Poetry Reading Celebrates Guilford Poets Guild’s 20th Anniversary Anthology!

Book Launch!

20th Anniversary Anthology:
Our Changing Environment
Thursday, November 14

On Thursday, November 14, the Guilford Poets Guild will celebrate the publication of its 20th Anniversary Anthology, Our Changing Environment, with a special reading by seventeen of the poets featured in the book. The event will take place from 6:30 – 8:30pm at the Guilford Free Library, and books will be available for purchase ($20.00).

Readers for the evening include Laura Altshul, Victor Altshul, Barbara Batt, Sherri (Sheryll) Bedingfield, Daniel Boroughs, Jill Carter, Dolores Hayden, Roberta Whitman Hoff, Joan Hofmann, Celeste Markle, John Muro, Isabelle Paris, Michael Pedevillano (reading for Tony Pedevillano), Lorraine Riess, Stephen Roane, Krista Surprenant, Karen Torop, Edwina Trentham, and Mary Buell Volk.

From more than 200 poems submitted by Connecticut poets, 50 were selected for inclusion in the Anthology. In addition to selected poems, the book features poems by members of the Guilford Poets Guild, as well as winners of the Guilford High School 2018 Poetry Contest, an annual event sponsored by the GPG each year.

The publication was coordinated by the GPG Anthology Committee: Juliana Harris, Jane Muir, Jen Payne, Elizabeth Possidente, and Gordy Whiteman. Selecting and organizing this 128-page compendium was done by editor Edwina Trentham. Trentham taught English at Asnuntuck Community College, in Enfield, Connecticut, for twenty-seven years, where she was the Founding Editor of Freshwater Poetry Journal. A collection of her poetry, Stumbling into the Light, was published by Antrim House in 2004, and she was a featured reader at the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival in June 2005. She was awarded a 2010 Solo Writer’s Fellowship from the Greater Hartford Arts Council and the Beatrice Fox Auerbach Foundation Fund at the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving. She has published work in a variety of periodicals, and her work is included in five poetry anthologies. She teaches poetry workshops throughout the state and is a member of Connecticut River Poets.

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Guilford Poets Guild’s 20th Anniversary Anthology
Our Changing Environment
8 x 8 paperback, 128 pages
ISBN: 978-0-578-55715-1
$20.00 (plus $2.75 shipping per book)

Our Changing Environment will also be available at upcoming GPG events, and from Breakwater Books in Guilford.

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The Guilford Free Library is located at 67 Park Street in Guilford. Please register by phone (203-453-8282), online (guilfordfreelibrary.org) or in person.

 

Together We Rise 2019 Poetry Series

Together We Rise 2019 Poetry Series will host its final reading for this year on Sunday, November 17, from 2:00 to 4:00 PM at Two Wrasslin’ Cats, 374 Town Street, East Haddam. The event will feature a reading by Guilford Poets Guild member Nan Meneely, together with Greg Coleman and Edwina Trentham, as well as a read-in of poems exploring the high costs of war and our abiding desire for peace.

Nan Meneely, who lives in Essex and is a member of Together We Rise, and East Haddam poets Greg Coleman and Edwina Trentham will read from Meneely’s acclaimed book, Letter from Italy, 1944, which is based on letters from her father when he was serving in World War II and was the only book of poetry awarded in the Legacy Non-fiction category of the 2016 Eric Hoffer Book Awards. Letter from Italy, 1944 was also noted by the Hartford Courant as one of thirteen important books published by Connecticut writers in 2013.

Following the reading from Meneely’s book, a selection of poetry about war and peace will be provided. Participants are invited to read from this selection, encouraged to bring poems on this topic to read, or simply come to listen and enjoy. Refreshments will be served. For more information contact Carol Chaput at carol.chaput1@snet.net or Edwina Trentham at trentham@comcast.net

Moses Gunn Play Company presents EDUCATING RITA

 

GPG members Gwen Gunn and Norman Thomas Marshall have recently created the Moses Gunn Play Company, dedicated to the memory of Moses Gunn. Together, they present staged and concert readings of dramatic and comedic plays for the shoreline community. Original and well-known plays will be presented as well as little known masterpieces.

Fall Poetry Extravaganza

A Celebration of Art at Clinton Art Gallery

You are invited to a celebration of art, featuring GPG member Pat O’Brien, Lorraine Reiss, and Mary Volk. Pat, Lorraine, and Mary are poets who frequently attend and read their poetry at the gallery’s Sunday Series Poetry events. In addition to their poetry, they are artists! Clinton Art Gallery is proud to feature their art during the month of November 3rd to 24th.

Their Opening and Reception on Sunday, November 3 will take place between 2:00-4:00 pm. Refreshments will be served. The event is free and open to the public. An additional reception will take place on Clinton’s FIRST THURSDAY, November 7, between 4:00-7:00 pm

Clinton Art Gallery, 20 East Main Street, Clinton, CT. Parking: parallel parking on street ~ or ~ the old CVS parking lot ~ or ~ municipal parking lot across the street

Moses Gunn Play Company presents OFF-SEASON

 

GPG members Gwen Gunn and Norman Thomas Marshall have recently created the Moses Gunn Play Company, dedicated to the memory of Moses Gunn. Together, they present staged and concert readings of dramatic and comedic plays for the shoreline community. Original and well-known plays will be presented as well as little known masterpieces.

New Poetry Chapbook Explores Death, Grief, and Gratitude

 

Three Chairs Publishing is pleased to announce the publication of its newest book, Waiting out the Storm, a collection of poems about death, grief, and gratitude by Branford writer and Guilford Poets Guild member Jen Payne.

Reflecting on the sudden loss of a close friend, Payne returns, as she does in her past books LOOK UP! and Evidence of Flossing, to the solace of nature. On the opening pages, she allows the poet Rilke to remind the reader “Through the empty branches the sky remains. It is what you have. Be earth now, and evensong. Be the ground lying under that sky.” Written from the shoreline of Connecticut and the wide and windswept beaches of Cape Cod, this book is an intimate look at life transitions and how we cope with the unexpected.

Payne is the owner of Words by Jen, a graphic design and marketing company in Branford. She has published four books: LOOK UP! Musings on the Nature of Mindfulness (2014), Evidence of Flossing: What We Leave Behind (2017), FLOSSSING (2019), and Waiting out the Storm (2019). Installations of her poetry were featured in exhibitions at the Arts Council of Greater New Haven and the Kehler Liddell Gallery (New Haven). Her work has been published by The Aurorean, Six Sentences, the Story Circle Network, and WOW! Women on Writing; in the international anthology Coffee Poems: Reflections on Life with Coffee; and in The Perch, a publication by the Yale Program for Recovery & Community Health. She is a member of the Guilford Poets Guild, the Connecticut Poetry Society, Guilford Art Center, and the New Haven Arts Council.

Copies of Waiting Out the Storm (5.5 x 8.5, paperback, 44 pages, $15.00) may be purchased at the Martha Link Walsh Gallery in Branford, and online from Three Chairs Publishing, www.3chairspublishing.com.

Author photo by Christine Chiocchio.