NEW VINEYARD – Everyone is invited to hop aboard the Maine Poetry Express workshop and community reading at New Vineyard Public Library. Maine Poetry Express is a program of the Maine Humanities Council and the Maine State Library to bring Maine poetry and poets to local libraries and their communities. Community members in New Vineyard will select Maine poems, learn to perform those poems in a workshop with Poet, Margaret Yocom, and host a community poetry-reading event, where all are invited to come together to celebrate Maine poetry.
The event will take place on Wednesday, August 14 at 6 p.m.
The Maine Poetry Express, originally designed by poet, Wesley McNair during his time as the Maine State Poet Laureate connects local poets in sharing Maine’s poetry with their community. “The landscape of Maine’s voices is varied and valuable, addressing so many aspects of what it can mean to experience life in this state. Part of the goal of the Poetry Express is to create a space for community members, local poets, and libraries to get together and share in that history, often surprising themselves,” said Jan Bindas-Tenney, Program Officer at the Maine Humanities Council.
The New Vineyard event will explore themes important to New Vineyard: the natural landscape, community and abandonment. Margaret Yocom will lead community participants in a poetry reading and performance workshop. Community members will perform selected Maine poems to an audience.
“As poet and folklorist, I treasure the power and magic of the spoken word. Poems spoken aloud lodge in our hearts; they accompany us on life’s journey as we pay kind attention to what is today and welcome visions of what yet may be,” said Margaret Yocom.
For the purpose of this program, the Maine State Library has provided specially curated resources, anthologies, and collections of Maine’s poetry—from the historical to the contemporary—for workshop participants to read and practice with and for the community to enjoy.
“The Maine State Library is thrilled to participate and overjoyed that our Maine Authors Collection, which captures the poetical literature of the Pine Tree State, from Maine’s native poets of 1854 to present day, will serve as a source of inspiration,” said Alison Maxell Director of Public Services and Outreach, Research & Innovation at the Maine State Library.
All are welcome to attend the main event on Thursday, October 18 at 5:30 p.m. No registration necessary.
