Delving
into the cultural, political and religious themes for which he is known, Connecticut Poet
Laureate Richard Allen ushers in National Poetry Month tonight in New Canaan,
reading from his newest book, This Shadowy Place (St. Augustine Press, 2014), winner of the 2013 New Criterion Poetry Competition.
Credited
for applying the form to meditative, lyrical effect in charting the delicate
transition from the last century to this, Richard makes atypical use of
metered, rhyming poetry in Shadowy Place,
which follows on seven earlier books, most notably Present Vanishing: Poems (2008)—winner of the 2009 Connecticut Book
Award for Poetry, The Day Before: New Poems (2003) and Ode to the Cold War: Poems New and Selected (1997). All three are published by Sarabande Books. Among numerous
accolades for his work, Dick received a Pushcart Prize and a William
Carlos Williams Poetry Prize Runner-Up (First Finalist) for Best American
Poetry Book of the Year, as well as two poetry writing fellowships from the National
Endowment for the Arts and the Ingram Merrill Foundation.
One
of the most accomplished presenters (of his own and others’ poetry) in the
United States, Dick performed twice at inauguration ceremonies for Governor
Malloy. Judge for yourself as he reads his “The Horse Knows the Way” from a
program at the Noah
Webster Library in West Hartford, last year:
A six-time contributor to The Best American
Poetry series, Dick
has also placed more than 900 pieces in magazines with varied focci: The New
Yorker, The Hudson Review and
The New Republic, with more recent contributions appearing—or soon to—in
Emerson College’s Ploughshares, Tricycle (the long-standing Buddhist publication) and
American Scholar.
New
Canaan’s Gwen North Reiss, along with members of the St. Mark's Poetry Group,
which she directs, will also be celebrating the Month with their own material
(including contributions from six student poets of New Canaan High School).
Gwen has a degree from the Yale College of Literature. She began her career in book publishing with Houghton Mifflin and has penned The Winter Lodge: A White Mountain Mouse Tail (Salem, 2008), a children’s book illustrated by David North.
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| Gwen with photographer Pedro Guerrero |
Gwen has a degree from the Yale College of Literature. She began her career in book publishing with Houghton Mifflin and has penned The Winter Lodge: A White Mountain Mouse Tail (Salem, 2008), a children’s book illustrated by David North.
Her work has run in the Connecticut Review of Eastern Connecticut State University, the Atlanta Review and Rhino, a literary annual based in Evanston, Illinois. Her poem, “Illuminated” won the 92nd Street Y’s Rachel Wetzsteon Prize in 2012. Presently she works part-time at the Silvermine Arts Center and the Philip Johnson Glass House in New Canaan.
Where:
Adrian Lamb Room
New Canaan Library
New Canaan, CT
When:
Thursday, April 9,
2015
7 PM
Contact:
The New Canaan
Library, 203-594-5003; www.newcanaanlibrary.org
Register at http://goo.gl/T3DH21
