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As a poet and a teacher of poetry, it’s a role he enjoys. But there is one regret, and it’s likely a common one among the festival’s devotees.
“I wish I had time to delve into all the great prose that there is every year, fiction and nonfiction,” Boswell, who writes and teaches poetry, said during a telephone interview on Wednesday. “I honestly don’t have much time beyond the poets.
“We have a rich roster of talented writers. It’s hard to get to all of them.”
Take Saturday, traditionally the busiest day of the festival.
At 10 on Saturday morning, while Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Russo presents his new collection of essays, The Destiny Thief, Sharon-based illustrator Scott Fisk will be sharing words and pictures from his children’s book, If Penguins?! Wore Sneakers!
At 3 that afternoon, while journalist-historian Garrett Graff, son of former Vermont Associated Press bureau chief and North Pomfret resident Christopher Graff, reads from Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government’s Secret Plan to Save Itself — While the Rest of Us Die in the parish hall of St. James Episcopal Church, novelist and Dartmouth College creative writing professor Alexander Chee samples essays from his How to Write an Autobiographical Novel.
And at 4, the same time that former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky reads at the North Universalist Chapel, biographer Adam Federman will be sharing excerpts from his Fasting and Feasting: The Life of Visionary Food Writer Patience Gray in the parish hall of St. James Episcopal Church. Meanwhile, central New Hampshire nature writers Sy Montgomery and Elizabeth Marshall Thomas will talk and show slides about their past and current projects at the Norman Williams Public Library, and former labor organizer turned musician-poet John O’Connor shares songs and tales from the workers rights movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
If bibliophiles need to thank — or blame — one person for this embarrassment of literary riches, Boswell would cite Peter Rousmaniere, the journalist and risk-management consultant who stepped up and started recruiting volunteers for what was then called Bookstock: A Green Mountain Festival of Words, to coincide with the combination of the Universalist and Episcopal churches’ annual book sales a decade ago.
“Peter was the real catalyst, who really wasn’t going to take no for an answer,” recalled Boswell, who at the time was directing the Pentangle Council for the Arts. “He had a passion for literature, and very astutely read what people were game to do.”
Longtime Barnard resident Pam Ahlen signed on right away to bring in prose writers, starting with Northeast Kingdom memoirist Reeve Lindbergh, novelist Castle Freeman and former Vermont Gov. Madeleine Kunin. Lindbergh returns this year to read, on Saturday, from Two Lives, her meditation on the legacies of her father, pilot Charles Lindbergh, and her mother, memoirist Anne Morrow Lindbergh.
Boswell’s efforts to attract poets over the years include recruitment of Vermont Poet-Laureate-to-be Chard deNiord in 2010, Sullivan County native Wesley McNair in 2011, and Pulitzer Prize winners James Tate and Galway Kinnell (in the last public appearance of his life) appeared in 2012 and 2013, respectively.
And in 2014, U.S. poets laureate Billy Collins, Louise Gluck and Charles Simic all read, and in some cases attended each other’s readings.
“There are so many indelible moments, not all of them in the public eye,” Boswell said. “In the green room of the Town Hall Theatre, I remember (Collins and Simic) cracking jokes about each other’s surgeries.
“That was the year that kind of turned the tide with poetry, kind of galvanized a real, solid poetry base.”
This year, in addition to his conventional reading, Pinsky will collaborate on Saturday night with the roots duo Los Lorcas — aka Boswell and fellow Woodstock-based poet Peter Money — on a session of PoemJazz, mixing spoken verse and music.
The festival opens this morning at 9:15 with Burlington-based poet and educator Daniel Lusk leading a workshop on writing poetry at the Woodstock History Center. And at 4 in the afternoon at the history center, longtime Woodstock resident William Boardman will read from Woodstock Country School: A History of Institutional Denial.
Throughout festival hours on Saturday and Sunday, Vermont-born, greater Boston-based poet GennaRose Nethercott will post up on the village green to write poems-for-hire, a practice that Vermont native Ben Aleshire inaugurated last year. Nethercott’s 2018 collection, The Lumberjack’s Dove, was selected by Louise Glück as a winner of the National Poetry Series.
Events this weekend also include a reading session, this afternoon at 4 at the St. James Church, by participants in the Northeast Kingdom-based Writers for Recovery program, a series of workshops in which addicts share their journeys.
The festival concludes on Sunday afternoon, with a screening at 2 of Northeast Kingdom filmmaker Jay Craven’s adaptation of Putney, Vt., novelist Craig Nova’s Wetware.
This wide range of activities makes it easier every year to attract writers, Boswell said. So, he added, do the chance for the scribes to network with colleagues, and “the treasure trove of used and antique book sales, the involvement of local bookstores and publishers, the scenic beauty of our area and the synergy of organizations passionate about the written word.”
Indeed, he added, Pinsky would have come last summer if Bookstock hadn’t coincided with a family vacation on Cape Cod.
“He picked up this year’s invitation as soon as I contacted him last fall,” Boswell said. “That says a lot about how far we’ve come.”
Bookstock opens this morning at the Woodstock History Center and runs through Sunday afternoon. For a complete schedule of events and venues, visit bookstockvt.org.
David Corriveau can be reached at dcorriveau@vnews.com and at 603-727-3304.