The Boston National Poetry Month Festival

By Doug Holder Off The Shelf This will be my ninth year reading, hosting, and kibitzing at the Boston National Poetry Month Festival April 4, 2009. The festival was founded by Bagel Bard Harris Gardner and it is still going strong. This year, like the others, Somerville poets will be represented. The Somerville contingent includes: CD Collins, Tim Gager, Afaa M. Weaver, Dick Lourie, and Ifeanyi Menkiti. Here is a press release that will give you all the inside dope...hope to see you there! CO-SPONSORS: Tapestry of Voices & Kaji Aso Studio in partnership with the Boston Public Library, SAVE the DATE, Saturday, April 4th 10:00 A.M.- 4:45 P.M. OPEN MIKE: 1:30 to 4:00P.M. The Festival will be held at the library's main branch in Copley Square. FREE ADMISSION 53 Major and Emerging poets will each do a ten minute reading; ALSO Featuring six extraordinarily talented prize winning high school students: Dianna Willard & Joshua Mejia from Boston Latin High School; Yolanda Cruz, Peter Li & Yamira Serret: Boston Arts Academy; Gabriella Fee: Walnut Hill School for the Arts. These student stars will open the Festival at 10:00 A.M. SAM CORNISH, Boston's current and first Poet Laureate will open the formal part of the Festival at 11:00 A.M. 52 additional major and emerging poets will follow. POETRY MARATHON Some of the many luminaries include SAM CORNISH, Diana Der Hovanessian, Richard Wollman, Jennifer Barber, Afaa M. Weaver, Barbara Helfgott-Hyett, Dan Tobin, Ellen Steinbaum, Charles Coe, Ryk McIntyre, Elizabeth McKim, Regie O'Gibson, Kate Finnegan, Michael Bialis, Gary Tucker, (Kaji Aso Studio), Marc Widershien, Sandee Story, CD Collins, Marc Goldfinger, Diana Saenz, Stuart Peterfreund, Valerie Lawson, Joseph DeRoche, Frannie Lindsay, Ifeanyi Menkiti, Dick Lourie , Mark Pawlak, Lainie Senechal, Harris Gardner, Joanna Nealon, Susan Donnelly, Irene Koronas, Doug Holder and a Plethora of other prize winning poets. This Festival has it all: Professional published poets, celebrities, numerous prize winners, student participation, OPEN MIKE. Even more, it is about community, neighborhoods, diversity, Boston, and Massachusetts. This popular tradition is one of the largest events in Boston's Contribution to National Poetry Month. FREE ADMISSION!!! FOR INFORMATION: Tapestry of Voices: 617-306-9484 or 617-723-3716 Library: 617-536-5400 Wheelchair accessible. Assistive listening devices available. To request a sign language interpreter, or for other special needs, call 617-536-7855(TTY) at least two weeks before the program date. Lyrical Somerville edited by Doug Holder Cameron Mount is a substitute teacher at Somerville High, and is also a member of the Davis Square Bagel Bards. He recently received his MFA from Emerson College. To have your work considered for the LYRICAL send it to: Doug Holder 25 School St. Somerville, Mass. 02143 [email protected]. Abandoned Chair A leaf-littered chair sits in the woods behind the school. The deskless seat stares at train tracks, nothing, and wishes for an occupant, oblivion, between trees in autumn's fall. Leaves weep and pool beneath the abandoned, drowning the lonely in the forgotten dead. They crunch in my booted tread. I steal out to learn the unteachable lessons of decay, to share the solitude of noon. Co-dependent cast-offs supporting each other in the certainty of a sharp October afternoon. --Cameron Mount

Comments

[michael silverstein]

The Tax-Free
Nation Poem

Ollie Wendell Holmes once said
‘Bout taxes in this nation,
They are the price we gotta pay
To have civilization.

But recently I’m thinking
That this rule we should relax,
’Cause I’d rather not be civilized
Than pay my income tax.

The money sinks of public ed,
The vet and welfare rolls,
The subsidies for geezer health,
Who needs these wasteful doles?

Our streets would have no pot holes
If we made them all toll roads,
Stock markets would go through the roof
Without dull legal codes.

To keep our armies solvent
We could send our soldiers plundering
No revenue means Congress
Won’t in spending realms be blundering

Who needs a tax-based commonwealth?
For too long we’ve been scammed.
We’ll each care for the things we like,
All other things be damned!

More satirical financial commentary—http://www.wallstreetpoet.com