by Anna Popnikolova
Without art, we are not Nantucket.
But how could we understand that without poetry?
Poetry shows us there is beauty in the mundane. We are making poetry, even if we aren’t writing anything. Poetry tells us there is so much more than what is in front of us. The everyday is art. The nail gun is a paintbrush, is a keyboard, is a pencil— just like the fishing rod, the loom, the harpoon. Poetry remembers the whaling ships, the dark oil or blood slick on the deck, the documentary of it all. The feeling of the paper, the rope, the pen, the dough. Poetry says: I have always been here. Poetry says: don’t forget about me. Poetry says: but you can only see me if you look.
Farewell Poetry Festival was started on a whim, from a conversation between Annye Camara and I at the Atheneum help desk in June 2024. Annye mentioned she’d always wanted to put together a poetry festival on Nantucket. I said, let’s do it. I had been looking for a summer project, and putting on a poetry event seemed a worthy use of my summer.
The 2024 season headlined Gregory Orr, and was thrown together in less than a month and a half. It was more successful than I thought it would be. More people showed up than we had seats for, and I received emails for weeks after from audience members, telling me how much they had loved the event, and how badly they wanted it to return the following year. I hadn’t been planning to do another season; I didn’t even know if I’d be on the island again, or if I’d be living in Boston after school ended.
As April came around, I was missing Nantucket, and I was missing the festival. I felt like I had really accomplished something, and I couldn’t just leave it as a one-off. I began planning season 2. Here we are…
Events will begin on Friday, August 22, with an opening reading at 56 Centre Street, 5pm, followed by a social reception to welcome the festival.
On Saturday morning, August 23, Audre Lorde Award winning poet and environmentalist, Elizabeth Bradfield, will teach a Poetry & Nature workshop on
NISDA campus at 23 Wauwinet Road. Tickets are on sale for this workshop at nantucketpoetry.com.
At noon on Saturday, the LOVE reading will take place in St. Paul’s Church. This event is free and open to the public, with RSVP recommended but not required. The LOVE lineup includes Elizabeth Bradfield, Harvard professor and New York Times acclaimed poet and critic Stephanie Burt, celebrated DC poet Sandra Beasley, Academy of American Poets award-winning poet, Harvard student Leila Jackson, and others.
On Saturday afternoon, at Pumpkin Pond Farm at 25 Millbrook Road, Stephanie Burt will read from her most recent collection, We Are Mermaids, and discuss contemporary transgender poetry. Burt is the Donald P. and Katherine B. Loker Professor of English at Harvard University. The New York Times has called her “one of the most influential poetry critics of [her] generation.” This reading is free and open to the public, RSVP recommended but not required.
Saturday evening, Pumpkin Pond Farm will host the festival’s SLAM night. Performances by local poet Taylon Breeden and Provincetown performer Tamora Israel, among others, will take the night away, accompanied by the Ouid Bar, music, dancing, and an open mic. Tickets for this event are available at the festival website.
Sunday morning on Corner Table Cafe’s third floor, 22 Federal Street, join professional and student editors for a coffee and a chat about small literary presses. John Bonanni, editor of the Cape Cod Review, Frank Liu, president of the Harvard Advocate, and others, will offer their stories and opinions on the wonderful world of the literary magazine. This event is free and open to all.
Sunday at 11 am, join us in the Dreamland’s studio theater for COAST—the festival’s Best of the Cape & Islands lineup. Deep islanders, Cape visitors, and even the Martha’s Vineyard poet laureate, will present their poetry. Celebrate the works of Sandy MacDonald, JohnCarl McGrady, Grace Manning, Judy Belash, and others. This event is free and open to the public, with RSVP recommended but not required.
Sunday evening at 5pm, celebrated poet Sandra Beasley will be at the Hostetler gallery on 42 Centre Street for an Ekphrastic poetry write & sip. And at 7 pm on Sunday, a tribute to Andrea Gibson, a highly acclaimed performance poet who recently passed away will be held. Nantucket Poetry Festival poets will read a selection of Gibson’s poems and celebrate our experiences with their work throughout the years.
For the festival program, registration, tickets, and additional details on various events, visit nantucketpoetry.com.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nantucket Poetry Festival (formerly known as Farewell Fest) is a passion project of Nantucketer Anna Popnikolova, a Nantucket High School graduate and Harvard University student with a love for poetry. Popnikolova is a published author who won the Nantucket Book Foundation’s Young Writers Award three years and placed third in the state in Poetry Out Loud in Spring 2024.].
