AMHERST - U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy III will speak at Amherst College Saturday as part of the college's celebration of his great-uncle President John F. Kennedy.

The event marks the 100th anniversary of the 35th president's birth and his Oct. 26, 1963, visit to the college, something the college also celebrated in 2013. The forum is called "Poetry and Politics."

According to the event website, the forum will trace the "thread connecting President Kennedy's concerns with the College's current interest in, to use President (Carolyn) Martin's words, setting 'an example of community characterized by openness and respect, freedom with responsibility, and politics inflected by poetry.'"

Joseph Kennedy will speak at 4:15 p.m. Events begin at 1 p.m. with an introduction by Martin followed by a film of John F. Kennedy's speech at the college.

Current students will offer reflections, followed by a faculty panel, at 3 p.m.

John F. Kennedy was awarded an honorary degree and celebrated the groundbreaking for the Robert Frost Library when he visited the college. Less than a month later, he was assassinated in Dallas.

Frost read at Kennedy's swearing in, the first poet to take part in a presidential inauguration.

In his Amherst speech, Kennedy said: "If sometimes our great artists have been the most critical of our society, it is because their sensitivity and their concern for justice, which must motivate any true artist, makes him aware that our nation falls short of its highest potential. I see little of more importance to the future of our country and our civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist."