Sarah Lawrence Poetry Festival this weekend

By Jeffrey McDaniel

The 7th annual Sarah Lawrence College Poetry Festival, a smorgasbord of verse sure to stuff your senses with well-pruned perceptions, is happening all weekend in Bronxville NY. Friday night’s fusion-cuisine features National Slam champ Anis Mogjani, (who makes his living barding from town to town) and the elegantly imaginative Matthea Harvey, followed by a champagne reception. Saturday highlights from this farm-to-table, student-run operation include concurrent events at 2:15: the “Brooklyn reading” where Brooklyn poet laureate Tina Chang verses it up with SLC undergrad Brooklynn Moore, while on the other stage formalist A.E. Stallings journeys all the way from Greece to share her work: (Straight Outta Athens Yo!). At 3:30, the tasty choices are The Lemon Hour, featuring Ada Limon and Alex Lemon (Bring your your own Lemonheads), and Zachary Schomburg (think Andre Breton meets the Twilight Zone). At 4:45, two paths diverge in the afternoon light, as you select between Iraqi War Vet Brian Turner and experimentalist GC Waldrep, who spent years living with the Amish in North Carolina. The evening concludes with the radiant Jericho Brown, plus prerequisite poetry A-listers: MacArthur Fellow Mark Strand and Bollingen Prize winner Frank Bidart. If your senses are not stuffed by Sunday, there’s more scrumptious, fresh-grown verse on the menu, including the heart-expanding Marie Howe and Kate Johnson passing out plain-spoken shards of humor and wisdom for hor’dourves, plus yukelele-playing spoken word artist Shira Erlichman and Kundiman co-founder Sarah Gambito.http://www.slc.edu/news-events/events/poetry-festival/Schedule.html

Posted in Uncategorized on Friday, April 16th, 2010 by Jeffrey McDaniel.