Holiday Roundtable

The Guilford Poets Guild invites all local poets and lovers of poetry to come to their annual Holiday Roundtable on Thursday, December 8, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Greene Art Gallery, 29 Whitfield Street, Guilford. Poets are invited to read one or two poems (your own or simply beloved by you) reflecting the warmth and community of this season. You may also bring a new (or very gently used) favorite children’s book whose place in your heart you can share briefly before you read your poetry. At the end of the evening, these books will be wrapped for donation to the Branford Homeless Shelter. The reading is free and open to the public.  Refreshments are served.  For more information call 453-8836.

Come hear Juliana and Karen in November

For their November Second Thursday Poetry Series the Guilford Poets Guild will present two longtime Guild members, Juliana Harris and Karen Gronback Johnson, Thursday, November 10, 7:00 p.m. at the Greene Art Gallery, 29 Whitfield in Guilford. The reading will be preceded by an open mic from 7 to 7:30 p.m. Juliana Harris won her first award for poetry when she was 14 and has been writing ever since.  A member of the Guilford Poets Guild, her work has appeared in The Mid-America Poetry Review, The Kansas City Star, The New York Times, Best Times and Chicken Soup for the Soul among others.  She published her first novel, The Fork in the Road, last year and is currently at work on her second.  She lives in Guilford. Karen Gronback Johnson is an ordained pastor in the United Church of Christ, and serves the Old Stone Church in East Haven. As she herself explains, “Karen Gronback Johnson was published a few times long ago. For the past ten years she has been exiled to another life, where she attempts to promote the cause of goodness and love in the world, with a sense of humor.” The reading is free and open to the public.  Refreshments are served.  For more information call 453-8836.

Maureen Corcoran to read for us in October

The Guilford Poets Guild proudly presents poet Maureen Corcoran for their Second Thursday Poetry Series event on Thursday, October 13, 7 p.m. at the Greene Art Gallery, 29 Whitfield in Guilford. The reading will be preceded by an open mic from 7 to 7:30 p.m.

Maureen Corcoran was born in Bethesda, Maryland, and earned degrees from the University of Rhode Island and Wesleyan University. She has resided in Guilford, Connecticut for 30 years, where she raised two children. She was a founding member of the Guilford Poets Guild, and owns and manages Breakwater Books on the historic Guilford Green. Her poems have appeared in such journals as Wellspring, Slant, Sycamore Review, Calyx, and Caduceus. Her chapbook Almost Beautiful was published by Finishing Line Press in 2009.

The reading is free and open to the public.  Refreshments are served.  For more information call 453-8836.

Our Fall reading series begins

The Guilford Poets Guild will be presenting the poet Tim Mayo for the first reading in their Fall 2011 Second Thursday Poetry Series on September 8, beginning at 7 p.m. at the Greene Art Gallery, 29 Whitfield in Guilford. The reading will be preceded by an open mic from 7 to 7:30 pm.

Tim Mayo holds an ALB, cum laude, from Harvard University and an MFA from The Bennington Writing Seminars.  Among the many places his poems and reviews have appeared are Atlanta Review, Avatar Review, Babel Fruit, The Brattleboro Reformer, 5A.M., Inertia Magazine, Poetry International, Poet Lore, Redheaded Stepchild,  Verse Wisconsin, Verse Daily, Web Del Sol Review of Books, The Worcester Review and Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac.

His chapbook The Loneliness of Dogs (Pudding House) was a finalist in the WCDR 2008 Chapbook Challenge in Ajax, Ontario, Canada, and his first full length collection The Kingdom of Possibilities (Mayapple Press) was a semi finalist for the 2009 Brittingham and Pollock Awards and a finalist for the 2009 May Swenson Award.

He has been twice nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology, once for a Pushcart Prize and was chosen as a top finalist for the Paumanok Award. He lives in Brattleboro, Vermont where he substitute teaches in the public school system and at the Brattleboro Retreat Meadows School and where he also works on the Author Selection and Planning Committee for the Brattleboro Literary Festival.

The reading is free and open to the public.  Refreshments are served.  For more information call 453-8836.

Barbara Purcell in May

The Guilford Poets Guild will present poet Barbara  Purcell at the Second Thursday reading on May 12 at the Greene Art Gallery, 29 Whitfield.  The reading will be preceded by an open mic from 7 to 7:30 pm.

Barbara Purcell is a young and up-coming poet whose full-length book Black Ice Poems has already garnered five stars on Amazon. Her “fresh and gritty” poems have been read at various venues in New York City.  ”She writes straightforwardly of bulemia, nude modeling, love betrayed, and early warning signs of things amiss.  There are no fake notes here,” according to critic Colette Inez. Purcell also teaches yoga.

The reading is free and open to the public.  Refreshments are served.  For more information call 453-8836.

Student Poets to read at Greene Art Gallery

In front, Karolina Heleno, Sonya Zhou, and Sarah Eppler-Epstein; in rear Emily Espinal, Jaclyn Triebel, Jesse Iassogna, and Conor Reichart.

The student winners of the annual poetry contest at Guilford High School, whose names were revealed during the high school’s annual Poetry Day, will be the featured readers at the Guilford Poets Guild’s Second Thursday Poetry Reading at the Greene Art Gallery on Thursday, April 14 at 7 pm.  First prize went to Sonya Zhou for her poem, “metro-north,” second prize to Sarah Eppler-Epstein for “Miscalculations,” and third prize was given to Helen Brechlin for her poem “Back Broken.” In addition, in a separate contest funded by GPG member Gordy Whiteman, Jaclyn Triebel was awarded a  prize for the best poem about Guilford (“Guilford Train Station”). Honorable mentions  for the poetry prize went to Emily Espinal, Rebecca Hasenfeld, Karolina Heleno, Jesse Iassogna, and Conor Reichart. The evening reading is open to the public, and the first half hour will be an open mic. Refreshments will be served.  The Greene Art Gallery is at 29 Whitfield Street (Guilford) behind Whitfield’s restaurant. We hope to see you there!

See the publicity we received about this contest in the Guilford Courier for April 28, 2011.

The Connecticut Poet Laureate is coming

The Guilford Poets Guild is excited to present Dick Allen as featured reader for our Second Thursday Poetry Series, Thursday, March 10, 7 p.m. at the Greene Art Gallery, 29 Whitfield Street, Guilford (behind Whitfield’s restaurant on the Guilford Green).

Allen is one of the founders of Expansive poetry, a movement that started in the 1980s, and his numerous poetry collections include Present Vanishing: Poems (2008) and Ode to the Cold War: Poems New and Selected (1997). He has won the Robert Frost Prize for Poetry, the Hart Crane Poetry Prize, the Union League Civic & Arts Foundation Poetry Prize, the May Caroline Davis Poetry Prize from the Poetry Society of America, the San Jose Bicentennial Poetry Prize, and a Pushcart Prize, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He was the Director of Creative Writing and Charles A. Dana Endowed Chair Professor at the University of Bridgeport until his retirement in September 2001. In 2010 he was named poet laureate of Connecticut and will serve in that position through 2015.

There will be an open mike from 7-7:30 p.m. and refreshments will be served.

Welcoming the New Year

The Guilford Poets Guild is excited to announce that the first featured reader in our Second Thursday Spring Series, on March 10, will be the new Connecticut Poet Laureate, Dick Allen. We’ll be telling you more about Dick Allen and our other featured readers as the season develops.  Check our “About” page to see our lineup for 2011.

In the meantime you can enjoy our Poets’ Corner in the Guilford Town Hall. This season’s offering, poems about birds, features poems by Guild members Julie Harris, Pat O’Brien, Gordy Whiteman, Sharon Olson, Gwen Gunn and Margaret Iacobellis. The display also features photographs by Audrey Fitting and will be on display through early February 2011.

Come one, come all

The Guilford Poets Guild invites all local poets to come to their annual Holiday Roundtable on Thursday, December 9, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at The Greene Art Gallery, 29 Whitfield Street, Guilford. Poets are invited to read one or two poems (your own or simply beloved by you) reflecting the warmth and community of this season. You may also bring a new (or very gently used) favorite children’s book whose place in your heart you can share briefly before you read your poetry. At the end of the evening, these books will be wrapped for donation to the Branford Homeless Shelter. Refreshments will be served.

Guild members Olson and Meneely featured in November

The Guilford Poets Guild is pleased to feature two of its members, Nancy Fitz-Hugh Meneely and Sharon Olson, for the reading on November 11, 7-9 p.m. at the Greene Art Gallery. As usual there will be an open mic from 7-7:30. Refreshments will be served.

Nancy Fitz-Hugh Meneely says she’s getting the hang of retirement after twenty gratifying/distressing years with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Among other wonderfully small-town volunteer activities, she chairs the Guilford Poets Guild. Her poems and articles have appeared in Blueline, The Innisfree Poetry Journal, The Journal of the American Medical Association, and The Washington Post.

Sharon Olson moved to Guilford in July 2008 from Palo Alto, California, where she worked as a librarian for the Palo Alto City Library for 29 years. Her full-length book of poems, The Long Night of Flying, was published by Sixteen Rivers Press in 2006. Her work has appeared most recently in Arroyo Literary Review, Crab Orchard Review, U.S. 1 Worksheets, and The Sand Hill Review.