On July 29, the Dispatch wrote about this great event that’s happening at noon today. The venue has been changed due to last week’s rain.

“Flooding from the recent storms has made the original outdoor venue, the Saratoga Monument, inaccessible,” reads the announcement.

The original story (slightly edited to minimize confusion!):

A poetry reading more than two centuries in the making

Readings from 250 years of American poetry will celebrate the Declaration of Independence at the Saratoga Monument on August 6 (today!).

"[Thomas] Jefferson and his colleagues wrote the Declaration mostly in abstract, eighteenth-century prose," said Jay Rogoff, Saratoga Springs Poet Laureate. "But its aspirations are the stuff of poetry."

(He said this in a statement, which I rarely run as-is — but how do you not run that?)

The event is one that Saratoga Town Historian Sean Kelleher says he’s been dreaming of for 20 years. To ensure it sticks around for the next 20, they’ve planned quite a program:

Singer and actor Cliff Thomas will read from William L. Stone's anthology of Revolutionary War ballads. Garrett Cloer, the park's Program Manager for Interpretation and Visitor Services, will read colonial-era poems, including work by Phillis Wheatley. And Rogoff will introduce five regional poets who wrote original pieces inspired by the Declaration: Joseph Bruchac, Lâle Davidson, Susan Kress, Kathleen McCoy, and performance poet emily xyz.

This free event begins at 12 p.m. TODAY! New location: Victory Village Hall (23 Pine Street, Victory)