachusetts Poetry Festival as two examples of efforts to increase the public visibility and accessibility of poetry.

Carlisle businessman and community organizer Michael Ansara spoke about the creation of the first statewide poetry festival in collaboration with former U.S. Congressman Chet Atkins. The inaugural Massachusetts Poetry Festival was held in Lowell in October 2008, with support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities, and GMA Foundations client the Theodore Edson Parker Foundation.

The annual event, augmented this year by an outreach project placing distinguished poets in community settings, is the only one of its kind in the nation. In addition to supporting and sustaining the festival, the Poetry Outreach Project is advocating for the creation of web-based resources and networking for poets, spoken word CD production, a local media syndication system, and the possible establishment of a state poetry center

Speakers
Robert Pinsky, Professor, Boston University
Michael Ansara, Co-Chair Massachusetts Poetry Festival