Poetry at the Zoo and a Local Contest

The Candlelight Reading Series presents “Poetry at the Zoo” on Friday, November 18, 2005, at 8 PM at Revelations, side room.

Animals seem to hold up a mirror to humanity in many ways, and they either tickle our funny bone or make us reflect on attributes we humans share with them. Not surprisingly, probably every poet on earth has written at least one poem about some animal or other, and sometimes with wonderful results!

Four local poets/readers: Nola Nelson, Megan Robinson, Glenn Watt, and Freddy Niagara Fonseca will make you smile, think and marvel with a colorful program of world poems from all over about animals, in the zoo, and in the wild! Growl! Woof!! Roarrrr!!! Come on in. We won’t bite and admission is free.

There will be a mini-poetry contest too! Fairfield poets (including those who moved away—please, notify your out-of-town friends) are invited to send in ONE original poem about some animal, or animals in general to freddypoetry@mac.com. There is no fee. Deadline is November 15. The winner will be invited to come read the winning poem at the reading.

ANY DONATIONS GO TO NOAH'S ARK ANIMAL FOUNDATION, Fairfield, Iowa.

http://www.noahsark.org/

PROGRAM

Poetry at the Zoo, Friday, November 18, 2005, 8 PM

Revelations Bookstore, side room, 112 North Main Street, Fairfield, Iowa

Nola E. Nelson, Megan D. Robinson, Glenn H. Watt, Freddy Niagara Fonseca,

and the winner of the animal poetry contest, Catherine Castle

Michael Moore, Noah’s Ark Animal Foundation — Ogden Nash: The Fly

FNF — Hafiz: Why Just Ask the Donkey

M D R — Robert Frost: Never Again Would Birds’ Song Be the Same

NEN — Charles Simic: Country Fair

G H W — Mary Oliver: The Swan

FNF — Ted Hughes: Hawk Roosting

NEN — Theodore Roethke: The Sloth

M D R — Randall Jarrell: Bats

NEN — Alfred Tennyson: The Eagle

G H W — Galway Kinnell: Saint Francis and the Sow

M D R — Katharyn Howd Machan: Black Swans

FNF — Freddy Niagara Fonseca: A Dove in Times of War

NEN — John Updike: On the Inclusion of Miniature Dinosaurs in Breakfast Cereal Boxes

G H W — Glenn Watt: A Siphonoptera Primer

M D R — G. Orr Clark: The Night is a Big Black Cat

FNF — John Crowe Ransom: Janet Waking

NEN — Babette Deutsch: Ape

G H W — Galway Kinnell: The Bear

M D R — Hafiz: Two Bears

NEN — Don Marquis: The Lesson of the Moth

FNF — Freddy Niagara Fonseca: The New York City Zoo

M D R — Sylvia Plath: Black Rook in Rainy Weather

NEN — Marianne Moore: The Fish

NEN — Rolf Erickson: Mirror Lake

G H W — Glenn Watt: Nelson’s Sharp-Tail

M D R — Ted Kooser: A Finding

G H W — James Wright: A Blessing

FNF — John Keats: Ode to a Nightingale

NEN — Theodore Roethke: Night Crow

M D R — Elizabeth Reninger: BirdBath

Catherine Castle reads her winning poem: The Zoo

M D R — Marianne Moore: A Jellyfish

G H W — Mary Oliver: White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field

FNF — Walt Whitman: The Dalliance of the Eagles

NEN — Howard Nemerov: Lobsters

M D R — Emily Dickinson: A Narrow Fellow in the Grass

G H W — Billy Collins: Dharma

NEN — Richard Eberhart: On a Squirrel Crossing the Road in Autumn, in New England

FNF — Wallace Stevens: Domination of Black

M D R — Rilke: The Panther

G H W — James Wright: What Does the King of the Jungle Truly Do?

M D R — Lewis Carroll: Jabberwocky

NEN — Theodore Roethke: Snake

G H W — Kate Barnes: Other Nations

FNF — K. Ramesh: Abandoned Dog

FNF — Robinson Jeffers: The House-Dog’s Grave

The 2005 Readings

Design and copyright 2009 Freddy Niagara Fonseca

Fairfield Creates