Ten years ago or so, I drove my old Suburban from Philadelphia up to northern New Jersey to attend a two and a half day poetry event, knowing I’d run into old friends and poetry people I hadn’t seen in years, all of us hungry to hear and meet and talk to our poetry heroes. The event reminded me of some great rock concerts and festivals I’d been to in the early Seventies — one or two day long events featuring bands like Bob Dylan, the Allman Brothers, the Grateful Dead, the Band, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and others who showed up in giant stadiums to perform alone and together.

It was called the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival and featured the greatest poets from all over the world performing sets of material and consenting to interviews and casual conversations over a Fall weekend at a lovely campus. The only difference between this and the concerts were the crowds, which (it never failed to astonish me), were in the hundreds per day rather than thousands.

“Over the course of its twenty-two year history, the biennial Festivals drew approximately 140,000 people from 42 states ¾ including 17,000 teachers and 42,000 high school students who attended without charge and traveled from as far away as Florida, Maine, Minnesota and California. The Festivals also gave rise to several NPR radio programs and five PBS television series, including The Power of the Word, The Language of Life and Fooling with Words, all hosted by Bill Moyers and seen by a national audience of nearly 50 million.”

Well, today I got an mass email from the organizers saying that because of huge declines in the stock market in 2008, the value of the Foundation had declined almost 30% and is now at the point where a festival can no longer be put on. It went on to praise the early organizers and to say they hope to make video available via youtube, etc., etc.

It’s been a long time since I attended and I must confess to an aversion to travel and crowds that’s blossomed into a phobia, but I’m really sad and worried that this decision and announcement will be one of dozens, or hundreds or perhaps thousands as the economic foundation of our country crumbles.

I’m thinking of ancient Greece and it’s heady days as a civilization that sponsored great art. And of William Carlos Williams’ line that while the news may be hard to get from poems, people die for lack of what is found there.”