Poetry center 'creating enthusiasm'

Concord and poetry go way back. Emerson and Thoreau are as much a part of the town's heritage as the fife and drum. But until recently, that all seemed ancient history. Now, the town is again attracting literary legends.

The Concord Poetry Center, established a year and a half ago, has been bringing some of the biggest names on the national poetry scene, from Pulitzer Prize winners to US poet laureates. ''This is the perfect place," said the center's founder and director, Joan Houlihan. ''Concord has that spirits-walking kind of feeling."

Houlihan's vision is to create a place for poetry writers and lovers alike, away from the profits and competition of the many universities and bookstores in the region. Chicago and New York have prestigious poetry centers of their own; Boston was primed to follow their models.

''The center is creating infectious enthusiasm, both for poetry and for its own kind of allegiance to the art of poetry," said Steven Cramer, director of the MFA program at Lesley University. ''It's a vision of a community-based poetry center that was much needed on the Boston/Cambridge literary scene."

This Friday, the center will host Donald Hall and University of Massachusetts professor Joyce Peseroff in a tribute to Hall's late wife, poet Jane Kenyon.

Hall and Kenyon are mythologized in poetry, both for their marriage and their devotion to their work. The event is an important one for the Concord Poetry Center, which strives to create events that are not just readings, but designed to raise the awareness and understanding of poetry in the lives of its audience.

''Poetry enters the world in ways that you may not expect," said Peseroff, who edited ''Simply Lasting: Writers on Jane Kenyon," a compilation of work regarding the life and work of Kenyon. ''Jane used to say, 'Poetry is the inside of one person speaking to the inside of another person,' " Peseroff said.

The seeds for the Concord Poetry Center were planted in March 2004, when a handful of friends and colleagues invited by Houlihan gathered in the basement of the Emerson Umbrella. The center officially began in October 2004 with nothing in the bank, but established and emerging poets from all over the Boston area pooled their connections and energy to create a community that is growing in recognition and clout.

The center recently received two cultural grants from Acton, Boxborough, and Concord. Houlihan said she hopes to build the center's outreach, bringing poetry even to hospitals and prisons. ''We're really not limited about what we can do," she said. ''It's just a matter of time."

In October, the center celebrated its first anniversary with former US poet laureate Robert Pinsky. Two-hundred people gathered in the auditorium at Emerson Umbrella, where the center is headquartered.

Pinsky, along with a longtime friend, poet Frank Bidart, read their own favorite poems and engaged the community on questions of writing, reading, and the current state of politics and poetics in this country.

Houlihan is no stranger to the Boston poetry scene. Her second book of poetry, ''The Mending Worm," is due out in September, and the manuscript has already won the Green Rose second book award from New Issues Press. She is editor of the online poetry journal Perihelion, poetry editor for the online literary journal Del Sol Review, staff reviewer for The Contemporary Poetry Review, and author of ''Boston Comment," a series of critical essays focusing on contemporary poetry. She has been living and working in Acton for 17 years.

The Concord Poetry Center is at 40 Stow St. in Concord. The ''Tribute to Jane Kenyon" reading will be at 8 p.m. Friday; tickets are $10 for the reading, $35 for reading and reception. Call 978-371-0820 or visit www.concordpoetry.org for more information.