The beautiful October weather and beautiful setting in the historic downtown combined to set the stage for a very successful, first-ever statewide poetry festival in Lowell. Festival organizers counted more than 2,000 people in the 33 different readings, workshops, panel talks, performances, film showings, and other activities. The poets and poetry readers showed up in force and took to the streets on a weekend when Lowell could not have looked better. The blue sky accented the preserved red-brick buildings. The red-and-yellow leaves in the trees along the canals just made people want to walk there. From the Boott Mills Museum to the Whistler House Museum to the Pollard Memorial Library and in an array of locations in between, people enjoyed listening to the best poets in Massachusetts, engaged in lively discussions about the place of literature in our lives, learned from working writers how to improve their own creative writing, reveled in exciting mixtures of music and spoken words, and talked to dozens of publishers of books and literary magazines at the small press fair. Lowell’s reputation as a festival city served us well. The coffee shops and restaurants downtown were hopping. Visitors found their way to the various venues easily. At the peak of activity late last Saturday afternoon, enthusiastic audiences packed an amazing variety of programs at the Revolving Museum, Parker Gallery at the Whistler House, Brush Gallery, ALL Gallery, Boott Mills Museum Events Center, Park Visitor Center Theater, Ole Restaurant and Tapas Bar, Life Alive Urban Oasis and Cafe, Brew’d Awakening Coffeehaus, and Pollard Library.  People are already asking about the next festival–proof that they had a good time.