NEWS & READINGS IN THE WORLD

There’s been a lot of reading going on here. Yes, the reading of books and articles, solitary poems that move me. I’ll get to that. Maybe today. Maybe another. We’ll see.

But right now I’m talking about going out in the world to read—and since I don’t yet have a book solely in my name, that means reading with others—which I love to do. I love, too, figuring out what I want to read, reading it out loud here alone, thinking about what linkage I need to help you listeners be as present for it as you can.

It’s taken me a while to see that these days I could be a hermit, that I have hermiting instincts, that I need to be aware of consciously moving myself out in the world—now that Henry and my friend Susan are both gone. It took me a while to realize that I’d been going to Henry, wherever he might be (NYC, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, Burlington, Boston, Roanoke, etc., and of course once he moved to Brooklyn) for almost the whole time I’d been in Bangor. And that when here I could go out and about with Susan, and we did, often—dancing, concerts, gatherings, an adventure. Both passed within a year of each other. Then the pandemic. And so.

Last Sunday I drove to Jefferson Navicky’s (and Sarah’s) to read one love poem in their barn in Freeport. The poem had to be about non-romantic love. So fun among a dozen or so readers, and many listeners. I rarely write love poems but when I do they’ve been to my dead beloveds (mom, dad, only sibling, youngest son, my late-in-life love…). But a number of years ago I was commissioned (really, as in paid!) to write a series of poems about the apron.

Since that reading they’ve lived here with me. I read one of those, “Behind the Apron: Conservation.” I’m thinking maybe I’ll send them out. I’ve historically not been a great submitter and so I’m always surprised at how much I’ve published.

Next Saturday, 2.24.24, I’m reading at the birthday celebration for Pulitzer Prize-winning, local-girl poet Edna St. Vincent Millay at the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland. There are 12 of us. So out in the world again!

And then Thursday, 2.29.24, with others at Blue Hill Library, cohosted by the library and Blue Hill Books, to read my essay “Letting Go: Down by the River,” from the recent anthology Rivers of Ink: Literary Reflections on the Penobscot—river, that is.

Then: 3.29 Rivers @ Ellsworth library; 4.25 Poets/Speak! @ Bangor library; 8.8 premiere of Love Affair @Legacy Theatre, CT, plus likely a reading at the fabulous Breakwater Books sometime while I’m there; and next September, I’ll be at Russell’s Poetry Grove @ Common Ground Country Fair in Unity.

I also love to go to readings, to sit in the audience, receive the words, and so I’m planning to go to:

Debra Spark’s reading/party for the publication of her new novel, Discipline, in Waterville (4.16); Brian Turner’s reading @ Plunkett Poetry Festival (4.27); and the Belfast library’s hosting of more Rivers of Ink writers (5.7).

Maybe our paths will cross.