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For Richard Rice, becoming Kensington's first poet laureate entails hanging around a town that has been his muse since he began writing poetry regularly in 1972.

"It means a great deal more responsibility for getting to town events that I have not been involved with," he says.

On Sunday, Rice will be named the first Poet Laureate of the Town of Kensington at the sixth annual Kensington Day of the Book Festival. The event begins at 11 a.m. and will shut down Howard Avenue in Old Town Kensington.

Rice began composing poetry after graduating from high school in Center Strafford, N.H., in the early 1970s. Since then, he has composed some 430 pages of poetry, which he types up and compiles into volumes.

Inspired by poets such as Robert Frost, Rice's works generally are free verse enterprises that touch on themes of jubilation and contemplation. His books contain photographs of fields and nature, which compliment the landscapes he depicts in his words. A meticulous approach to the craft is evident in that he even notes the exact time of day he wrote some of the poems.

Rice also is a published author whose work was featured multiple times in the "Dan River Anthology" during the late 1990s and in 2001. He keeps busy giving readings throughout the area, such as at Inwood House, an apartment complex for handicapped adults, and the Kensington Row Bookshop, whose owner Elisenda Sola-Sole is one of the founders and organizers of the book festival. She also owns responsibility for nominating Rice for his new position.

"In different events, in different things that have happened in town, he will write poems," Sola-Sole says. "So in my mind, he's been poet laureate for a long time."

The Kensington Day of the Book Festival is rooted in a tradition from Sola-Sole's Barcelonan heritage. April 23 marks the internationally recognized day of the book, which also is the feast day of Saint George. On this day in Catalonia, it is customary for a man to give a woman a red rose and in return, receive a book. The day also marks the deaths of William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes.

A further link to her literary roots, the Pauli Bellet Foundation, a Catalan studies organization Sola-Sole's family operates, runs the library on the second story of her store. The festival is co-sponsored by the foundation and the Town of Kensington.

"We started very little, very small," Sola-Sole recalls. "The first year, we just had a few authors on the sidewalk down the street, and then, the second year, more authors wanted to participate, and so the town said ‘Well why don't you just close the streets?'"

Most of the authors gathering for the rain-or-shine event are locals such as Robert W. Gregg of Chevy Chase and Eve Ottenberg of Silver Spring. Still other authors cross state lines to attend such as Emily Parke Chase from Mechanicsburg, Pa., and Joe Sergi from Fort Belvoir, Va.

The day will feature a range of activities, including an open mic hosted by Kensington publishing company Atticus Books.

"I really want people to not just come and sit at a table with their books," Sola-Sole says. "I've really tried to make this festival interactive."

One of the festival highlights will be a reading by bestselling mystery novelist George Pelecanos with the musical accompaniment of blues and rock band The Nighthawks. Pelecanos, a Silver Spring resident, who has written books such as "A Firing Offense" and for television shows such as HBO's "The Wire," tends to set his books locally.

Also in attendance will be the BookCrossing organization, which gives away free books at every event. Last year, Sola-Sole says the group gave away some 1,200 books.

"They put a little sticker inside each book that has a tracking number," Sola-Sole says. "And then people go to the website and enter the number and then you can track the book from person to person."

For those hoping to track down books south of Kensington, the Bethesda Literary Festival runs this weekend at various locations in the downtown area. The festival kicks off at 7 p.m. Friday with readings from the winners of the Bethesda Literary Festival's Essay and Short Story Contest at the Hyatt Regency Bethesda.

Stephanie Coppula, director of marketing and communications for event sponsor Bethesda Urban Partnership, says the popularity of previous short story and essay contests inspired them to add a poetry component to this year's festival. They already have received almost 150 submissions for the competition. The readings will take place Saturday night at the Hilton Garden Inn.

"We really wanted to come up with a way to get involve with the local community and get them writing," Coppula says.

Although the festival covers a range of subjects and genres, from the children's books of Claudia Friddell to those of military historian Tom Allen, Coppula says the area's proximity to the nation's capital also informs their selection.

"Obviously, we have access to a lot of nationally recognized journalists who also wrote books and we're really fortunate in Bethesda because we attract really astute, intelligent, current events-oriented audiences, so we've had some really great discussions at previous events," she observes.

The roster includes MSNBC political analyst Richard Wolffe who is promoting his new book "Revival: The Struggle for Survival Inside the Obama White House" and host of NPR's "All Things Considered" Michele Norris. Both will speak Saturday afternoon at the DoubleTree Bethesda.

Norris, the National Association of Black Journalists' 2009 "Journalist of the Year" will discuss her book "The Grace of Silence: A Memoir." What originally was intended to be a series of essays exploring America's notion of race in the Obama era quickly changed course as Norris began discussing the project with her family. These talks inspired her to capture what she calls "hidden conversations" about race, that is, honest discourses more likely to be found around a kitchen table than at a television studio.

"When people talk about race, there are different kinds of conversations," she says. "There were the conversations that took place in a public sphere and there were different conversations that took place when people are in more private spaces."

In writing the book, Norris delved into the tribulations of own family, including her father, shot by a white police officer shortly after his return to Birmingham, Ala., after serving in World War II. He still was in his U.S. Navy uniform. Reading the police reports on the shooting, as well as newspaper articles and letters from that time, helped Norris understand what it meant to be a black veteran in that era.

With the publishing of "The Grace of Silence" in September, Norris arrived at a deeper understanding of her parents.

"They decided not to weigh us down with their frustrations and their tales of woe because they wanted us to see the best of America and to see the best of ourselves," she explains.

While promoting the book across the country, Norris has been approached by individuals who engage her in the hidden conversations she once had to seek out.

"I was at a small book club event recently and someone was talking about what it was like in a German household after World War II and the harsh looks that they faced and the advice that she rejected as a very young girl that maybe it wasn't a good idea to let people they were German. The family changed their name. I have heard about 22 different versions of that story," Norris says.

Montgomery County residents will have ample opportunity to learn about the next chapters in literature this weekend at the Bethesda Literary Festival and the Kensington Day of the Book Festival.

tforhecz@gazette.net

The Bethesda Literary Festival runs from Friday through Sunday at venues in downtown Bethesda. Admission is free. Call 301-215-6660 or visit www.bethesda.org.

The Kensington Day of the Book Festival starts at 11 a.m. Sunday on Howard Avenue. Richard Rice will be named Kensington's first poet laureate at 2 p.m. Admission is free. Call 301-949-9416 or visit www.dayofthebook.com.