Patti Smith: Dodge Poetry Festival

The other Dodge Poetry Festival comes to NJPAC as a live, staged gathering that treats poetry as a public art form, not a private page. Featured performer Patti Smith brings a Rock/Pop sensibility to the program, where spoken language and song share the same room. While the festival’s deepest roots are across the river in New Jersey, it has long functioned as part of the wider New York–area literary circuit, drawing audiences who move easily between boroughs and Newark. The event suggests, quietly, that performance is one way poems stay socially current.