An Evening of Poetry and Jazz

The Summer Tent is up again at . This time it is for the coming together of two great artists from two of the greatest genres: poetry and jazz.

On Thursday, July 21 at 7 p.m., Robert Pinsky, former United States poet laureate, consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress and teacher of poetry and creative writing at Boston University, will read his work accompanied by jazz musician Stan Strickland.

"We are honored to present this impressive line-up for Featherstone's 15th Anniversary," said Featherstone director Ann Smith. Since 2007, Featherstone, in coordination with the Martha's Vineyard Writers Residency, has offered a poetry series for the summer months.

Pinsky is the author of several collections of poetry and prose,  including "The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems 1966–1996" (1996), which received the 1997 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize and was a Pulitzer Prize nominee. He has published two acclaimed works of translation including "The Inferno of Dante" (1994), which was a Book-of-the-Month-Club Editor's Choice and received both the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award. Additional honors include an American Academy of Arts and Letters award, both the William Carlos Williams Award and the Shelley Memorial prize from the Poetry Society of America, the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry and a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship.

During his tenure as US poet laureate, Pinsky founded the Favorite Poem Project, a program dedicated to celebrating, documenting and encouraging poetry's role in Americans' lives. West Tisbury Poet Laureate Fan Ogilvie credits this project and Pinsky for being "an important part of a new renaissance for poetry. He is the real deal," said Ogilvie.

Strickland, a singer, saxophonist, flutist and actor, is no small potatoes, either. He has performed in countries around the world, in clubs and concert halls like Symphony Hall in Boston, Carnegie Recital Hall in New York, and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. His work has been featured on recordings by Bob Moses, Marty Erlich, Webster Lewis and Brute Force; opened for jazz greats Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins; and was a featured soloist with Take Six and the Boston Pops at Symphony Hall.

While this will be the first time that Strickland and Pinsky have performed live together, it is not the first time that Pinsky has had a jazz accompaniment to his poetry. Pinsky, whose first ambition was to be a jazz saxophonist, is well known for his ability to bring poetry to another level of life with music.

Upcomng poetry events at Featherstone include a July 28 reading by former US Poet Billy Collins, followed Brooklyn Poet Laureate Tina Chang on August 4, and Naomi Shihab Nye, chancellor of the American Society of Poets, on August 11.

According to Smith, it is because of Featherstone's partnerships with Martha's Vineyard Writers Residency foundersOgilvie and Justen Ahren, Claudia Miller of the Point Way Inn and Marianne Goldberg from Pathways Projects Institutes that "Featherstone is so fortunate to showcase the best poets in the nation."

The event starts at 7 p.m.; doors open at 6 p.m. Tickets are free (there is a suggested donation of $20) and are sold on a first-come, first-serve basis. Books will be available for purchase from .