A Benefit Reading for A Positive Place
NORTHAMPTON, Mass.—On Saturday, April 9 at 3 p.m., Patrick Donnelly, 2015 – 2017 poet laureate of Northampton, Mass., will host Poets for Life: Poets Respond to AIDS, a benefit reading in support of A Positive Place (formerly AIDS Care/Hampshire County), a non-profit organization providing a wide array of services for people with HIV in Hampshire and surrounding counties. The event will be held at the Paradise Room, Conference Center, Smith College, 51 College Lane, Northampton, MA 01063. The Northampton Council for the Arts and the Poetry Center at Smith College are co-sponsors of the benefit.
Tickets for the event are $20 and may be purchased online at poetsforlife.brownpapertickets.com, or by phone at 1-800-838-3006 x 1, or at the door at the event. All proceeds from ticket sales will benefit A Positive Place.
Not able to attend the event? You can designate your tax-deductible donation through poetsforlife.brownpapertickets.com, to make it possible for one of A Positive Place’s clients to attend.
Poet Laureate Patrick Donnelly says “In the 35 years since AIDS began, there has been not only a medical and social-service response to preventing and treating the disease, but there has also been a response from artists of all kinds, mourning the losses, and celebrating the victories. Specifically, American poets have created an entire literature of AIDS, leaving for the future an important record of this time.”
Poets for Life will feature readings by award-winning poets Eduardo C. Corral, Patrick Donnelly, Michael Klein, and Joan Larkin, who will not only read from their own poetry about the epidemic, but from the work of other notable poets, living and dead. Singer-songwriter Laura Wetzler will also perform.
Since 1991, A Positive Place has been the sole provider of comprehensive, confidential case management and health-related support services, filling life-saving needs for people living with HIV/AIDS in the county. Anyone living with HIV or AIDS is eligible for services regardless of level of need, health status, or ability to pay. Services are free to people living with HIV.
The noted artist Barry Moser, whose work is represented in The National Gallery of Art, The Metropolitan Museum, and The British Museum, has created a poetry broadside, designed and engraved specifically for sale at this event, with all proceeds to benefit A Positive Place.
Performer Bios:
Eduardo C. Corral is the author of Slow Lightning, selected by Carl Phillips as the 2011 winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition. His honors include a “Discovery”/The Nation Award, and writing residencies to the MacDowell Colony and Yaddo.
Patrick Donnelly is the author of two books of poetry and one book of translations. He is an editor of Poetry International, director of the Poetry Seminar at The Frost Place, and teaches at Smith College.
Michael Klein, co-editor of Poets for Life: 76 Poets Respond to AIDS (1992), has written four books of poetry, the memoir Track Conditions, and The End of Being Known, a book of linked essays.
Joan Larkin’s fifth poetry collection, Blue Hanuman, was published in Spring 2014. Her honors include the Poetry Society of America’s Shelley Memorial Award, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Laura Wetzler, singer, songwriter, and guitarist, tours in over 100 concerts a year around the world, performing intimate, original story songs, worldbeat Jewish roots music of Africa and Asia, and the great classics of American song.
