Poetry Heaven

At Wordstock, as the Dodge Poetry Festival has come to be called, the nation’s greatest poets will read from their work.

By: Jillian Kalonick

"Every
Every other fall, poetry lovers have come to expect the best from past and future laureates at the four day festival on the grounds of Waterloo Village in Stanhope (above).


   Former United States Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky will read at this year’s Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, but he seems more excited about showing his "Favorite Poem Project" videos.
   "They’re quite amazing. There’s one I like to show of a construction worker reading lines by Walt Whitman, and talking about ‘Song of Myself,’" says Mr. Pinsky. "These are people who are not poets, critics or professors of poetry — they’re Americans. There’s the stereotype of our country that we don’t like art or we don’t read poetry, and these people are speaking very passionately about poems and reading them aloud."
   The three-term Poet Laureate (1997-2000) began the project shortly after he was appointed
to the position, asking Americans from all walks of life to submit their favorite poems and videotaping selected
people reading them. Two anthologies, a collection of short videos, and a Web site (www.favoritepoem.org)
resulted.
   "The project demonstrates two things: that, contrary to the stereotype, there are lots of Americans who like poetry and read it, and poetry is a vocal art," says Mr. Pinsky. "It’s for the human voice, and not necessarily a performance voice — it doesn’t have to be a great actor or the poet herself or a skilled rap artist. It’s a very intimate, personal art, and whoever’s reading the poem becomes the medium for the poem, physically."
   Some of the most famous poets in America will read their work at the Dodge Poetry Festival Sept. 19-22 at Waterloo Village in Stanhope. Former Poets Laureate Rita Dove (1993-95), Robert Hass (1995-97), Stanley Kunitz (2000-01) and present Poet Laureate Billy Collins (2001-03) will join Mr. Pinsky, as will New Jersey Poets Laureate Gerald Stern (2000-02) and Amiri Baraka (2002-04). Also appearing will be Robert Bly, Lucille Clifton, Edward Hirsch, Grace Paley and Mark Doty, along with dozens of other poets, storytellers and musicians.
   This line-up is awe-inspiring to anyone, especially the nearly 5,000 high school students who come from all over the country to attend the festival. Thursday is high school student day and Friday is teacher day at the festival, though the general public attends the festival all four days. But Wordstock, as some call it, is not at all meant to be a live-action contemporary American poetry class, with the pressure of note taking and intense analysis.

Former Poet Laureates Robert Pinsky (1997-2000), right, and Stanley Kunitz (2000-01), below, will read their work at the Dodge Poetry Festival Sept. 19-22. "Robert
"Stanley


   "School has given people the wrong idea that you must understand everything about a poem immediately, and a poem is something you have to say something smart about. It’s like music — the first time you hear it you may not get all of it," says Mr. Pinsky.
   "It’s maybe more like dancing and singing, and less like a problem in organic chemistry, than well-meaning teachers have sometimes led people to think. I’m not against analysis, but it’s not primary — what’s primary is hearing the poem."
   Mr. Pinsky expounded this idea in The Sounds of Poetry, and his book Democracy, Culture, and the Voice of Poetry (Princeton University Press), to be published in October. A pioneer in combining poetry and technology, he is the poetry editor of the online journal Slate. The Long Branch native teaches in the graduate creative writing program at Boston University.
   Jim Haba, poetry director at the Dodge Foundation and organizer of the festival since its debut in 1986, says the back-to-back events at the festival break down preconceptions about enjoying poetry.
   "There’s an immediate sense of overload. There’s so much at a very early point, almost everyone who comes lets go of judging and screening and defense mechanisms that they’ve developed to protect themselves from poetry and the humiliation that they’ve associated with poetry in the classroom."
   This helps young people let go of assumptions about poetry that they might have already developed and encourages the most unlikely students.
   "One teacher brought the students that she was afraid to leave with the substitute," says Mr. Haba. "They ended up in a photograph with Lucille Clifton, and they were beaming. They had found someone like them, who didn’t conform to any system and had been successful."
   It doesn’t take long for students to regard the poets as having celebrity status. "In 2000, Gwendolyn Brooks signed autographs for two hours…she was completely committed to the audience and students, she would wait any amount of time to go through the line."
   Since the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001, children and adults have been looking to poets for wiser words than those spoken by political leaders or pundits. C.K. Williams’ "Fear" appeared on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times on Aug. 29, Billy Collins read his poem "The Names" at the special session of Congress held in New York Sept. 6, and Mr. Pinsky’s poem, "9/11," appeared in The Washington Post magazine Sept. 8.
   "It’s out of that gravity that people remember poetry," says Mr. Haba. "In some ways we have to go to a very severe place in experience to wake up from the superficial dream in which our consumer-oriented society engages.
   "Poets have been famous for saying their version of the truth and have been relied upon to do that. They’ll be doing that at the festival, something besides trying to sell a product or political agenda."
   The festival is a place to get away from classes and headlines and just listen to poetry, whether it’s read by Mr. Pinsky or the people featured in his Favorite Poem videos.
   "Robert Hass said, ‘It’s poetry heaven,’" notes Mr. Haba. "Many poets feel that way. They feel not just recognized and validated, but joined in what they love."
The Ninth Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival will be held Sept. 19-22 at Waterloo Village, Stanhope.
Tickets cost $18 Thurs.-Fri. and Sun. ($14 seniors/students), $25 Sat. ($20 seniors/students). A four-day pass
costs $60 ($48 seniors/students) and a weekend pass costs $35 ($28 seniors/students). Evening events Thurs.-Fri.:
$12 ($9 seniors/students) and $15 Sat. ($12 seniors/students). To order, call (201) 507-8900. On the Web: www.ticketmaster.com. For information, call (973) 540-8443. Dodge Poetry Festival on the Web: www.grdodge.org/poetry