Pat St. Pierre: “Composing Nows” In Words And Images

As this evening's Open Mic guest, Wilton resident Pat St. Pierre is a freelance writer and amateur photographer whose love for the written word and poetry, in particular, was kindled initially while attending New Canaan High School.

An admirer of the simplistic style of Emily Dickinson, Pat uses words and photography in capturing small vignettes, ranging from life's ordinary events to its darker journeys--as depicted with startling inevitability in the following from The Ephrastic Review:

The Family in the Red House

While walking through woods

Near a rambling river

I came upon a paint peeled red house

barn like in appearance,

broken window panes,

tall grasses covering old cement steps

unattended for years.

Who inhabited this red house

and where are they now?

I entered cautiously through the front door,

looked around the open space.

Dishes with cobwebs adorned

the wooden kitchen table.

Shriveled food occupied the old refrigerator.

The scene appeared as though 

a family simply disappeared.

Bedroom quilts covered most beds,

one bed remained unmade.

As I walked around

floorboards creaked like soft screams.

I slipped on a small throw rug;

moving the rug with my feet,

I discovered a trap door located in the floor.

Slowly, I lifted the rusty hinge.

There in the hollow space

were skeleton bodies.

The family stayed behind in the paint peeled red house.

Pat's award-winning adult and children's poetry, as well as assorted fiction/non-fiction, has run in The Camel Saloon, Fiction 365, Friday Flash Fiction, The Kids Ark, Silver Boomer Books, among many other venues, while her photography has graced the covers and pages of Gravel, Sediments, Our Day’s Encounter and Peacock Journal. 

Her first chapbook, Reality of Life, was published by Foothills Publishing, followed by Theater of Life (Finishing Line Press)--nominated in 2010 for the New England/Pen/LL Winship Award; fellow Finishing Line poet Debbie Richard considered Pat's third release, the photo-accompanied Full Circle (Kelsay Books, 2014) a “mosaic... of memories... reflect(ing) the seasons in nature, in human frailties, and in coming home again.”

An avid participant in many writing workshops over the years, Pat is a past member of the Saugatuck Poetry Group and the Rose and Thorn Literary Ezine. Go to her blog, pstpierre.wordpress.com, to view her latest photography and writing.

Hosted by Frank Chambers, Barnes & Noble’s Open Mic Poetry program meets the second Monday of each month on the main floor of the bookstore (located in the Stamford Town Center), beginning at 7:15 p.m.

For more information, contact:

Barnes & Noble

100 Greyrock Place, Suite H009

Stamford, CT 06906

203-323-1248