The Hudson Valley Writers Center (writerscenter.org) and The Masters School (mastersny.org) announced on March 4 that Reginald Dwayne Betts will deliver the keynote reading during the 10th anniversary of the Westchester Poetry Festival on Saturday, April 4, from 1:00 – 4:45 p.m., in the Experimental Theater in the Fonseca Center on The Masters School campus in Dobbs Ferry. Betts will be joined by five other acclaimed poets.
Masters students’ poetry readings will also be featured at the event. For more information about the Poetry Festival, please contact The Masters School librarian Judy Murphy at judy.murphy@mastersny.org or 914-479-6419 or The Hudson Valley Writers’ Center Program Director Jennifer Franklin at jennifer@writerscenter.org or 914-332-5953. Admission and parking are free.
“Each April, one of the most important events of the Hudson Valley Writers Center winter/spring season is our cosponsored celebration of poetry with The Masters School,” said Franklin. “We spend months reading recent poetry collections and we are excited to welcome a diverse group of voices that we believe merit national attention in the poetry world and beyond.”
“One of the most anticipated events of the school year, The Westchester Poetry Festival offers our students the rare opportunity to perform their works in the presence of world class poets. This is a thrill,” said Murphy.
Betts is a husband and father of two sons. A poet and memoirist, he is the author of four books: the recently published “Felon: Poems,” the poetry collections “Bastards of the Regan Era” and “Shahid Reads His Own Palm,” and the 2010 NAACP Image Award-winning memoir “A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival, and Coming of Age in Prison.” Betts is currently enrolled in a Ph.D. in law program at the Yale Law School. He earned a J.D. from the Yale Law School, an M.F.A. from Warren Wilson College’s M.F.A. Program for Writers, and a B.A. from the University of Maryland.
Joining Betts at the festival will be the poets Aaron Coleman, Lynn Emanuel, Sean Singer, Leila Chatti and Margo Taft-Stever.
What: The Westchester Poetry Festival
When: Saturday, April 4; 1:00 – 4:45 p.m.
Where: Experimental Theater, Fonseca Center, The Masters School campus, 49 Clinton Avenue, Dobbs Ferry, NY
Admission: Free admission and free parking
