Making Black Cake in Combustible Spaces with M. NourbeSe Philip

Monday, December 12, 2022 at 7:30pm (ET)

Virtual poetry reading online via Zoom

Our poetry events are priced accessibly all year round, join us! 

With her essay “Making Black Cake in Combustible Spaces” Canadian poet and writer M. NourbeSe Philip dives into the history of Emily Dickinson’s famous Black Cake, exploring the African American/Caribbean and Irish influences on America’s beloved poet.  

Philip will read from their work at The Homestead, Dickinson's home in Amherst, Massachusetts. The reading will be followed by a moderated conversation with Christine Jacobson, Assistant Curator of Modern Books and Manuscripts, Houghton Library, Harvard University. 

This reading is co-sponsored with the Emily Dickinson Museum.

Works in Progress: Workshops in Playwriting, Songwriting, and Poetry

January 25-27, 2023

Virtually over Zoom or in person at the Hill Center, 921 Pennsylvania Ave, SE

$50  $42.50

What’s your story? Folger’s Works in Progress program – hosted in partnership with and at the Hill Center at the Old Naval Hospital – is a series of workshops that invite aspiring creatives in the fields of playwriting, poetry, and songwriting to create new works under the mentorship of teaching artists. Following the workshop, you will have an opportunity to perform your piece at an in-person presentation on Sunday, January 29 at the Hill Center, but participation in the presentation is not required.

Workshops are open to all, but recommended for those at the beginning of their creative journeys. To guide our teaching artists, participants will be asked for information regarding their experience level once registered. Suitable for adults and mature teenagers (16+).

Sing My Story: Troubadour Songs in Old Provençal and English Translation

February 3-5, 2023

St. Mark's Church, 301 A St, SE

$45  $38.25

The troubadours flourished in 12th and 13th-century southern France, composing both melodies and poetry in Old Provençal, and establishing the forms and conventions of lyric love songs in the vernacular languages of Europe. In these concerts, the Folger Consort performs songs in their original language as well as rhyming English translations by Robert Kehew, along with the romantic storytelling of medieval lais and lively instrumental dances featuring medieval fiddles, plucked strings, winds, and percussion.

The Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize
with Alice Fulton and James D'Agostino

Wednesday, March 1, 2023 at 7:30pm (ET)

Virtual poetry reading online via Zoom

Our poetry events are priced accessibly all year round, join us! 

The Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize, created in honor of the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, is awarded annually by The Waywiser Press for a poetry collection by a poet who has published no more than one previous book of verse. The award includes publication with a $3,000 prize.

The winner of the 17th Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize is James D'Agostino. James D’Agostino’s collection The Goldfinch Caution Tapes is the winner of the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize. He has authored a previous collection, Nude With Anything, and three chapbooks which won prizes from Diagram/New Michigan, CutBank Books, and Wells College Press. He teaches in the BFA Program in Creative Writing at Truman State University.

Shakespeare in Step and Song: From early country dance to folk and bluegrass, music drawn from and inspired by Shakespeare

March 17-19, 2023

St. Mark's Church, 301 A St, SE

$45  $38.25

As part of the Folger’s First Folio celebration (the 400th anniversary), the Folger Consort returns to its home repertoire of music from Shakespeare’s time with the uniquely English broken consort, an “orchestra” of three plucked stringed instruments, flute, fiddle, and bass viol. Folger Consort’s co-Artistic Directors have often noted the similarities between this engaging style, featuring some fancy pickin’, to the music of the Appalachian descendants of British settlers - bluegrass. In this program, they explore that connection as well as songs from Shakespeare and the shared stories of ballads from both traditions.