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Article by Guest Columnist Kirk Etherton.

I am happy to report that in this year’s poetry festival a number of Somerville poets will be reading, including Harris Gardner, Lucy Holstedt, Kirk Etherton, State Representative Denise Provost, Lloyd Schwartz, Ifeanyi Menkiti, Gloria Mindock, Alexander Levering Kern, and Doug Holder.

This year’s Boston National Poetry Month Festival is April 7-10 at the Boston Public Library and Northeastern University. This will be the annual Festival’s 16th year. Participants include major prize-winning poets, international musicians, plus college and high school students.

Also featured are four current Massachusetts’ Poets Laureate (representing Boston, Brookline, Arlington, and Amesbury), and Boston’s former Poet Laureate, Sam Cornish. All events are free and open to the public.

The Festival begins Thursday evening, with the second annual poetry slam competition. Teams from six Boston-area high schools are participating. On Friday, April 10, the Festival features 10 prominent “Keynote Poets,” including winners of the Mass. Book Award and National Book Award, NEA recipients and more, in an afternoon reading.

Friday evening marks the third annual “Poetry Set to Music and Dance” event, produced by Lucy Holstedt, professor at Berklee College of Music. Special guests include National Poetry Slam winner Regie O. Gibson, performing with Berklee musicians. There will also be a premier of The Middle East, written for the world-renowned Middle East Restaurants & Nightclubs of Central Square, Cambridge and featuring Ethan Mackler on electric bass.

Saturday and Sunday feature more than 50 established and emerging poets, poetry with music, a panel discussion on “Craft and Publishing,” and open mics on both days. A few of the notable poets include Rep. Denise Provost, Pulitzer Prize-Winning critic Lloyd Schwartz, Richard Hoffman (Sr. Writer-In-Residence at Emerson College), and January O’Neil of Salem State University.

Learn more at: bostonnationalpoetry.org.