Palm Beach Poetry Festival will be held Jan. 18-23 online with 10 featured poets and a schedule patterned on its in-person version.

Poet David Baker has been reading the poems of Emily Dickinson lately. The reclusive 19th century American poet seemed like an apt choice for these days of COVID-19 isolation.

For her, poetry was the doorway to a rich life, even though she rarely went anywhere. “She was the perfect social distancer,” Baker said.

Poetry’s ability to transcend boundaries won’t be affected by the Palm Beach Poetry Festival’s migration to the internet for its 17th edition on Jan. 18-23.

Baker, author of 11 books of poetry, is one of 10 poets who will lead workshops, deliver craft talks, share favorite poems and read their works online during the festival. Others include Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Traci Brimhall, Eduardo Corral, Vievee Francis, Kevin Prufer, Martha Rhodes, Tim Siebles, Gregory Orr and Brian Turner.

The workshops are limited to 12 students and three auditors. They will be three hours long, but there’ll be a 10-minute break each hour so that participants don’t become fatigued. Workshop applications are expected to be available on the website this week.

The other events are open to the public. One of the highlights will be guest poet Orr’s and the Parkington Sisters’ performance of a poetry and song cycle set to his poetry. Tickets for public events will go on sale in October.

Faced with the unrelenting COVID-19 pandemic, the festival’s choices were to move online or cancel, said Palm Beach resident Miles Coon, president, board chairman and founder.

“We came to the conclusion that we can’t stay with a normal festival in January because we haven’t got a clue where we’re going to be then,” he said.

Old School Square in Delray Beach, the festival’s usual venue, remains closed with no definite reopening date. Even if the venue reopened with social distancing the event wouldn’t work financially, he said.

Also, many attendees and featured poets are in the older, more at-risk age group.

Canceling would have risked weakening the organization financially and losing touch with the audience, he said.

Going virtual means sacrificing some of the camaraderie attendees look forward to all year. (More than 40 percent have attended more than one festival.)

On the other hand, “we will have the same stellar lineup and they will save on travel, lodging and restaurant expenses,” Coon said.

And, with no capacity restrictions on public events, poetry lovers from anywhere with an internet connection can participate.

West Palm Beach resident Judy Ireland, who has attended every festival since its inception, is grateful it will be held at all.

She’s participated in other poetry workshops during the pandemic. “It was wonderful,” she said. “I didn’t miss being in the room with people because they were right there on my screen.”

Brimhall, whose poetry has appeared in publications ranging from The New Yorker to Slate, embraced virtual teaching when Kansas State University, where she teaches, moved its classes online in response to the pandemic.

“There are lots of ways to play and let the technology be fun and useful,” she said. For example, her students used the time before class to improvise haikus together on Zoom.

She’s been easing her pandemic-imposed isolation by writing poems with a close friend. “We take turns writing stanzas so it’s like you call out to the abyss and the abyss answers back,” she said.

Baker admits he’ll miss spending time with other poets — and the mid-winter Florida sunshine.

David Baker’s “We Are Gone” is in the Aug. 3 issue of The New Yorker. You can read it and hear him recite it on the magazine’s website.

But as poetry “is essentially textual you don’t need to be in each other’s company,” he said.

In his view, people who write and read poetry tend to be solitary.

“We meet essentially to share our solitude with one another and be lonely together for a while,” he said. “We can do that whether we’re sitting at a seminar table or at a computer screen.”

Even Emily Dickinson might have been on board with that.

For information visit palmbeachpoetryfestival.org.

jsjostrom@pbdailynews.com

@sjostromjan