The 14th Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival is just 10 days away….the festival runs from October 11th through October 14th in downtown Newark. One of the poets who will participating is Natasha Tretheway.

Current United States poet laureate Natsha Tretheway will grace the main stage of this year’s Dodge Poetry Festival. Tretheway’s work is known for combining free verse with more traditional forms of poetry like the sonnet. Her work most notable combines the personal with history often while exploring memory and the racial legacy of America, along with her own mixed race experience growing up in the Deep South.

“I’m a poet first but all those things make me the poet that I am I feel like I write what I have been given to write, and I think I’ve been given a terrible beautiful history of Mississippi, a violent one. My own family the terrible beauty and violence there, it’s all that I’ve been given and I can’t imagine not having it. “

That was current United States poet laureate Natasha Tretheway speaking at the 2006 Dodge Poetry festival event poets on poetry.  

OUTRO: The main stage for the Dodge Poetry Festival will be at NJPAC.   You can get more information by going to dodgepoetry.org or njpac.org.