Thursday, September 14, 2006

Poets & Poetry and Other Calendar Highlights

Kingdom Books welcomes Nuyorican poet/activist (and UMass Amherst prof) Martín Espada to the Northeast Kingdom on Sunday October 8, reading at the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum at 3 p.m. Espada not only crafts powerful poetry -- he shows how to stand up for justice at the same time.

We're also collaborating with the regional independent high school, St. Johnsbury Academy, to host three poets at the school's Grace Stewart Orcutt Library for a second year of our Fireside Literary Series. The 2006-2007 poets are Sydney Lea on November 3, Cleopatra Mathis on March 30, and Kevin Goodan on May 4 (those are all Friday afternoons; poetry starts at 3 p.m. and the school usually hosts a slam poetry session in the evening).

Finally, the schedule for this year's Brattleboro Literary Festival, October 6-8, is "up" at the festival web site, www.brattleboroliteraryfestival.org -- and includes Madison Smartt Bell, Martín Espada, Ilya Kaminsky, Sydney Lea, Lisa Olstein, Chard deNiord, Maxine Kumin, Jamaica Kincaid, and more. Don't miss the Saturday afternoon special: Hearts of Spain, Poetry of the Spanish Civil War. Espada, of course, is taking part in this remarkable panel.

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