BRATTLEBORO-ByWay Books & More, 399 Canal St., will host a special showcase of poets from The Country in the Mirror, edited by Sharon Darrow and published by Rootstock Publishing, Saturday June 27, from 4 to 6 p.m.
This evening of poems of protest and witness will be headlined by Martin Espada, a renowned poet and the first Latino to receive the Ruth Lily Poetry Prize. Espada is a professor of poetry at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Other notable poets reciting will include Rachel Hadas, who has received many awards including the Guggenheim Fellowship and an Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and Chard deNiord, winner of the Pushcart Prize and Poet Laureate of Vermont from 2015 to 2019.
They will be joined by other Vermont poets: Arlene Distler, Shalom Gorewitz, Terry Hauptman, Nathalie Kramer, Tim Mayo, Stephen Minkin, Eva Zimet, and Sharon Darrow.
Edited by Darrow, The Country in the Mirror is an anthology of poems written in response to the troubles of our times. Darrow has been a member of the Vermont College of Fine Arts writing faculty for more than 20 years and is an award-winning author of fiction and poetry for children and adults. Born in Oklahoma and raised in Texas, Darrow lived much of her adult life in the Chicago area, and now resides in Vermont.
The collection comprises a variety of voices, from new writers to well-seasoned poets, widely published and celebrated from across the United States and Canada. The 90 poets in the anthology hold a mirror to our diversity, freedom of expression, and collective humanity. These poems about immigration, detention, civil rights, loss of voice, climate change, global wars, the right to choose, and more on social and political issues, “remind us of the liberties all of us have as Americans, and to the caution of their loss,” said organizers in a news release.
The Country in the Mirror is available for purchase at ByWay Books. The poets who read will be available to sign. Other published works by the poets are also available for purchase. The event is free, the public is invited, and refreshments will be served. For more information, contact Severia A. Drake at 802-490-8014 or [email protected].
This Arts item was submitted to The Commons.