For those in the New Orleans area, A Studio in the Woods is hosting its annual FORESTival this coming Saturday, from 11am-5pm. Always a spectacular day down in the forest, the festival features food, music, art, and photography from some of New Orleans’ finest, and if the rumors are true, a giant puppet second-line courtesy of the Black Forest Fancies Laboratory.

Don’t miss it — no matter how big or little a kid you are.

As one of the last events of National Poetry Month, I’m honored to be leading a celebration of poetry tonight at the Norman Mayer (Gentilly) Branch of the New Orleans Public Library. The Dead Poets Slam starts at 5.30pm, featuring area high school students bringing their favorite dead poets — well, at least their poems — into the poetry nook on the second floor. Don’t be a stranger! Come celebrate the end of a fantastic month with us.

Also concluding the month is the series of NPM-related posts at Bayou Magazine, over at UNO. Their contributions this month are well worth trolling back through — it ain’t every day that Aaron Neville writes a new poem just for the occasion, is it?

Pelican Bomb has a brief essay on Isabelle Hayeur’s series of photographs, Underworlds. Hayeur was the most recent resident at A Studio in the Woods, which — for those in the New Orleans area — is hosting their annual FORESTival next weekend, May 11th.

For those in the Edinburgh area, good friends Andrew Philip and Rob Mackenzie are launching their new poetry collections The North End of the Possible and The Good News this weekend. The launch is this Saturday, May 4th, at 1pm at the Scottish Poetry Library. In a word, it’ll be brilliant.

For those in the Jackson/Vicksburg area, much-beloved independent bookseller Lorelei Books is hosting a series of events for National Poetry Month this coming weekend, on April 27th. Experience Poetry Week includes a reading, discussion, and Q&A session with poets Jack Bedell, Julie Kane, and Irene Latham. If you’re anywhere nearby, it’s well worth a visit. More details are available at the Lorelei Books Facebook page, or the Academy of American Poets website.