Ms. Frizzle and Liz are nowhere around, but another kind of school bus is headed to town.

The Wave Books Poetry Bus Tour is a 50-day tour of 50 cities in which contemporary poets travel by charter bus, reading at coffee shops, bookstores and art galleries.

The journey, in which more than 100 poets, musicians, filmmakers and journalists will participate, represents the largest poetry tour ever attempted.

The tour will stop in Athens Oct. 8 at ATHICA, Athens Institute for Contemporary Art.

Lizzie Zucker Saltz, head of ATHICA, said she was excited about the tour.

“50 cities in 50 days – it’s fabulous. We’ve got some really big names coming,” Saltz said.

Monica Fambrough, a 2001 University graduate and marketing director of Wave Books, said she and project coordinator Travis Nichols, also a 2001 graduate, knew that readings in Athens could draw a crowd.

“Out of all the cities in the Southeast, we knew we couldn’t skip Athens,” she said.

Sabrina Mark, a fourth-year doctoral student coordinating the event locally, said, “Athens is a great artsy town among contemporary poets.”

This stop on the tour is hosted by VOX, a monthly poetry reading sponsored by the Creative Writing Program, Mark said.

Mark will read among local poets, Laura Glenum, another doctoral student in the English department, and local singer-songwriter Vic Chesnutt.

Fambrough said only three people will stay on the bus the entire tour: Nichols, Joshua Beckman and Matthew Zapruder, Wave Books’ editors.

Two of these three will be reading every night, she said.

But the bus will be picking up and dropping off different poets throughout its route. A poet can get on at his hometown, ride five or six stops, then get off and find his own way back.

Fambrough said Nichols got the idea from similar tours in Europe, which travel by train.

“Our train systems just aren’t as reliable. We thought the bus would be better,” Fambrough said.

Fambrough joined the tour herself for 11 days – from Buffalo to Beacon, N.Y.

“It was a real adventure, but it was exhausting to be in a different city every day,” she said.

“It’s amazing, though, because you get to meet so many people interested in poetry.”

Most of the poets on the tour are young, so a few bring their children along. Fambrough said during her stay on the bus, she played I-Spy with a 4-year-old.

The tour is also creating poets along the way.

“The bus driver – I think we’re turning him into a poet. He’s a musician and a professional bus driver. He’s been to all the readings, though, and I think he’s really enjoying it,” Fambrough said.

She said the two biggest problems the tour faces every night are 1) where to park the bus, and 2) where to spend the night.

Fambrough said although the bus is outfitted to sleep 30 people, some still “crash on someone’s couch in town.”

“Also, there’s no shower on the bus, so people are always trying to find a place to take a shower, and there’s not a lot of laundry being done,” she added.

Even though they’ve had to leave their work behind, Fambrough said the poets don’t have to stop working.

The bus is equipped with Internet access and a typewriter. With the help of their laptops, the poets can check their e-mail, write poems and have a reading that night, Fambrough said.

She said she thinks of these readings as an opportunity for those who may have been afraid to go to readings or who thought they would be bored to come see what contemporary poetry is really like.

Mark agreed. She said she hopes a variety of people attend the reading, not just poets.

“There will be a number of different aesthetics and a collection of different voices. No one poet will be up there too long.

“Besides, I think the sight of a charter bus that reads ‘Poetry Bus’ is enough for anyone to come out. Anyone interested in poetry and a spectacle should come,” Mark said.

To see pictures and a daily update of the tour, visit the tour’s blog at www.poetrybus.com.