Fwd: July 1--Poets on the Declaration!

[Dan Wilcox]

perhaps poetry is the best way to celebrate the complex history of our country -- & avoid the nit-wit hoopla coming from the White House --

DWx

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Jay Rogoff <jro...@skidmore.edu>
Date: Fri, Jun 26, 2026 at 4:01 PM
Subject: July 1--Poets on the Declaration!
To: Jay Rogoff <jro...@skidmore.edu>

Greetings, Poetry Lovers!

            On July 1, at 7 pm, at Saratoga Arts, nine area poets will present their responses to the Declaration of Independence at 250, in a program called “FREEdom Verse,” a free Laureate Poetry Series event hosted by Saratoga Springs poet laureate Jay Rogoff. Saratoga Arts is located at 320 Broadway in Saratoga Springs.

Each poet has created an original work that responds in some way to the Declaration, whether by using some of its celebrated language, or meditating on the political circumstances that gave birth to it, or considering what independence and self-evident truths look like in America today.

            The poets with something to declare will include Joseph Bruchac, Lâle Davidson, Carol Graser, Maggie Greaves, Susan Jefts, Kathleen McCoy, Jay Rogoff, Nancy White, and emily xyz.

            “Jefferson and his colleagues wrote the Declaration mostly in abstract, eighteenth-century prose,” Rogoff says, “but its aspirations are the stuff of poetry. It also contains some startling specifics. The complaint that ‘swarms of Officers … harass our people, and eat out their substance,’ or the call for America to ‘dissolve the political bands’ with Britain introduces metaphors that bring the Founders unexpectedly close to poetry.”

Hope to see you there!

Metaphorically yours,

Jay

Jay Rogoff

Saratoga Springs Poet Laureate, 2026-2027

jro...@skidmore.edu

Learn about my latest book, Becoming Poetry: Poets and Their Methods,

and my most recent poetry collection, Loving in Truth: New and Selected Poems