on Saturday, April 18. There’s so much going on—“Poetry everywhere!” is the slogan—that it’s impossible to list everything, but The Philly Poetry Day Facebook page has a long series of posts about events in various parts of the city. Thanks to the indefatigable Leonard Gontarek for his organizational efforts.
Now that tax season is over, for most of us, we can turn our attention to National Poetry Month, and in particular, Philly Poetry Day
Here is one event we particularly recommend: Lisa Sewell and Nzadi Keita in a Musehouse-sponsored reading at the Chestnut Hill Gallery, 8117 Germantown Avenue, 215-248-2549. Sewell has published three full-length collections (if we’re counting right) plus a chapbook; she's been honored with the Tenth Gate and Keystone awards, an NEA fellowship, and a Leeway Foundation grant. Her new collection is called Impossible Object. Keita’s new book, Brief Evidence of Heaven: Poems from the Life of Anna Murray Douglass, is based on the story of Frederick Douglass’s wife, an independent woman and abolitionist in her own right. The free program starts at 7:00.
And coming up a week later, on Saturday, April 25, Philadelphia Stories is sponsoring a LitLife Poetry Festival. The registration fee entitles you to master classes, discussions, readings, and a Literary Death Match. We don’t know what the last of these entails, but we’re sure that survivors win a glass of wine or a Philly soft pretzel, something like that.