Past Poet Laureates
Patrick Donnelly
Poet Laureate of Northampton 2015-2017
Patrick Donnelly is the seventh Poet Laureate (2015 – 2017) of Northampton, Massachusetts. Poets Martin Espada, Janet Aalfs, Jack Gilbert, Lesléa Newman, Lenelle Moïse, and Richard Michelson have previously held the position. Northampton is the county seat of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, with a population of about 29,000. The city has vibrant and diverse art, music, and literary communities, and is home to Smith College, where Donnelly is a lecturer.
A Josten Live! Fridays @ Five Event
At the Grave of Maria Callas: How Does an Aria Turn into a Poem?
Northampton poet laureate Patrick Donnelly will explore the roots of his poetry in his training as an opera singer, and especially in his 50-year admiration of the art of Maria Callas.
Donnelly will debut a new sequence of poems about Callas, and introduce historic recordings and videos of the singer that some have called the most important artist of the 20th century. As well, Donnelly will explore the attraction of gay men to opera and to Callas in particular, and seek to answer what it is about opera that is consoling and inspiring for queer people. This multi-media event will interest lovers of music, theater, poetry, design, and fashion, and especially opera, a synthesis of all the arts.
Friday February 17, 2017, 5:00 PM
Werner Josten Performing Arts Library
Mendenhall Center
Smith College
Northampton, MA 01063
413-585-2930 / 2935
campus map: http://www.smith.edu/libraries/info/directions/map
Josten Live! is a patron-driven performance series that celebrates the creative lives of Josten Library users and the acoustic brilliance of its Mezzanine.
Patrick Donnelly
http://www.patrickdonnellypoems.com
The Genius of Poetry must work out its own salvation in a man: It cannot be matured by law and precept, but by sensation and watchfulness in itself. —John Keats
POETS FOR LIFE: POETS RESPOND TO AIDS: http://poetsforlife.brownpapertickets.com
On Saturday, April 9th at 3:00 PM, Patrick Donnelly, 20152017 poet laureate of Northampton, MA, will host POETS FOR LIFE: POETS RESPOND TO AIDS, a benefit reading in support of A Positive Place (formerly AIDS Care/Hampshire County), a non-profit organization providing a wide array of services for people with HIV in Hampshire and surrounding counties.
The event will be held at the Paradise Room, Conference Center, Smith College, 51 College Lane, Northampton, MA 01063. The Northampton Council for the Arts and the Poetry Center at Smith College are co-sponsors of the benefit.
Poet Laureate Patrick Donnelly says "In the 35 years since AIDS began, there has been not only a medical and social-service response to preventing and treating the disease, but there has also been a response from artists of all kinds, mourning the losses, and celebrating the victories. Specifically, American poets have created an entire literature of AIDS, leaving for the future an important record of this time."
POETS FOR LIFE will feature readings by award-winning poets EDUARDO C. CORRAL, PATRICK DONNELLY, MICHAEL KLEIN, and JOAN LARKIN, who will not only read from their own poetry about the epidemic, but from the work of other notable poets, living and dead.
Since 1991, A Positive Place, formerly AIDS CARE/Hampshire County, has been the sole provider of comprehensive, confidential case management and health-related support services, filling life-saving needs for people living with HIV/AIDS in the county. Anyone living with HIV or AIDS is eligible for services regardless of level of need, health status, or ability to pay. Services are free of charge to people living with HIV.
http://paradisecitypress.org/2016/02/northampton-poet-laureates-choral-poem-project/
Northampton Poet Laureate’s “Choral Poem Project"
Patrick Donnelly, 2015 – 2017 Poet Laureate of Northampton, Massachusetts, is a long-time advocate for poetry, not only as an “on-the-page” experience, but as a spoken-out-loud, communal, theatrical art. With that in mind, in the fall of 2015 Donnelly called together a group of Northampton-area residents to perform an excerpt of Albert Goldbarth’s epic poem “Library.” The poem was performed live at Donnelly’s inaugural reading on November 1, 2015 at Smith College’s Neilson Browsing Room, and earlier that same day the group also made this film of the performance at Josten Performing Arts Library.
Patrick Donnelly’s books of poetry are The Charge (Ausable Press, 2003, since 2009 part of Copper Canyon Press) and Nocturnes of the Brothel of Ruin (Four Way Books, 2012), the latter book a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. He is director of the Poetry Seminar at The Frost Place (Robert Frost’s old homestead in Franconia, NH, now a center for poetry and the arts), and an associate editor of Poetry International. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Slate, Ploughshares, The Yale Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Massachusetts Review, and many other journals. Donnelly has taught at Smith College, Colby College, the Lesley University MFA Program, and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference.
Patrick Donnelly, sharing some poems and thoughts about poetry with the students of Smith Vocational and Agricultural School, on the last day of National Poetry Month, 2015.
With his spouse Stephen D. Miller, Donnelly translates classical Japanese poetry and drama, including the Japanese poems in The Wind from Vulture Peak: The Buddhification of Japanese Waka in the Heian Period (Cornell East Asia Series, 2013). Donnelly and Miller’s translations have appeared in many literary and translation journals, including Circumference, Inquiring Mind, Kyoto Journal, Metamorphoses, and Poetry International. In 2013, Donnelly received a U.S./Japan Creative Artists Program award to fund a 3-month residency in Japan during 2014.
Donnelly is a 2008 recipient of an Artist Fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. His spiritual curiosity has led him, at different times, to study for the Roman Catholic priesthood and to live as a Buddhist and a Muslim, and his poems have interrogated narratives of same-sex love and desire and the AIDS epidemic with lyric strategies. Gregory Orr wrote about Donnelly’s first book: “…everything he writes is suffused with tenderness and intelligence, lucidity and courage.”
Donnelly’s projects as Poet Laureate will include:
Free workshops focusing on poetry as an oral art, fostering public speaking skills for creative writers and young people
The “Choral Poem Project,” for poets, community members, and young people, featuring performances of poetry by “choirs” of speakers
Events celebrating the vibrant community of literary translators in Northampton
“Poetry and HIV,” a benefit reading in support of A Positive Place (formerly AIDS Care Hampshire County), a Northampton AIDS-service organization
Patrick Donnelly is a long-time advocate for poetry, not only as an “on-the-page” experience, but as a spoken-out-loud, communal, theatrical art. With that in mind, in the fall of 2015 Donnelly called together a group of Northampton-area residents to perform an excerpt of Albert Goldbarth’s epic poem “Library.” The poem was performed live at Donnelly’s inaugural reading on November 1, 2015 at Smith College, and earlier that same day filmmaker Melissa McClung also made this film of the performance: http://paradisecitypress.org/2016/02/northampton-poet-laureates-choral-poem-project/
You can read more about Donnelly at his website: http://www.patrickdonnellypoems.com
If you would like to invite Patrick Donnelly to participate in any poetry- or literature-related event, please contact him at:
PatrickSDonnelly@aol.com
413-320-2950
Press links:
Lesléa Newman, Richard Michelson, Patrick Donnelly, and Martin Espada, 3/22/2015