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Date: 4/13/2021
EASTHAMPTON – Poetry Day in Easthampton will take place on April 24 from 12 to 4 p.m. at the municipal “Spot Lot” at 50 Payson Ave., located in the Cottage Street Cultural District.
According to Pasqualina Azzarello, the city arts coordinator for Easthampton City Arts (ECA), this Poetry Day will be the second the city has conducted, and the first to be hosted in person.
“It’s basically a day to celebrate, honor, and acknowledge both the history and the current day practice of the rich poetry community in the city of Easthampton,” said Azzarello.
During this year’s Poetry Day, there will be workshops, readings, a poet laureate presentation, and “Unbuttoned Presents” – a “very popular” event in Easthampton according to Azzarello. The “Unbuttoned Presents” event, which usually takes place inside Luthier’s Co-Op, will occur at the “Spot Lot” instead.
The Easthampton Poet Laureate program is still a relatively young program that was founded in 2018. In the first year of the program, the poet laureate served a one-year term, but after 2018, the city switched it to a two-year term.
According to Azzarello, the city is “thrilled” to announce that the poets laureate are Jason Montgomery and Alex Woolner of Attack Bear Press for the work they do both individually and together. They will serve their term as poets laureate from 2021 to 2023, and will also present their poetry during Poetry Day on April 24.
“This is our third term of having a poet laureate in the city of Easthampton,” said Azzarello.
ECA has been planning for a five-week performance series called the “Spot Lot Spring Series.” In the fall of 2020, ECA transformed the municipal parking lot at 50 Payson Ave. into an outdoor performance venue.
“We call it the ‘Spot Lot’ because there’s polka dots in the parking lot that are socially distanced so people can enjoy live music and performance, while respecting the COVID guidelines and protocols,” said Azzarello. Poetry Day on April 24 will be kicking off the five-week series at the “Spot Lot” in the Cottage Cultural District.
The next four weeks of the series will all be music concerts that will occur from 4 to 6 p.m. on May 1, May 8, May 15 and May 22 at the “Spot Lot” on 50 Payson Ave. “We have a really phenomenal lineup,” Azzarello added.
ECA is a municipal organization that has been around for 15 years, according to Azzarello. The organization has a longstanding history with poetry programming and literary arts programming. They ran an annual festival called Easthampton Book Fest for five years in a row, and then had to cancel the event in 2020 due to COVID-19. The city had planned to incorporate a Poetry Day in their programming months before COVID-19 started, according to Azzarello.
During the Easthampton Book Fest in 2019, Mayor Nicole LaChapelle formally proclaimed April as poetry month in Easthampton. April is considered to be Poetry Month in many cities, states, and countries across the globe.
“Last year, we had plans to move our Easthampton Book Fest from April to the fall, and we were planning for Poetry Day last April,” said Azzarello. “We had plans to activate the Cottage Street Cultural District; we were going to be activating storefront windows and having live performances throughout the day.”
The poets and local businesses who were participating that day were promoted through virtual channels, instead. “We worked with what we had to work with,” said Azzarello, with regard to what happened during Poetry Day in 2020.
“This year, it’s been really nice to work together with the ECA Literally Committee to plan an in-person Poetry Day programming,” said Azzarello, with regard to this year’s April 24 event. “We will be activating and partnering with a number of businesses up along Cottage Street.”
According to Azzarello, Poetry Day is made possible by a “generous” collaboration with the Massachusetts Cultural Council, River Valley Co-op, and Luthier’s Co-Op.