This is far in advance, I know, but I’m hoping you’ll all put this event on your calendars then jump on those devices to snag tickets!
The event is a performance by four Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities actors of a script I’ve written/assembled, which aims to flesh out the conflicting and conflicted reactions to the U.S. entry into WWI by twelve North American poets. This dozen are presented in “frame” of work by four European poets—Thomas Hardy, Guillaume Apollinaire, Georg Trakl, and Giuseppe Ungaretti—who viewed the war without the benefit of a buffering ocean between them and the carnage.
The performance takes an Our Town approach, with a narrator introducing and commenting on the poets and the poems. The North American poets (a term I use to rope in one famous Canadian) range from the well known—such as Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, and Edith Wharton—to the regrettably lesser known or nearly forgotten—Mary Borden, Louise Driscoll, and Alice Corbin Henderson, for example.
There will be a discussion afterwards during which I’ll answer questions about the performance, the history behind it, and the role of poets and poetry in wrestling with historic events.
[…] For more on the “War of Words” poetry performance Philip mentioned in his interview, click here. […]