Great Barrington — The Mason Library’s next OtherWords poetry series event is on Saturday, March 29, at 4 p.m.
The free monthly event, held the last Saturday of each month, is co-organized by the Friends of the Great Barrington Libraries and the Library Board of Trustees, along with poets Evelyn Reilly and Michael Gottlieb, who co-curate the event.
The event is a continuation of a poetry series that was held at the Familiar Trees bookstore for two years. “Both Evelyn and I originate from New York, and we felt that there was a real need for poetry events in Berkshire County,” Gottlieb told The Berkshire Edge. “There is a real concentration of poets in the area who, we felt, are interested in coming together and reading for an audience.”
“The poetry series at Familiar Trees built up an audience very quickly,” Reilly said. “I think because it started at the end of COVID, and there were all kinds of people who wanted to have cultural experiences among other people. Every time there was an audience at Familiar Trees, there were more than just poets in the crowd. There are artists, painters, and literate people all around the Berkshires who were all just looking for cultural experiences.”
Familiar Trees closed in October 2024, but Reilly and Gottlieb wanted to continue the series. “We are only in our third month at the library, but we’ve continued to get a diverse audience,” Reilly said. “I think the diversity of people in the audience is very heartening. It’s good for poetry and good for people.”
Gottlieb said that both he and Reilly are inviting nationally acclaimed poets to speak at the series.
Poets Rob Fitterman and K Prevallet are scheduled to read at the March 29 event.
Fitterman has written 15 poetry books, including “Rob’s Word Shop.” He is also a founding member of the artists-poets group Collective Task and teaches writing at New York University.
Prevallet has written six books of poetry, including “Everywhere Here and in Brooklyn (A Four Quartets)” and “Afterlife: Essay in Mourning Time.”
When asked about the role poets play in society at large, Gottlieb responded, “If there was no poetry, what would this world look like?”
“In our culture, I think we do a really bad job of introducing people to poetry,” Reilly added. “Other cultures are not like that at all. Poetry is important to many cultures around the world, and I think people in America are introduced to it as something that is difficult and stuffy where you have to learn formulas about meters and all this awful stuff. But this series is about bringing poetry to people who are intrigued by the arts. That’s one of the reasons why we have a diversity of people attending these events.”
For more information about the series, visit the Mason Public Library’s website.
