Sierra Poetry Festival’s mainstage event will take place on April 13, 2024 at The Center for the Arts in Grass Valley, CA. Attended by some of the most exciting local, national and international poets and performers, it is the highlight of a month-long festival, taking place in venues across Nevada County and its two California Cultural Districts. Keynote Jane Hirshfield will kick off the day, with poet and essayist, Ross Gay our closing highlight. Gay is author of four books of poetry, winner of the PEN American Literary Jean Stein Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. He is a New York Times bestseller, and his newest collection, The Book of (More) Delights was released in September of 2023. Hirshfield has been described by The Washington Post as being “among the modern masters” and her poetry by The New York Times Magazine as “among the most important in the world today.” Her poems and essays traverse the crises of the biosphere, questions of social justice, and the myriad interior quandaries of heart, mind, and spirit.