Deep Water Literary Festival Will Launch with Pulitzer-Winning Poetry and Operatic Song

The Deep Water Literary Festival returns to the Upper Delaware Valley this June with an ambitious and emotionally charged opening night event that sets the tone for a weekend dedicated to transformation and artistic exploration.

The festival’s opening performance, I Am Living, I Remember You–A Midsummer Night’s Concert, will take place on Friday, June 20 at 7:00 p.m. at the Tusten Theatre in Narrowsburg. The evening combines the poetry of 2025 Pulitzer Prize winner Marie Howe with original music by acclaimed composer Ricky Ian Gordon, creating a fusion of spoken word and operatic song.

The collaboration is rooted in personal loss and creative transformation. Gordon, who lost a partner to AIDS in the 1990s, was profoundly moved by Howe’s 1997 collection What the Living Do, written in memory of her brother. The poems—meditations on grief, memory, and the minutiae of everyday life—became a source of solace and inspiration for Gordon, who eventually set them to music.

“She dealt with loss with a kind of radiance and simplicity I’d never seen before,” Gordon said in a recent interview. “Her poems were like a Bible to me. I memorized them. They lived in me before I ever set them to music.”

The performance will feature Howe reading selections from her work, accompanied by Gordon on piano and soprano Jennifer Zetlan performing the musical adaptations.

Festival founder Aaron Hicklin, who curated the evening, says the theme of this year’s festival—metamorphosis—is embodied in the event. “Writing is an act of transformation,” Hicklin said. “Marie took personal grief and turned it into poetry. Ricky took that poetry and turned it into music. This is about how art reshapes experience.”

The festival’s return marks a cultural highlight for Narrowsburg and the wider region, bringing together writers, artists, and audiences for a weekend of readings, performances, and conversations. More than 30 events are scheduled over two days, many of them free or by donation.

Howe, who lives in the Hudson Valley, was initially unable to attend, but a last-minute schedule change allowed organizers to include her in the live performance. “There was a lot of angst, a lot of hair-pulling,” Hicklin joked. “We were thrilled when she said she could join us. It changed everything.”

For more information, visit deepwaterfestival.com.

Radio Catskill is a media partner of Deep Water Literary Festival. Stay tuned to Radio Catskill for continuing coverage and exclusive previews.

Image: Marie Howe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning poems will be reimagined as song in a special collaborative performance opening the Deep Water Literary Festival on June 20. (Credit: MarieHowe.com)