Guilford Poets Guild

The Guilford Poets Guild is grateful for the excellent leadership of outgoing President Julie Harris and extends a warm welcome to members Gwen Gunn and Norman Marshall as the GPG new Co-Presidents!

On November 10th, Guilford Poets Guild will host a live poetry reading as part of GPG’s Second Thursday Poetry Series featuring Karen Johnson!

Karen Gronback Johnson was born and brought up in CT. After serving as pastor of the Old Stone Church, United Church of Christ, in East Haven, for almost 15 years, she retired to the mountains of southwestern Virginia, where she has found a gentler way of life among gardens, woods, and a big old house with a wrap around porch. In 2020, her first book of poetry, Story Journey Spirit, was published through Human Error Publishing. Her advice to fellow poets: don’t release a book during a pandemic.

Join us to hear Karen’s poetry on Thursday November 10th at 6:30pm. We’ll begin with an Open Mic and then segue into hearing Karen’s words from 7-8pm. Please register for this exciting evening of poetry on the Guilford Free Library website.

To join this event virtually, please join us at: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7746376275

On October 13th, Guilford Poets Guild will host a Zoom poetry reading as part of their monthly Second Thursday Poetry Series featuring Julian Matthews! Julian Matthews is an emerging poet from Malaysia of mixed-race minority, who is published in The American Journal of Poetry, Beltway Poetry Quarterly and Borderless Journal, among others.  He stumbled onto poetry by accident five years ago at a writing workshop. That happy accident has turned into a rabid compulsion. He is still extricating himself from the crash. Welcome to his recovery. 

Join us to hear Julian’s poetry on Thursday October 13th at 6:30pm. We’ll begin with an Open Mic and then segue into hearing Julian’s work from 7-8pm. Please register for this exciting evening of poetry on the Guilford Free Library website.

On September 8th, via Zoom, Guilford Poets Guild will welcome The Write Blend to kick off the Fall’s GPG Second Thursday Series! The Write Blend is a unique, culturally diverse poetry ensemble of six poets whose poetry is published in a new collection of poems, entitled “The Write Blend”. The poetry ensemble has most recently been featured on Poets vs Pandemic sponsored by Café Muse and Word Works Organizations. The Write Blend has read at the Library of Congress for the Maryland State Poet Laureate, Grace Cavalieri’s, “The Poet and The Poem”. The Write Blend has also performed for a Black History Poetry Festival, sponsored by the William Joseph Seymour Foundation in Oxon Hill United Methodist Church.

To join us and listen to The Write Blend, please register on the Guilford Free Library Website: http://guilfordfreelibrary.org/ There will be an Open Mic from 6:30-7pm followed by The Write Blend’s poetry from 7-8pm.

History of The Write Blend: Founded in July 2018 by Diane Wilbon Parks. Diane writes that five poets were asked to become a part of something wonderfully different and diverse because of their own unique voices, reading and writing styles, and they agreed to assemble as The Write Blend. Many times, poetry events/readings do not have a culturally diverse representation in the audiences and or featured poets; it was critical to establish a culturally diverse poetry circle (ensemble) of poets who could offer a broader landscape of poetry to all audiences. As a result, the six poets, including founder Diane Wilbon Parks, have become the right (write) blend of voices that deliver a unique signature in our body of work and writing style, as well as our individual contributions as leaders and creatives in the poetry community.

Join us on Zoom to listen to The Write Blend on September 8 – please register here.

After a long viral hiatus, the MOSES GUNN PLAY COMPANY resumes its play-reading series at the Guilford Free Library. Saturday’s featured work is MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS by John Von Hartz which was successfully produced in New York. Mel Gussow of the New York Times praised the play, writing “The interrelationships in a close, mutually dependent family of women—grandmother, mother and daughter— are examined with humor and perspicacity in John von Hartz’s new play, ‘Mothers and Daughters… What makes the work appealing is that it is not always clear to us or to the characters which one is acting as the mother and which is acting as the daughter…The play has an endearing protagonist and a theme—mothers and daughters who are ‘blood sisters and best friends’ as well as rivals— that strikes a chord of universality.’” Please register for the play reading here: https://www.guilfordfreelibrary.org/moses-gunn-play-company/45394/ The MGPC has, to date, performed two other plays by Von Hartz, A MAN IN THE HOUSE and OFF-SEASON. The cast on Saturday will include MGPC veterans Primi Carey, Norman Marshall, Susan Jacobson, Julie Fitzpatrick and Carolyn Marble.

Join us for an evening of poetry with Margaret Gibson on May 26th at the Guilford Library! She will begin sharing with us at 6:30pm. There will be no open mic at this event.

MARGARET GIBSON, Poet Laureate of the State of Connecticut, is the author of 13 books of poems, all from LSU Press, most recently The Glass Globe, 2021.  She has published her poems widely in journals such as Georgia Review, Gettysburg Review, Southern Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Image Journal.

AWARDS include the Lamont Selection for Long Walks in the Afternoon, her second book, 1982; the Melville Kane Award (co-winner) for Memories of the Future, (1986), and the Connecticut Book Award for One Body, 2008.  The Vigil was a Finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry in 1993.  Broken Cup was a Finalist for 2016 Poets’ Prize, and the title poem from the book won a Pushcart Prize for that year.  “Passage,” from Not Hearing the Wood Thrush, was included in The Best American Poetry, 2017.  

She has written a memoir, The Prodigal Daughter, University of Missouri Press, 2008.

Gibson is Professor Emerita, University of Connecticut.  She lives in Preston, CT.  For more information, visit her website:  www.margaretgibsonpoetry.com

As Connecticut State Poet Laureate (2019-2022) Margaret Gibson has been awarded an Academy of American Poets Grant.  The grant is intended both to support Gibson’s poetry and to allow her to fund various poetry projects from May 2020 to May 2021.  As Poet Laureate, Gibson has taken as her social focus “Poetry and the Environment during Climate Crisis” and is funding videos of Connecticut poets reading their poems about the environment in natural settings and “Green Poetry Cafes.”

Waking Up to the Earth:  Connecticut Poets in a Time of Global Climate Crisis, edited and with an introduction by Gibson, was published March 4, 2021.

This program which is cosponsored by the Guilford Poets Guild will be held in the Edith B. Nettleton Historical Room.

Please register here: https://www.guilfordfreelibrary.org/an-evening-of-poetry-with-margaret-gibson-connecticut-state-poet-laureate/45168/

On Thursday May 12th from 6:30-8pm, the Guilford Poets Guild will host a quartet of talented young poets at its Second Thursday Poetry Reading! The following Guilford High School Poets have won the GPG Prizes.

First Prize:  “Seams” by Leila Ruser

Second Prize:  “Re-Gifted” by Mea Scarpellino

Third Prize:  “On the Train” by Julia Schroers

Honorable Mention:  “Time to Go Back” by Anushree Ajgonkar

We will meet in-person to hear their poetry in the Meeting Room at the Guilford Library. Thanks to George Cooksey, English Department Chair at GHS, and Hannah Pat Oboyski, GPG Member and paraprofessional at GHS, for arranging this exciting annual poetry event with us. Please register on the Guilford Library website to reserve your seat. There will be an Open Mic for the first half hour and then we’ll segue into listening to the winning poets’ share their work. See you there!

On April 14th, The Guilford Poets Guild will welcome Poet Alison D. Moncrief Bromage to our Second Thursday Poetry Series!

The evening will LIVE in the Historical Room at the Guilford Library. We will begin at 6:30pm with an Open Mic and our Guest Poet will share her work from 7-8pm. If you would like to participate in the Open Mic, please email: guilfordpoets@gmail.com. To join us for this in-person event, please register here: https://www.guilfordfreelibrary.org/

Alison’s Bio: Alison D. Moncrief Bromage’s debut poetry collection Daughter, Daedalus was the 2016 winner of the T.S.Eliot Prize for Poetry from Truman State University. Her poems have appeared in The Paris Review, [PANK], The Denver Quarterly and elsewhere. In 2019, Alison debuted The Shadow Itself is A Place, a collaborative dance and poetry performance with choreographer Angharad Davies, at Green Space Studio in Long Island City. She works as a writing instructor at Yale University and Foote School and lives in Branford, CT with her husband, two kids, five chickens, 20,000 bees and one cat.