Each year, PeaceWork Magazine celebrates our founding editor, Pat Farren, by sponsoring a talk or reading by a writer or writers who use words as the medium for celebrating and promoting nonviolent social change. Proceeds from the event help support the continued publication of PeaceWork, and the Patricia Watson Activist Journalism Internship for Young Writers of Color.
Past honorees and the year they spoke were:
The 2007 event was entitled:
Wednesday, October 24, 2007, 7 pm (6 pm reception)
and was held at Cambridge Friends Meetinghouse, 5 Longfellow Park (off Brattle St.)
Denise Levertov (1923-1997) was one of the defining voices of twentieth-century American poetry. She is claimed by many as a “peace poet” for her poems and speeches against the Vietnam war and nuclear weapons. But she also wrote poems exploring entirely personal themes, and “nature poems”; she explored the power and constraints of both marriage and life as a single woman; and, a late convert to Catholicism, she wrote many poems of religious exploration and experience. The many connections among these themes make each one richer.
The masterful subtlety of sense and sound in Denise Levertov’s poems means that even the simplest of them rewards re-reading, discussion, and especially hearing aloud. On October 24 (her birthday) we hosted an evening of readings from Denise Levertov’s work by eight diverse poets, who discussed how that work continues to move through the world – and to change it.
Jimmy Santiago Baca
Kevin Bowen
Yarrow Cleaves
Martha Collins
Regie Gibson
X.J. Kennedy
Tino Villanueva
Paul Lacey, editor of Denise Levertov: Selected Poems, gave an introduction. Please learn more about these readers [2].
Many of the 160 people who attended the event were close friends and associates of Denise Levertov's, some who knew her during her many years' residence in Somerville. There was a time at the end of the program for people to share their memories of her, and connections with her writing.
Grolier Books was on hand to sell books by Denise Levertov and by the reading poets.
To support this event, please make checks payable to AFSC-Peacework-Pat Faren Fund and mail to Peacework, AFSC, 2161 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge MA 02140.
For more information call 617-661-6130 or email sburke@afsc.org [3].
Links:
[1] http://www.peaceworkmagazine.org/piercy
[2] http://www.peaceworkmagazine.org/biographies-readers-peaceworks-celebration-denise-levertov
[3] mailto:sburke@afsc.org