POET HARRIS GARDNER BIRTHS A NEW POETRY SERIES AT THE BOSTON OMNI PARKER HOUSE!

POET HARRIS GARDNER BIRTHS A NEW POETRY SERIES AT THE BOSTON OMNI PARKER HOUSE!

By Doug Holder



Harris Gardner will be hosting a new Tapestry of Voices Poetry Reading Series that will continue the long literary tradition of the Omni Parker House Hotel in Boston, Mass. Gardner, a Beacon Hill Resident, co-founder of the literary organization the Bagel Bards , co-founder of Tapestry of Voices and the Boston National Poetry Festival (with Laine Senechal), widely published poet and real estate broker, is moving his poetry series to the Omni Parker House from Borders Books in Boston. The first reading will be held in the historic Gardner Room (named after Isabella, not Harris!) Thursday, Sept 11 at 6:30PM. The featured readers will be David Surette, and Victoria Murray Bosch. There will be an open mic that follows the features. Food and beverage menus are available in the Hotel. The reading is free and open to the public.


The Parker House is a perfect setting for Gardner’s venue. In an article in the Christian Science Monitor it reports that Boston’s Literary Trail begins at this august hotel and for good reason:

“The Literary Trail begins at Tremont and School Streets in the Omni Parker House Hotel, America's oldest continuously operated hotel, home of Parker House rolls and Boston cream pie.
It was here that Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Nathaniel Hawthorne started the Saturday Club: On the last Saturday of each month, they would meet for readings, political discussions, fun, and food. Other members included John Greenleaf Whittier, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Atlantic Monthly editor James Russell Lowell. Charles Dickens was an honorary member who attended when he visited Boston.
However, when Henry David Thoreau was invited to become a member, he declined, saying: "I would rather sit on a horsehair couch with my peers than on a velvet one."
It was at the Parker House that Longfellow drafted "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" and where Dickens gave his first reading of "A Christmas Carol." In the upstairs hall are the mirror and mantel Dickens used while practicing his speaking techniques.”
(Frances J. Folsom, April / 2002)

The Omni Parker House
Boston Omni Parker House Hotel
60 School St
Boston, MA 02108
Phone: (617) 227-8600


Contact: Harris Gardner tapestryofvoices@yahoo.com
617-306-9484