report from dodge: what it’s like to attend the largest poetry festival in north america

by January O’Neil

First thing’s first: The Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival is not the time to try and sell your manuscript, to network or to book your next gig (but I’m sure some level wheeling and dealing happens). This is not the time to bring every book you own by one poet to sign or, heaven forbid, sell their signed books on e-Bay (because that happens, too). But, if you’re looking for a long weekend filled with verse from emerging and established poets, then pull up a chair and sit next to me!

Held at the historic Waterloo Village in Stanhope, New Jersey, Dodge Poetry Festival Program began in as a series of poetry in-service days for New Jersey teachers and evolved into a biannual poetry festival in 1986. Today, the Dodge Poetry Festival is the largest poetry event in North America and has spawned many PBS specials, including two of my favorites: “The Language of Life” (1995), and “Fooling with Words” (1999).

I have been making the six-hour trip, rain or shine (this time– rain!), to the Dodge Poetry Festival since 1996, and each festival I am privy to something special. The weekend has become a source of strength for me. Where else can I hear poets Chris Albani, Billy Collins, Lucille Clifton, Mark Doty, Beth Ann Fennelly, Robert Hass, Maxine Kumin, Joseph O. Legaspi, Patricia Smith, Franz Wright and Kevin Young in the same weekend? And where else will they take the time to explain how they wrote a particular poem, what kind of mood sparked those thoughts and how many revisions they made before publishing that poem?

For those who have never been, the festival is usually scheduled for the last weekend in September, Thursday through Sunday. The outside events are held in tents. The main stage tent holds somewhere between 3,000- to 5,000 people, while the smaller tents hold 200- to 500 people. No pressure to buy books, but there is a healthy collection to choose from.

There are no workshops here. Rather, there are simultaneous sessions featuring one-on-one talks on craft, as well as group talks on topics such as going public with private feelings, poetry and invention, poet as citizen, poetry and the lives of women, and poetry as disruptive seed. While you can attend all four days, Thursday readings focus on high school students, Friday highlights teachers and the teaching of poetry, and Saturday and Sunday is open for everyone. The evenings feature poetry samplers and music, where 20- to 30 poets read for five minutes each.

At this year’s festival, I was there from sunup to sundown, thoroughly impressed by the thoughtful, powerful conversations happening under the tents. The featured poets seemed genuinely happy that their works were well-received, so much so that many of them tried out new, unpublished poems. No egos here — at least any that I could detect. Sharon Olds read odes from an upcoming collection. Franz Wright and Naomi Shihab Nye shared new poems with the crowd. Thomas Sayers Ellis “dropped some knowledge” on the rain-soaked crowd. And Robert Hass read new poems about the death of his brother.

The topic that was on all of our minds was politics. Even in an idyllic setting such as Dodge, we didn’t leave our beliefs at the door. The questions in sessions soon turned to, “What is our response to the financial crisis, the U.S. political elections, etc.?” No clear-cut answers, unfortunately, other than to be true to ourselves as artists. We must respond each according to our gifts.

As I do every two years, I take the gifts of Dodge — the poetry, the rekindled friendships, my renewed commitment to be a disruptive seed — and bring it back to the every day. I have been to the well and feel excited and invigorated about the poetry to come.

Discussion ideas

• Do you have access to poetry festivals? If so, do you go?
• If not, would you?
• Is there any way an online community can create opportunities like Dodge, or are there experiences that only flesh and blood can accomplish?