Happy National Poetry Month!
There are so many marvelous poetry events going on this month in Portsmouth and Kittery this month!
Here are my recommendations for events you don't want to miss:
The Portsmouth Poet
Laureate Program Annual Gala Poetry Hoot
Wednesday, April 6, 2016, from 7:00-9:00
p.m. at Café Espresso
738 Islington Street, Portsmouth, NH
03801
Website: http://www.pplp.org
FREE and OPEN to the PUBLIC
Former
Laureate John Michael Albert started
it; the annual Gala Poetry Hoot celebrates National Poetry Month by featuring
works from all our previous Poets Laureates.
Portsmouth’s
first two Laureates, Esther Buffler
and Robert Dunn, are no longer with
us, therefore, Joann Duncanson will
read for Esther. Katie Towler will
read for Robert.
Reading their
own poetry are Maren Tirabassi, John
Perrault, Mimi White, Elizabeth Knies, Mark DeCarteret, Mike Albert, and
Kimberly Cloutier Green.
Our present Poet
Laureate, Kate Leigh will kick off
second hour’s open mic. Bring a poem to
share, and come an hour early to have dinner and get a seat!
Mangion
Memorial Poetry Talk and Reading
Saturday, April 9, 2016,
at the Kittery Art Association
8 Coleman Avenue, Kittery
Point, ME 03905 (207) 439-9385 information@kitteryartassociation.orga
The suggested donation is
$25 for both events or $15 for individual events.
Poet
Stuart Kestenbaum will star in
the Mangion Memorial Poetry Talk and Reading at the Kittery Art Association.
Stuart Kestenbaum is the author of four
collections of poems, Pilgrimage (Coyote Love Press), House of Thanksgiving
(Deerbrook Editions), Prayers and Run-on Sentences (Deerbrook Editions) and
Only Now (Deerbrook Editions). He has also written The View from Here
(Brynmorgen Press), a book of brief essays on craft and community.
Enjoy
an interview and craft talk with the poet from 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m.
The
reading, reception, and book signing begins at 6:30 p.m.
The
interview and craft talk is open to all those interested in reading and writing
poetry. Mr. Kestenbaum will be interviewed by former Portsmouth Poet Laureate Kimberly Cloutier Green, who will serve
as the emcee for both the afternoon and evening events.
RiverRun Bookstore After
Hours Poetry Hoot
Wednesday, April 13, 2016 from 7:00-9:00
p.m. at RiverRun Bookstore
FREE and OPEN to the PUBLIC
Featured
Readers Mark Palos and Ryan McLellan will entertain and
inspire you at this special event. Local poet, Tamara J. Collins, will kick off the second hour’s open mic. Bring
a poem to share!
Mark Palos has been the host and
slammaster of the Slam Free or Die reading since 2005. He performed at the
National Poetry Slam with the 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2013 NH teams and has been
coaching the team every year since 2008. In 2013, Slam Free or Die was voted
‘The Best Performance Poetry Venue In The World’ in an online reader’s poll
conducted by Write Bloody Publishing and less than a month later, for the first
time ever, Slam Free or Die made the semi-finals at the National Poetry Slam,
finishing 14th overall. Mark released his first book "What's In The
Box?" in 2008 and released a collaborative album, combining poetry and
music, with Ryan McLellan as part of their Northeastern poetry tour in
2009/2010. In 2010, he received an honorary mention (finishing behind Robert
Frost and Donald Hall) in the ‘Best Poet’ category in The Hippo Press’ annual
Best of NH poll. His work has appeared in ‘Multiverse’(2014), an anthology of
superhero poetry, released on Write Bloody Publishing and 'Again I Wait For
This To Pull Apart' (2016) a FreezeRay Press anthology. In the midst of all
this, he continues to host the weekly Slam Free or Die reading every Thursday
night at Milly's Tavern in Manchester. Mark has lived in NH all his life and supports
his poetry habit by slaving away for an evil corporation but dreams of some day
roaming the wasteland of a post-apocalyptic future in a modified Mustang on an
endless search for gasoline...
Check
out this piece NH Chronicle did on Slam Free or Die in 2008: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbhZifOCxmI
More
information on Slam Free or Die can be found here: http://facebook.com/slamfreeordie
Ryan McLellan is a teacher, poet, and
singer/songwriter originally from Waltham, Massachusetts. A three-time
recipient of the Esther Buffler Poetry-in-Schools Fellowship, he is the author
of six chapbooks, a full-length collection, "Plenty of Blood to Spare"
(Sargent Press), and two spoken word albums. His poems have appeared in a few
handfuls of journals over the years, most recently in Boston Poetry Magazine,
Lower East Side Review, The Subterranean Quarterly, and a forthcoming
publication in Buck Off Magazine. He lives in Maine with his fiance, their two
cats, and their new dog, and teaches writing and literature at Bridgton
Academy.
Katherine Towler: The Penny Poet of Portsmouth
Monday, April 18, 2016, from 7:00-8:00 p.m. at The Portsmouth Public Library
175 Parrott Ave, Portsmouth, NH 03801
(603) 427-1540 www.cityofportsmouth.com/library
FREE and OPEN to the PUBLIC
If
you missed the release party for Katie's book, you can see her at the
Portsmouth Public Library. RiverRun Bookstore will be on hand to sell
books!
“Around
town, it was said that he lived on air, though he really lived on coffee and
cigarettes. He was a union of unlikely opposites – one of the strangest and
loveliest of people, one of the poorest and richest, one of the most sardonic
and serious. He could be brilliant and intentionally obtuse, or quietly
contained and defiant, all in the same moment.”
The
Penny Poet of Portsmouth is a memoir of the author’s friendship with Robert
Dunn, a brilliant poet who spent most of his life off the grid in downtown
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, renting a room in a house without owning a phone,
car, computer, or television. The book is as well an elegy for a time and place
– the New England seaport city of the early 1990s that has been lost to
development and gentrification, capturing the life Robert was able to make in a
place rougher around the edges than it is today. It is a meditation on what
writing asks of those who practice it and on the nature of solitude in a
culture filled with noise and clutter. And it is, finally, the story of a rare
individual who charted an entirely unorthodox life that challenged the status
quo in every way.
The
Penny Poet of Portsmouth, bracing in its intimacy and elegance, is so much more
than a memoir, or a biography, or even an elegy. It is the fable of a shared
journey and a portrait of an abiding friendship — a fitting tribute to the
Penny Poet of Portsmouth.
RiverRun Bookstore After
Hours Poetry Hoot
Wednesday, April 20, 2016, from 7:00-9:00
p.m. at RiverRun Bookstore
142 Fleet Street, Portsmouth, NH 03801
(603) 431-2100ebsite: http://www.riverrunbookstore.com
FREE and OPEN to the PUBLIC
Featured
Readers Heidi Therrien and Lauren WB Vermette will move you and
touch your heart at this special event. Local poet, Tamara J. Collins, will kick off the second hour’s open mic. Bring
a poem to share!
Heidi Jean Therrien is a writer living in
Manchester, New Hampshire. In 2013, she competed on the winning team at the
inaugural NorthBEAST Underground Team Slam and was Slam Free Or Die’s 2012
Grand Slam Champion. She has spoken, sung, or read poems at Jazzmouth Poetry
Festival, on the radio, and in various dives and rooms around the country. Her
poems have appeared in Centripetal, Melusine, Dark Lady Press, and Angelic
Dynamo, among others. In 2014, she released two chapbooks—All This Tinder
and Arsenic Pearl. Influences include Brody Dalle, Janis Joplin, Ella
Fitzgerald, and Dow Mossman. When not writing, she can be found serenading open
mics with her ukulele, spending time with her cat (Winston Furchill), and
having heart-to-hearts. Her words are in love with you.
Lauren WB Vermette began
writing poetry at the age of 10 under the guidance of Portsmouth’s first Poet
Laureate, Esther Buffler. At age 13, she earned an honorable mention in a
national poetry contest, and in 1998 she was the inaugural winner of the Jane
Andres Poetry Prize at Berwick Academy. During college, Lauren had the
privilege of studying poetry with Mekeel McBride at UNH and was named the “Most
Promising Poet of 2013” by Farmington’s Goodwin Library.
A fixture at most of the local open mic poetry
scenes, Lauren has been a featured reader for Rochester Writer’s Night,
Rochester Library’s National Poetry Month Celebration, the First Friday
Coffeehouse in Exeter, Portsmouth Community Radio’s “Writers in the Round”
series, and Beat Night at The Press Room.
Preferring to be known as a “painter with words”,
Lauren writes poems that are audible works of art drawn from the heart, with
images that linger long after the last line has faded from her lips.
Flash Typewriter Poetry Contest
Sunday, April 24, 2016, from 6:30-8:30 p.m.
at RiverRun Bookstore
142 Fleet Street, Portsmouth, NH 03801
(603) 421-2100
Participants: $10 entry fee limited to 12
people RSVP ASAP to reserve your spot.
Spectators: FREE and OPEN to the PUBLIC
Contestants
are given a manual typewriter, a topic, and 30 minutes to type out an original
poem on that topic. There will be prizes, good prizes, and beer.
The
$10 entrance fee is donated to the Seacoast Family Food Pantry.
Celebrate Poetry in the Granite State
Tuesday, April 26, 2016, from 6:30-8:30 p.m.
at RiverRun Bookstore
142 Fleet Street, Portsmouth, NH 03801
(603) 421-2100
FREE and OPEN to the PUBLIC
This quintessential anthology includes 117 New Hampshire
poets originally featured in the online Poet Showcase curated by New Hampshire
Poets Laureate Patricia Fargnoli and W. E. Butts.
Visiting us on April 26 will be John-Michael Albert, Bill
Burtis, Maggie Dietz, Todd Hearon, Elizabeth Knies, Grace Mattern, Katherine
Morgan, Pat Parnell, John Perrault, Kyle Potvin, Maren Tirabassi and Mimi
White. Needless to say, this event is going to be an incredible celebration of
poetry in the granite state.
