Formerly of Saginaw, Montana poet Marc Beaudin will read and discuss new and collected poems from his books These Creatures of a Day, Life List and Vagabond Song, as well as his spoken word & jazz recordings From Coltrane to Coal Train and The Sky Too Is Concrete. The reading will explore the concept of poetry as the art of listening. In his decades of practicing the craft, Beaudin has found that the more he attempts to fully listen to the world around and within him, the better he is able to find the poems that are waiting to be written. And the more he listens to and follows the intrinsic music of the poem, the closer his poems come to saying what they need to say.
The reading will be preceded by a poetry writing workshop (registration required) that explores various techniques and practices for the art of listening.
About the Speaker
Beaudin is a poet, theatre artist, and bookseller based in Livingston, Montana. He is originally from Bay City and Saginaw, where he helped produce the weeklong Theodore Roethke Poetry Festival every spring, and was a founding director of the 303 Collective. In addition to These Creatures of a Day, he is the author of Life List: Poems, Vagabond Song: Neo-Haibun from the Peregrine Journals, and the spoken word album From Coltrane to Coal Train: An Eco-Jazz Suite featuring music by members of the bands Morphine and Twinemen: Dana Colley, Billy Conway, and Laurie Sargent. Widely anthologized in publications dedicated to environmental and social justice, he believes the Brahms Violin Concerto in D is more powerful than all the guns, bombs, and boardrooms of the world.