Katharine Lee Bates, Falmouth's local poetry icon, celebrated her 153rd birthday Wednesday afternoon, with the annual poetry festival named in her honor, at the Falmouth Historical Society's Museums on the Green.
Many of the winners of the Society's yearly poetry contest were on hand to share their work, and hear Bates—who appeared thanks to the uncanny channeling abilities of Annie Hart Cool—give her thoughts on the importance of the form.
“Why do we write poetry?” she asked. “Well, because it's a way of telling the truth. It's a way of constructing our world through thought, through insight.”
Bates urged the audience, many of them budding poets still in middle—or even elementary—school, to press on with their work despite the obstacles.
“The more difficult it is to write, the more poignant the message.”
Bates said poems themselves are an indispensable part of existence.
“They're vital and authentic utterances of our knowledge.”
On hand to congratulate Bates on her latest unlikely public appearance, and to participate in the festival, were a number of local personalities. Adelaide Cummings, Falmouth's first poet laureate, read several of her witty, pithy poems, eliciting multiple bouts of laughter from the audience with each.
Police Chief Anthony Riello, a born public speaker, made his fifth straight appearance at the event, reading, among other works, Ralph Waldo Emerson's “A Nation's Strength,” which he said was as timely as ever, in its message of identifying a country's true power and longevity not in its wealth or military might, but in the heart and mind of each one of its citizens.
“I love coming to this event,” Riello told the audience. “I love reading the poems. It's just such a talent to be able to do what you do. I wish I could think like that.”
Actor and Bourne resident Adam Nelson read three poems by his mother, Lillis Palmer, the winner of this year's prize for adult poetry. Taken together, the selections managed to capture a wide range of human emotions
State Representative and Town Moderator David Vieira honored his heritage by reading the most famous work of Portuguese-American poet Emma Lazarus, “The New Colossus,” which is inscribed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.
Carolyn Palmer, former director of the Society, returned to read “The Bridge Builder,” a poem by Bates' contemporary Will Allen Dromgoole, about the necessity of advancing more than just one's own interests.
To close the program, Steohanie Miele led the audience in the singing of Bates' most famous work, “America the Beautiful.” Then it was time for birthday cake and ice cream.