Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation

By Martin Farawell, Program Director, Poetry

It’s years ago, at a wedding: I see a man standing stiffly in a suit that stretches tight across his broad shoulders. He has one of those powerful, thickly muscular builds you know does not come from hours in a gym, but from a lifetime of hard labor. He shifts his weight, keeps looking over his shoulder as if he half expects to be escorted out at any minute. It’s obvious he’s uncomfortable, feeling out of place and, by how often he cranes his neck and tugs at his sleeves, that he doesn’t usually wear a jacket and tie.

He remains just outside the parameter of the action, chatting occasionally, but mostly just standing, his hands clasped in front of him, observing, as the DJ plays the usual rousing wedding dance numbers. Then the opening strains of Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight” start, and he quickly walks over to a woman nearby, takes her hand and leads her to the dance floor.

As he hugs her to him and they begin to sway it is immediately obvious they have danced together, and to this song, many times before. She is tiny compared to him, encircled by his arms, and he holds her so closely her ear is almost pressed to his lips. With his head tilted toward her, his mouth barely moving, he is singing to her. She is listening with her whole body. His eyes are pressed tightly closed, perhaps to hold back tears. It does not matter to either of them who else is in the room.

This is what poetry, what art does for us. It gives us a voice where we have none; allows us to share what we don’t know how to share. It fills those places in our lives where words fail us because it allows us to acknowledge there are some experiences, some feelings, there simply are no words for.

I’ve written before that poetry begins where language fails us. On Valentine’s Day we look for metaphors to express our feelings, whether they are in the (questionable) poetry of a greeting card or the symbolism of a red rose. Handing someone a heart-shaped box of chocolates might be seen as a sentimental cliché, but it is also a powerful metaphor: I give you my heart, and what I carry in my heart for you is luscious, soft and sweet, and offered in the hope of bringing you joy.

We need the help of poetry and art (and, yes, a hand-made truffle is a work of art!) because most of us, like the imagined lover in Thomas Lux’s poem below, are so clumsy at expressing ourselves.

I Love You Sweatheart

A man risked his life to write the words.
A man hung upside down (an idiot friend
holding his legs?) with spray paint
to write the words on a girder fifty feet above
a highway. And his beloved,
the next morning driving to work…?
His words are not (meant to be) so unique.
Does she recognize his handwriting?
Did he hint to her at her doorstep the night before
of “something special, darling, tomorrow”?
And did he call her at work
expecting her to faint with delight
at his celebration of her, his passion, his risk?
She will know I love her now,
the world will know my love for her!
A man risked his life to write the words.
Love is like this at the bone, we hope, love
is like this, Sweatheart, all sore and dumb
and dangerous, ignited, blessed – always,
regardless, no exceptions,
always in blazing matters like these: blessed.

Thomas Lux

Since 1986, The Dodge Poetry Program has been blessed by poets who have given tirelessly of themselves out of love for their art so the Dodge Festival and Schools Program can continue to help people discover or rediscover their connection to poetry. Whether by giving so openly and generously of themselves in school visits, poetry sessions for teachers and in readings and conversations at the Festival, or by donating the use of a poem (Thanks, Tom!), local, national and international poets have made the Dodge Poetry Program the unique friend to poetry it is.

This Valentine’s Day, we ask you to share the love with us, the Dodge Poetry Program, by becoming a Friend of the Festival. You can make a contribution in honor of your Valentine, in honor of your favorite poem or poet, or simply to let us know you appreciate the work we do bringing poetry to teachers, students and the general public. Click here to see how your donation can help.

The Dodge Poetry staff wishes you a lovely Valentine’s Day.

***

The best way to get up to the minute announcements as the Festival approaches is to join our mailing list. If you are a teacher, make sure to join the Teacher Mailing List to receive updates related to the 2012 High School Student Day.

For more information about the Dodge Poetry Festival and programs, visit www.dodgepoetry.org

Be our friend on Facebook,  and follow us on Twitter @DodgePoetryFest

“The best audience for a poetry reading that I have ever experienced is the audience during the Dodge Poetry Festival’s High School Student Day. Busloads and busloads of students from surrounding towns, counties, and states came to Newark to listen to poets read and talk about poetry.”

–Oliver de la Paz

Since 1986, over 45,000 students and 10,000 teachers from as far away as Florida, Wisconsin, Maine and California have participated in High School Student Day, the largest poetry event for high school students in North America.

Pre-registered high school students and their pre-registered teachers are admitted at no charge to all High School Student Day events, described below:

·POETS ON POETRY: Festival Poets read and discuss some of the poems and poets that have mattered to them. Time is set aside for Q & A.

·CONVERSATIONS: Intimate groups of Festival Poets discuss the enduring themes evoked by poetry, including Going Public with Private Feelings, When Politics is Personal, and Saying the Unsayable.

·FESTIVAL POET READINGS feature a dynamic and diverse group of poets.

·POETS FOR TEACHERS (preferred seating for teachers): Festival Poets explore how to bring poetry to life inside and outside the classroom.

·STORYTELLING, poetry’s closest relative, is performed throughout the day.

·OPEN READING: Time and space is set aside for young writers to read their work to their peers.

·Pre-registered schools have the option of remaining for THE EVENING MAIN STAGE PROGRAM of readings and music at no charge.

High school teachers can CONTACT US at studentday@grdodge.org with questions, but more information will be available as the Festival approaches.

To read the rest of Oliver’s blog on his experience at the 2010 Festival, click here.

“I held a Poets on Poetry discussion with a group of fun-loving high school students at Peddie Baptist Church. I read a few poems, but mostly I talked about what it was like to be a writer and what it was like to do what I do. I treated the talk as if I were talking to my younger self.”

–Oliver de la Paz

***

The best way to get up to the minute announcements as the Festival approaches is to join our mailing list. If you are a teacher, make sure to join the Teacher Mailing List to receive updates related to the 2012 High School Student Day.

For more information about the Dodge Poetry Festival and programs, visit www.dodgepoetry.org

Be our friend on Facebook,  and follow us on Twitter @DodgePoetryFest

Michele Russo, Poetry Coordinator

As we move forward in planning the 2012 Festival in Newark, we thought we’d give you a sneak peek into some of the beautiful places our readings and discussions will take place.  The sites that host Festival events are far from ordinary.  The cultural, historic or artistic significance of each venue make an important contribution to the atmosphere of the Festival.



The incredible woodwork and architecture of First Baptist Peddie Memorial Church, dating back to 1890, are enough to take your breath away.

The Newark Museum’s sculpture garden is a plush and inspiring stop along the way into the Museum.

Trinity & St. Philip’s Cathedral, with a history dating back to 1729, is warm and welcoming.

The exhibitions at Aljira represent both emerging artists and more established artists, and bridge racial, cultural and ethnic divides.

The exhibitions at the NJ Historical Society help us interpret and understand our past.

We are still working on confirming additional locations for the 2012 Festival.  We’ll keep you posted as we do.

Poetry Fridays will be on holiday break until 2012.  The staff of the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Program wishes you a lovely holiday season filled with poems.

“The Festival gave me a new outlook on poetry.  Poetry is an outlet for escape and it gives the world meaning.”

-Yasmine, 12^th Grade

“The highlight for me was being able to listen to and understand poems, because they were more current than poems I’ve read in the past. They were more relevant to me.”

-Mason, 11^th Grade

Isn’t that what we want for all High School students? To consider different perspectives?  To be inspired by their educational experiences?  To be curious and hungry learners?

The Dodge Poetry Program is committed to giving High School students these kinds of experiences—through our High School Mini Festivals and through High School Student Day at the Festival.  We’d like you to consider a donation to the Dodge Poetry Program, to support this important work.

“[The] poetry had a profound connection to my culture and myself.”

-Starkwan, 10^th Grade

“The highlight of the day for me was listening to a poem about the Jersey Shore….  It pleased me to see different races and ideas being portrayed in the poems.”

-Nicole, 10^th Grade

As you may know, we just announced that the Festival will return to Newark in Autumn 2012.  We’re already thinking about High School Student Day, which brings together thousands of students from schools in New Jersey and beyond.  (Schools from as far away as Florida and Wisconsin regularly attend.)  In order to make it easy for schools to participate, High School Student Day is free for students and their chaperones.

As one of the leaders in changing the way poetry is encountered, experienced and perceived, The Dodge Poetry Program is steadfast in its’ commitment to Students and Teachers. Since the first Festival in 1986:

• Over 45,000 students and 18,000 teachers have attended the Festival at no charge.
• More than 600 poets have read at the Festival or at a New Jersey High School as part of our Poetry in the Schools Program.
• Thousands of teachers have discussed poetry during our Clearing the Spring, Tending the Fountain sessions.
• Nearly 30,000 high school students encountered living poets at one of our Poetry in the Schools events.

At this critical time in our planning, we ask you to support the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Program as a Friend of the Festival. Friends of the Festival contributions are tax deductible and help us continue this extraordinary work. Click here to see all the ways your support makes a difference.

Photos courtesy of Lauren Rutten Photography

***

For more information about the Dodge Poetry Festival and programs, visit www.dodgepoetry.org
Be our friend on Facebook,  and follow us on Twitter @DodgePoetryFest

Come for the Poetry, Discover a Great City

The Board of Trustees and the staff of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation are pleased to announce that the Dodge Poetry Festival, the largest poetry event in North America, will be returning to Newark in the autumn of 2012. The fourteenth biennial Festival’s lineup of performances and discussions will again transform New Jersey’s largest and most vibrant city into a “poetry village” for four days.

We are grateful to the partners who have made this possible: the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and the City of Newark. Just as vital to this decision was the cooperation and support of the many cultural and arts organizations that have done so much to revitalize Newark’s Downtown Arts District, including Aljira: A Center for Contemporary Art, Brick City Development Corporation, Greater Newark Area Conventions and Visitors Bureau, Newark Arts Council, New Jersey Historical Society, Newark Museum and many others.

Not only has the move to Newark allowed us to continue the Festival itself, it has also given us the opportunity to contribute toward and support the efforts of these Arts District organizations. Anyone in attendance during the 2010 Festival’s opening night Poetry Sampler saw a vivid example of poetry’s potential impact on the city. When the audience members were asked how many were visiting Newark for the first time, 80 percent of attendees raised their hands. The thousands who came to Newark in 2010 for the poetry also discovered the city’s thriving galleries, museums, cultural and historical institutions, architectural wonders and many fine restaurants. We expect an even greater turnout in 2012.

The response to our new location in 2010 was overwhelming. Many attendees shared their enthusiastically positive “reviews” with our staff on-site; others later wrote to tell us how amazed they were by the beauty of the performance spaces and by how easy it was to travel to and navigate the Festival site. As former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins asked from the main stage: “Why would you have the Festival anywhere else?”

The Festival venues will once again be contained within a walkable footprint centered around the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, and will include NJPAC’s 2,800-seat Prudential Hall, which The New Yorker listed with Carnegie Hall and Boston Symphony Hall as one of the three best orchestral spaces in the Northeast, and its 514-seat Victoria Theater, which The New York Times called “a gem.” More-intimate events will be held nearby in the architectural wonder that is First Peddie Baptist Church; the historic Trinity and Saint Philip’s Cathedral, where both Colonial and British armies established field hospitals during the Revolutionary War; Newark Museum, home to the largest collection of Tibetan Buddhist art in the Western Hemisphere; and such cultural treasures as Aljira: A Center for Contemporary Art and the New Jersey Historical Society.

If you are one of the thousands of 2010 festival-goers who found kinship and inspiration in Dodge’s latest poetry village, please tell your friends, family and colleagues about the upcoming Festival in Newark. They, too, should have a chance to hear a diverse array of some of our most celebrated poets, and to play a part in the renaissance of one of America’s most historic cities.