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Somerville Poet Laureate Lloyd Schwartz contacted me recently about a reading he has organized that will take place April 28, 2024, 5:30 p.m. at the Somerville Arts Armory in Somerville. I decided to interview him to bring attention to this important community event. The event is titled Somerville Poets Reading Their Own Poems and Poems They Love.

From the Somerville Arts Council website:

Somerville Poet Laureate Lloyd Schwartz

“This once-in-a-lifetime reading includes the largest array of Somerville poets ever assembled. More than 30 poets will each be reading one of their own poems and a poem they love by a poet of their choice. The poets include Jennifer Badot, Simeon Berry, David Blair, Zack Bond, Elizabeth Callahan, Parama Chattopadhyay, Jennifer Clarvoe, Linda Conte, Linda Haviland Conte, Donna Donna, Gary Duehr, Kirk Etherton, Michael Franco, Bridget Seley Galway, Seth Garcia, Doug Holder, Katherine Hollander, Lucy Holstedt, Gloria Mindock, Tam Lin Neville, Pat Peterson, Denise Provost, Andrea Read, Hilary Sallick, Lloyd Schwartz, Michael Steffen, Janaka Stucky, Patrick Sylvain, Gilmore Tamny, Christie Towers, Anna Warrock, and Dan Wuenschel.”

Doug Holder: This will be, according to you, the largest reading of Somerville poets ever presented. I think Somerville is unique, there are not many small cities and town that could pull this off. What makes us a unique city in your opinion, especially in regard to the arts?

Lloyd Schwartz: It is hard to imagine that a city as small as Somerville has so many artists of distinction. One of my first ambitions when I was appointed Somerville’s poet laureate was to have a reading of as many of the resident published poets as I could find, to let everyone know that it’s not just Boston or Cambridge that has such an extensive and diverse literary community. The pandemic interfered with my plan. But now it’s finally coming to fruition.

DH: How did you make the choices of the poets? There is certainly a large swath to choose from.

LS: I invited every poet I could think of who lived in Somerville and has published or is about to publish at least one book, and asked my friends if they could suggest anyone I hadn’t thought of. There would have been even more poets if some of them didn’t have conflicts on the set date at the Armory (and I was disappointed that some of the poets I asked never responded to my invitation). I’m really thrilled with this list of readers. These are all poets whose individual readings I would be happy to attend. If there’s someone around, I didn’t ask, I apologize. It was not intentional. I wanted to be as inclusive as possible. I think this will be the largest reading ever of Somerville poets.

DH: You decided to have the poets read their own work, as well as a favorite poem of their owns. Why did you choose this format?

LS: Since there are so many readers, I had to limit the length of each poet’s reading. So, they will each be reading only one of their own poems. A tempting sample. But I also wanted some indication of where each poet was coming from, their literary taste, how they fit in. In a way, I wanted to bring the whole word of poetry into this reading, to show that each poet was part of a larger context of poetry. I can’t wait to hear which poems each of them chose, both of their own and which poems they love. It will be a surprise to me as well as to the rest of the audience.

DH: Why should the community attend this event?

LS: I think this will be a unique and gratifying occasion. I want to show off our literary community, and the audience – the readers and the listeners – play an extremely important role in that community. The audience is “the other half.” It’s really important for our artists to have the support of the community. But I also think it will be a marvelously enjoyable evening, with a wide range of feeling and full of surprises. Just what poetry is and should be. And it will be exciting just to discover who Somerville’s poets are and whether they really have anything in common besides living in Somerville.