Dogtown Poetry Lecture at the Cape Ann Museum
The Cape Ann Museum is pleased to present "Marsden Hartley and Charles Olson: Two Poets of Dogtown," on Saturday, August 11 at 1:30 p.m. Peter Anastas, Gloucester writer and president of the Charles Olson Society, will discuss how painter and poet Marsden Hartley and poet Charles Olson were inspired by their encounters with the wild center of Cape Ann. This program is free for Museum members, $10 for nonmembers (includes Museum admission). Reservations are required, call 978-283-0455 x16.
This lecture is offered in conjunction with the special exhibition Marsden Hartley: Soliloquy in Dogtown, on display at the Cape Ann Museum until October 14, 2012. Peter Anastas wrote the essay Marsden Hartley: Painter as Poet for the exhibition catalogue. In it, he declares that Marsden Hartley is the only significant twentieth-century American painter who can claim equally to be a writer of poetry. In his illustrated talk on August 11th, he will compare Hartley to Gloucester poet Charles Olson, who was also inspired by Dogtown.
Peter Anastas was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts in 1937 and attended local schools. He holds degrees in English from Bowdoin College and Tufts University. Among his publications are Glooskap’s Children: Encounters with the Penobscot Indians of Maine (Beacon Press), Landscape with Boy, a novella in the Boston University Fiction Series, At the Cut, a memoir of growing up in Gloucester in the 1940s (Dogtown Books), Broken Trip, a novel of Gloucester in the 1990s (Glad Day Books), and No Fortunes, a novel set at Bowdoin in the 1950s (Back Shore Press), along with fiction and non-fiction in Niobe, The Falmouth Review, Stations, America One, The Larcom Review, Polis, Split Shift, Cafe Review, Sulfur, Art New England, Architecture Boston, and Process. Anastas is also the editor of Maximus to Gloucester: The Letters and Poems of Charles Olson to the Editor of the Gloucester Daily Times, 1962-1969 (Ten Pound Island Books). He also writes frequently on his blog “A Walker in the City.”
Funding for this program was made possible through a grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, which promotes excellence, access, education and diversity in the arts, humanities and interpretive sciences, in order to improve the quality of life for all Massachusetts residents and to contribute to the economic vitality of our communities.
The Cape Ann Museum is located at 27 Pleasant Street in Gloucester. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and Sundays from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. The Museum is closed during the month of February, on Mondays, and on major holidays. Admission is $10.00 adults, $8.00 Cape Ann residents, students, and seniors. Children under 12 and Museum members are free. The Museum is wheelchair accessible. For more information please call: (978) 283-0455. Additional information can be found online at www.capeannmuseum.org.
Good Morning Gloucester 