Palm Beach Poetry Festival Invites Local Writers and Fans to Public Events This Spring

Delray Beach, FL -- Susan R. Williamson, Director of the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, and Dr. Blaise Allen, Director of Community Outreach, today invited local poets and poetry fans to several upcoming public events:

March 7 - 12:30 pm (Saturday)
Poetry of the Spirit
With Beth SK Morris
Delray Beach Center for the Arts
$10 fee at the door

This will be a 3-E workshop (Ecumenical, Egalitarian, Eclectic) that will explore how spirituality has been expressed by a wide range of poets from differing spiritual perspectives, including five featured poets and workshop facilitators at the Palm Beach Poetry Festival PBPF). During this workshop, participants will have the opportunity to generate their own spiritual poems.

Workshop facilitator Beth SK Morris is a seven-year participant at PBPF, whose collection Nowhere to be Found was published last year. A member of the Hudson Valley Writers Center in Sleepy Hollow, NY, Ms. Morris was one of six poets selected to present poems last fall based on 9-11. She has received numerous awards from both the Poetry Society of Virginia and the Writers Network of South Florida, and her work has appeared in numerous publications and anthologies.

April 4 - 12:30 pm (Saturday)
New York School Poetry
With John Casquarelli
Delray Beach Center for the Arts
$10 fee at the door

In the 1960s, a group of poets took part in a form of writing known as the New York School. Their work was deeply influenced by both modernism and surrealism. The voice of the poems often utilized a kind of urban colloquialism and touched on topics such as consumerism, specific moments in time, sex, and art/theater/music/film. The New York School poetry workshop will include a discussion, listening to audio of New York School poets, reading, writing a New York School poem, and sharing work.

Visiting poet John Casquarelli is the author of two full-length collections and is an English Instructor at CUNY Kingsborough. He also serves as poetry editor for Otter Magazine and was awarded the 2010 Esther Hyneman Award for Poetry. His publishing credits include work in several journals and anthologies. Later this year, the International Higher Education Teaching and Learning Association (HETL) will include one of his poems in the new anthology, Teaching as a Human Experience.

April 9 - 7 pm (Thursday)
Lynn University's Poetry in Film Series
Dead Poets Society
Keith C. & Elaine Johnson Wold Performing Arts Center
FREE

To celebrate National Poetry Month in April, Lynn University is presenting the Oscar-winning movie Dead Poets Society (1989, 128 minutes), in which English teacher John Keating (Robin Williams) inspires his students to discover their love of poetry and seize the day. The film co-stars Robert Sean Leonard, Ethan Hawke, Josh Charles, Norman Lloyd and Kurtwood Smith.

April 30 - 7 pm (Thursday)
Lynn University's Poetry in Film Series
Before Night Falls
Keith C. & Elaine Johnson Wold Performing Arts Center
FREE

To celebrate National Poetry Month in April, Lynn University is presenting Before Night Falls (2001, 133 minutes) co-starring Javier Bardem and Johnny Depp. Lynn University professor Dr. Jeff Morgan will introduce this episodic look at the life of Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas (1943-1990), from his early years with Castro's rebels to his death in NYC.

May 2 - 12:30 pm (Saturday)
Humorous Poetry: Classic and Current
With Sarah Brown Weitzman
Delray Beach Center for the Arts
$10 fee at the door

From the insult poetry of Catullus to contemporary poets like Billy Collins, humorous poetry has been enjoyed for thousands of years. A survey of the best of the canon of humorous poetry will be presented. Participants will receive copies of all the poems and will be encouraged to take part in the discussion of what makes a poem funny and how its effect was achieved.

Presenter Sarah Brown Weitzman is an award-winning poet who has been published in hundreds of journals and anthologies, including Poet & Critic, Art Times, The North American Review and more. The recipient of a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, she recently published her first children's novel.

About the Palm Beach Poetry Festival 2016: The 12th Annual Palm Beach Poetry Festival will be held next January at the Delray Beach Center for the Arts. The Festival will feature top poets at numerous ticketed public events, including readings, talks, interviews, panel discussions and more. The Palm Beach Poetry Festival is generously sponsored by The National Endowment for the Arts, Morgan Stanley, the Windler Group of Morgan Stanley's Atlanta Office; the Cultural Council of Palm County, the Palm Beach County Tourism Development Council and the Board of Commissioners of Palm Beach County; The Palm Beach Post; Visit Florida; WLRN; and Murder on the Beach, Delray Beach's independent bookseller. For more information about the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, visit www.palmbeachpoetryfestival.org.

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