Happy Birthday Walt! Writers in Performance Series Celebrates with Annual Gathering

Lone Star College Montgomery News

Published on: April 06, 2015
Join the Writers In Performance series for a two-part birthday celebration for acclaimed poet Walt Whitman, on Thursday, May 7 at Lone Star College-Montgomery and Dosey Doe Music Café in Conroe. Enjoy Walt Whitman discussions by author Ed Folsom, open-mic poetry readings, live music and more.


Continuing the long-running annual tradition of sonnet andverse, the Writers In Performance series hosts a two-part birthday celebration for acclaimed poet Walt Whitman, on Thursday, May 7.   The celebration will bring together more than 20 of the regions best-known poets for what, according to Dianne Logan of the Montgomery County Literary Arts Council, is known as one of the longest-running Whitman birthday celebrations in the world. The first event, which takes place at Lone Star College-Montgomery at 3 p.m. in the General Academic Center (Bldg. G), Ed Folsom, Ph.D., author of Walt Whitman: The Measure of His Song and other works on Whitman, will discuss nineteenth-and twentieth-century American poetry and ways poets have talked back to Walt Whitman over the years, and how Whitman tapped into the American culture. As a professor of English at the University of Iowa, Folsom has written, edited, and co-edited a number of books on Whitman, including Walt Whitmans Native Representations and Walt Whitman and the World, as well as directed and co-directed a number of Whitman conferences around the world. Other poets and authors Folsom has penned about include William Carlos Williams, Frederick Douglass, and Emily Dickenson. Then, at 7 p.m. at Dosey Doe Music Café in Conroe, the celebration will continue with the traditional gathering of poets in an open-mic reading and birthday bash. All Whitman enthusiasts are invited to read a favorite work of Whitmans during the open mic segment of the celebration. Additionally, soprano Dr. Marion Russell Dickson, pianist Shannon Hesse, and clarinetist Richard Nunemaker will perform several selections from twentieth and twenty-first century ...

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