Robert Stewart Tonight @ Writers Place

I saw were the 2005 International Poetry Festival was held in Wellington, New Zealand for the third time and drew a disappointing crowd in spite of having attracted an impressive list of sponsors. The centerpiece of the event this year was a documentary film called "Poetry in Wartime", introduced by Sam Hamill, who features in the film and who has founded a worldwide movement, Poets Against War, which now has centers in over thirty countries around the world and membership in the tens of thousands.

I have to wonder if it is time for the International festival to be hosted in another country. Could the U.S. had done better in attracting participants? Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival has been such a big success that it has outgrown the most recent location and is having to move as a result of an inability to gain commitments for greater facilities.



Tonight, Robert Stewart will read poetry at The Writers Place. Mr. Stewart is editor-in-chief of New Letters , New Letters on the Air, and BkMk Press at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where he also teaches. The Program will start at 7:30pm.