My Favorite Poem Project is dedicated to celebrating and encouraging poetry's role in the lives of Americans. Robert Pinsky, the 39th Poet Laureate of the United States, started the project in 1997.
He believed that poetry needs to be read aloud. "Reading a poem silently is like staring at a sheet of music." The reader of the poem does not need to be the poet or a skilled performer. "One of the beautiful things about poetry," says Pinsky, "is that the medium is a voice, not necessarily the poet's voice. When you read a poem by Shakespeare, Dickinson or Langston Hughes, your voice is the artist's medium."
Robert Pinsky believed that contrary to stereotype, Americans do read poetry; that the audience for poetry is not limited to professors and college students; and that there are many people for whom particular poems have found profound, personal meaning. This project seeks to give voice to American poetry lovers.
In April 1998, the My Favorite Poem Project was launched with a series of public poetry readings. In Boston, twenty-five Bostonians read their favorite poem. The readers included the President of the Massachusetts State Senate, a homeless Boston resident and a third grader. The audience was packed into the Boston Public Library. The Library President dressed as a cowboy to read a cowboy poem. Some readers recited poems in Spanish, Vietnamese and American Sign Language. As you see, Americans do read poetry.
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| A Favorite Poem Project - Oct 25 |
If you have a poem you would like to read, please contact Faith Flaherty at faithflaherty@verizon.net
For more information on the Favorite Poem Project http://www.favoritepoem.org/index.html
So far we have 16 readers, PLUS, a class from Horace Mann Middle School reading "O Captain, My Captain!" Franklin Cable TV and the Gazette will report on the event.
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ReplyDeleteFIVE MORE DAYS! In five more days, on October 25, 2017, My Favorite Poem Project will happen. Here's the line-up of readers. The order is alphabetical according to the poet.
A Brave and Startling Truth by Maya Angelou, read by Dr. Dawn Poirier, Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Dean College
Caged Bird by Maya Angelou, read by students in Horace Mann’s sixth grade
The Lanyard by Billy Collins, read by Franklin Library Director, Dr. Felicia Oti
Poem 341 Hope Is A Thing with Feathers by Emily Dickinson, read by Horance Mann teacher, Noreen Langmeyer
The Calf Path by Sam Foss, read by our Town Administrator, Jeff Nutting
Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost, read by Franklin Cable TV, Ken Norman
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost, read by Jeffrey Roy our State Representative
Democracy by Langston Hughes, read by Horace Mann teacher, Joe Corey
Go Down Death, by James Weldon Johnson, read by Senior Scribbler, Clarice Cargill
Untitled—by Barbara Karmelin, read by Senior Scribbler, Barbara Karmelin
If, by Rudyard Kipling, read by Jean Burke of the Norfolk Quill Writers’ Group
Mother Earth’s Hair by Charmagne Laprise, read by Senior Scribbler, Charmagne Laprise
If Only We Were Taller by Ray Bradbury, read by the Editor for the Country Gazette and Wicked Local Franklin, Heather Swails-McCarron
Mr. Macklin’s Jack O’Lantern by David McCord, read by Faith Flaherty
Sleeping in the Forest by Mary Oliver, read by Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Sara Ahern
The Story of the Christmas Guest by Helen Steiner Rice, read by the President of Franklin Interfaith Council, Georgia Sander
Sick by Shel Silverstein, read by Franklin High School Principal, Paul Peri
I Am by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, read by Horace Mann Principal, Rebecca Motte