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.