If you see someone scribbling furiously in a notebook or bobbing back and forth to a silent rhythm along Canal Park Drive over the next few days, don't call the authorities. It's probably a poet.
More than a hundred masters of verse from across the country are expected to pour into Canal Park for the National Federation of State Poetry Societies annual convention. The gathering kicks off today and runs through Monday. It's the first time in its 50-year history it has been held in Duluth.
"We're thrilled to have gotten this chance to host the convention," said Sue Chambers of Mankato, the regional vice president of the League of Minnesota Poets. "It's going to be an incredible weekend of poetry. Anyone walking along the Lakewalk might just see poets everywhere, pen and paper in hand."
The convention will feature open mic readings and poetry competitions, as well as panel discussions and speeches from four well-known poets. Participants also will have a dinner cruise on the Vista Fleet.
The keynote speaker is Mark Doty, the only American poet to win England's lucrative T.S. Eliot prize, which carries with it $22,000. Other speakers include Duluth's Connie Wanek and Minneapolis writers Michael Dennis Browne and Anna George Meek.
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"It provides not only the chance for poets nationwide to get together," Chambers said, "but the opportunity for our own people, who haven't been able to travel in the past, to explore the event and also see top-notch poets that they might not have been able to see otherwise."
Wanek, who will speak Saturday morning and also will participate in panel discussions, said she has been writing for as long as she can remember. She has published two books and has received many statewide awards for her work, including this year's George Morrison Artist Award.
"I'm going to be in terrific company," Wanek said of her colleagues on the panels. "It's going to be very intimidating. I just hope I can hold up my part. My plan right now is to just sit, listen and laugh at all the right places,"
The event isn't free; registration is $75 for all four days or $35 for a single day. The event is open to the public and walk-ins are welcome, Chambers said.
"We want to encourage poetry and show that it is not just for a high-brow, aloof group of individuals," she said. "It can be for everyone."
Wanek said there's no better place to hold it than in Duluth.
"The environment is really conducive to the arts," she said. '"There's a lot to look at and a lot to write about. And the weather -- if it's finally nice out -- no one will ever want to leave."
And, with apologies to Bob Dylan, she added:
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"Poets are travelin' to the North Country Fair,
Totin' their verse to the borderline,
Comingling with those who live there,
With epics and ballads and true love of rhyme."
