By Susan Wallner
State of the Arts

Stars from the international world of poetry will be appearing at the Biennial Princeton Poetry Festival on March 15 and 16. The historic and intimate Richardson Auditorium on the campus of Princeton University is the setting where Gabeba Baderoon from South Africa, dissident Chinese poet Bei Dao, Ghanaian pop musician Sheriff Ghale, Turkish poet Bejan Matur, and others will appear in a series of readings and panel discussions. Opening the first afternoon session of the Festival will be a special performance featuring the winner and first runner-up of the New Jersey Poetry Out Loud statewide recitation competition for high school students. The competition itself will take place earlier that morning at Richardson Auditorium.

The Festival is organized by Princeton professor and poet Paul Muldoon. Muldoon is a soft spoken yet magnetic character who grew up on a farm in Northern Ireland and read English at Queen’s University Belfast, where he became part of the “Belfast Group” of poets. He worked as a producer for the BBC in the 1970s and ‘80s, all the while writing poetry. Muldoon has won a multitude of awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2003. He’s the poetry editor of The New Yorker, one of the few mainstream publications featuring poetry on a regular basis. The Times Literary Supplement describes Muldoon as “the most significant English-language poet born since the Second World War.” The versatile poet also plays in Rackett, which he describes as a “3-car garage band,” and has written a song with Warren Zevon that was recorded by Bruce Springsteen.

WATCH VIDEO:

Poet Paul Muldoon and past NJ Poetry Out Loud winners are featured in a video describing the program.

This is the first time that NJ Poetry Out Loud has been part of the Princeton Poetry Festival. “One of the great things about Poetry Out Loud,” says Paul Muldoon, “is that it introduces students to the canon of poetry in English.” The eight high school students who will compete for the state title and the opportunity to represent New Jersey at the national competition in Washington, DC, are the regional finalists from a program that started in the fall and included more than 20,000 New Jersey students. Every student chose and memorized three poems, digging deep in the process of learning to perform them to an audience.

“One of the things that poetry does is actually to help one understand who one is in the world,” states Paul Muldoon. “Either by reading it or by writing it – and in that sense, there is much for teenagers to learn.”

A gala reading will follow the NJ Poetry Out Loud competition, featuring recitations by the winner and runner-up and performances from all twelve Princeton Poetry Festival poets. A panel discussion and lecture will complete the afternoon with readings by four of the poets in the evening. On Saturday, the festival will continue with an afternoon reading and panel discussion and conclude with an evening reading.

Visit www.jerseyarts.com/pol/ for more information about New Jersey’s Poetry Out Loud program and for information on this year’s competition taking place on Friday, March 15 at 10 am. The competition is free and open to the public, and will be live streamed at www.jerseyarts.com/pol/.

For more information about the Biennial Princeton Poetry Festival taking place March 15th and 16th, visit www.princeton.edu/arts. Tickets are $15 for each day, $10 per day for students, and $25 for a two-day festival pass.

Poetry Out Loud is a national program sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. In New Jersey, this program is supported by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, and administered in partnership with Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, ArtPride New Jersey Foundation, and the Lewis Center for the Arts, among others.

Susan Wallner is an award-winning producer with PCK Media. She is a long-time contributor to State of the Arts, now airing on NJTV Sundays at 8 pm and Thursdays at 11:30 pm.

Follow @SusanPCK