New
England Poetry Club
Continues
its Summer Series at Longfellow House
By Susie
Davidson
CORRESPONDENT
A very nice
way to spend a summer Sunday afternoon, for those who are so inclined, is to
stretch out in a beautiful garden and listen to sweet verses distilled from
varied poetic muses. The New England Poetry Club makes that happen with is
Summer Reading Series at the Longfellow House on 105 Brattle St., just outside
of Harvard Square.
This past
Sunday, July 7, Frank Bidart, David Ferry and Ifeanyi Menkiti read in an event
entitled “Poems for Liberty” at the National Historic Site.
"This
is a wonderful chance,” said NEPC Secretary Dianne Robitaille, “for
people to experience poets like Donald Hall and David Ferry in the welcoming,
historical setting of the Longfellow House. This is one of the great bargains
in the Boston/Cambridge area, namely to be able to hear and possibly meet top
name and local poets in a relaxed atmosphere - and it's absolutely free!"
Upcoming
presentations will be July 21 with James Tate and music, August 4 with Donald
Hall and August 18 with Cleopatra Mathis and NEPC President Diana
Der-Hovanessian, and music. All readings are at 4 p.m.
The NEPC,
founded by Amy Lowell, Robert Frost and Conrad Aiken in 1915, sponsors the
oldest poetry reading series in the country. Their other offerings include
monthly workshops for members at Harvard’s Yenching Library, a Boston
Public Library panel discussion in the fall with poets who are editors, and
regular meetings on the first Monday of every month, held at the Cambridge
Public Library on Broadway at 7 p.m., with the public is encouraged to attend.
The
Governing Board includes Der-Hovanessian, Vice Presidents Laure-Anne Bosselaar
and Fred Marchant, former President Victor Howes, Contest Chair Virginia
Thayer, WRIT Editor Lari Smith, Treasurer Pat Cosentino, Assistant Treasurer
Robert Clawson, Second Secretary Sally Cragin, and Sam Allen, Kevin Bowen,
Sally Cragin, Debra Kang Dean, Seamus Heaney, F. D. Reeve, Robitaille, Jennifer
Rose, Helen Vendler, Derek Walcott and Rosanna Warren.
Dues for
members, $25 annually, $250 life, cover subscriptions to the NEPC biannual
newsletter “WRIT” (“Words Recalled in Tranquility,” a
Wordsworth line), the listing of news events and announcements of readings,
participation in members' readings; free submission to NEPC contests; and
participation in member workshops.
“It’s
a society for poets,” said Der-Hovanessian, who has been involved for 18
years, most of that time serving as President. A Harvard Square resident for
much of her life, she was born in Worcester and learned the family’s
ancestral Armenian at Harvard, where she did graduate work with Robert Lowell.
She holds a B.A. in English Literature from B.U. and has published 20 books of
poetry, of which eight are translations from the Armenian. Some have been
published by Columbia University Press; Sheep Meadow Press has put out her last
four. She was one of the “Poets Who Teach” as well as “Poets
in Massachusetts Schools,” for the high, elementary and middle school
years.
She lauded
the Club’s contest programs. “We have three prizes for young people
– one, the John Holmes Award, is for a Massachusetts college student. The
Ruth Fox Award is for a Massachusetts high school student and the Henry
Longfellow Prize is for a fifth, sixth, seventh or eighth grader. It’s
encouraging for them to have someplace to send their poems.”
NEPC
contests are open to all members, but not board members. Non-members may enter
by paying $10 for up to 3 entries and $3 per additional entry; students are
free, with one poem allowed per contest. The contest prizes vary from $100 to
$1000; the student competitions pay $100 to each winner.
“I just came back from a 21-week
trip to Armenia,” she said, “to receive the Mashtots prize from the
Armenian Writers’ Union in Yerevan.” (“Mesrob Mashtots
invented the Armenian alphabet in 301 A.D.; prior to that, the Greek alphabet
was used,” she explained.) She has also received a translation prize from
Columbia Univeristy as well as prizes from American Scholar and Prairie
Schooner Magazines and the Poetry Society of America, for “Best
Poems”. She won the PEN New England’s 1997 “Friend to
Writers” Award, and was a 1993 NEA grant recipient for Creative Writing.
Der-Hovanessian
presently teaches translation workshops, such as last month’s at
Connecticut State University. She has taught at the University of Finland and
has received two Fulbright Scholarships, both served in Armenia at the
University of Yerevan.
“NEPC
is a great place to meet other poets and to find out what’s going
on,” she said, “as well as to market ideas, fellowships, and of
course, to hear quality poetry.” It’s international to the max.
“I’ve brought in poets from all over the world including Russian
poets Andrei Voznezsenski and Yevgeny Yevtushenko during the Cold War, Vassili
Vassilikos from Greece and Tomas Transtromer from Sweden, among others. In the
summer series we get a lot of poets from Mexico, South America and Pan-America.
Just before I left, we had an Amazonian poet from South America. It’s
always important to exchange new ideas and movements. One of my favorites that
I’ve had was a Polish poet, Czeslaw Milosz, who is a Nobel Laureate in
Literature.”
“Of
course,” she added, “on our board we have two Nobel Laureates,
Seamus Heaney and Derek Walcott.”
On August
18, she will be reading from her new book “The Burning Glass,”
along with Mathis.
Prospective
new NEPC members must send a short biography and $25 for the first year’s
dues, made out to NEPC (refundable if the applicant is not accepted), to Victor
Howes, 137 W. Newton Street, Boston, MA 02118.
To contact
the NEPC, call 781-643-0029, write 137 W. Newton Street, Boston, Massachusetts
02118, or email info@nepoetryclub.org.
And see you
in the Garden.