Award-Winning Poet Coming To Princeton From Japan For Reading

PRINCETON, NJ — An award-winning poet is traveling all the way from Japan to participate in the Princeton Festival. Mari Kashiwagi will give a reading of her “Butterfly” poems on Sunday, June 17, at the Princeton Public Library, 65 Witherspoon Street.

The poems were inspired by this month’s Princeton Festival production of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly,” which opens the evening before, on Saturday, June 16, at 7:30 p.m.

The reading, co-sponsored by the Festival, the Festival Guild, and the Library, opens with a light brunch at 11:30 a.m. At noon, a reading and discussion will be held with Kashiwagi and her translator, Takako Lento.

“We are delighted that this internationally known poet has agreed to give a reading as part of this year’s Festival,” Princeton Festival Artistic and Executive Director Richard Tang Yuk said. “It is a tribute to the power and universal appeal of Puccini’s wonderful opera that it inspired her spare and evocative “Butterfly” poems, and we’re eagerly anticipating her insights.”

Admission is free. More information is available at https://princetonfestival.org/event/2018-poetry-mari-kashiwagi/.

There will be two more performances of “Madama Butterfly,” on Sunday, June 24 and Sunday, July 1, both at 3 p.m. All performances are at the Matthews Theatre, McCarter Theatre Centre, 91 University Place, Princeton. In-depth information on the opera is available at https://princetonfestival.org/event/2018-opera/.

For ticket information and a listing of all Princeton Festival events, visit www.princetonfestival.org, or call 609.258.ARTS (2787).

The attached image of Mari Kashiwagi was provided by the Princeton Festival.