When Joe Hartnett said that the Dodge Foundation was “reimagining” the Dodge Poetry Festival and considering something completely different from the Waterloo Village model, he was on to something. Except, the Dodge folks took that reimagining a step further. In a move some might call poetic justice, the city of Newark, home to famous poets and native sons Allen Ginsberg, David Shapiro, and Amiri Baraka, was selected as the new site for The Dodge Poetry Festival in October 2010, along with NJPAC.
“Newark is the state’s center of arts, culture, and entertainment and having the festival in Newark is a testament to its spirit,” said Mayor Booker. “It is a mutually beneficial endeavor. This will raise the profile of the festival and it’s great for the city.”
“This is a ringing endorsement of Newark, New Jersey’s largest city, as a major cultural capital,” said NJPAC’s President and CEO Lawrence Goldman. “We have always said that Newark is the London and Paris of New Jersey and this selection by the Dodge Foundation is a welcome validation.”Related Posts:
“The London and Paris of New Jersey?” Bit of a stretch, no?
I don’t know about you, but I always think of Paris when I’m on MacArthur Highway.
Somehow “April in Newark” doesn’t have the same cachet.
That would make Camden the Cannes of NJ?
I love Newark in the winter when it drizzles
I love Newark in the summer when it sizzles
I sometimes feel like I could use the help of Gen. MacArthur, when I am on the McCarter Highway.
I think it’s great. I’d rather pay a dollar fifty for a cup of coffee while listening to poetry, than five dollars. I can’t wait!
Hrm little mixed on this. It will certainly be different from the rural setting it used to be held in, that’s for sure.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Montclair’s lack of weekend train service was a major knock against it. At least more people from the city will be able to go, which should help attendance.
I very much doubt that ANYONE before this ever claimed that Newark was the “London and Paris” of New Jersey. The Manchester or Nottingham or grotty Parisian suburb, maybe.
Montclair, of course, does like to imagine itself at least the Florence of NJ, if not its Paris. So in that way, I’m enjoying the slap-down.
Also, Liz, I do believe that Allen Ginsberg hails from Paterson. Quite probably David Shapiro, too. (I sat near the little worm in a poetry seminar for an entire year, and if there ever was someone anxious to deny he came in any way from Jersey, that was certainly Shapiro.)
Ginsberg was actually born in Newark but raised in Paterson.
Well, Mrs. Martta, I did mean that Ginsberg was much more likely to have claimed Paterson as the place where he spent his truly formative years than Newark. Many people I went to h.s. with were in fact born in Newark because of its confluence of hospitals, but they much preferred to claim places like North Arlington and Lyndhurst as their home towns.
Shapiro went to Weequahic High, according to Wikipedia. Newark-born, Newark-bred.
And yet, witchy, I do much doubt he ever speaks highly or sentimentally of the city or of its educational system. He was marked as he entered Columbia (by which time he’d already published a volume of his poesy and by a real press and nhot a vanity operation), I recall, as a protege of Ginsberg.
Good for Newark. I can see it, the colleges, the museum, and NJPAC are all located within walking distance. I frequent the area and feel safer there than in my hometown, the always crime-burgeoning Montclair.
I will be there!