We’re kicking off National Poetry Month a day early with a special event in March! Join us at 3:00 p.m. on March 31st in the Rines Auditorium at Portland Public Library for Voices from the Heart of Home, a Saturday afternoon reading with a group of great Maine poets.
This event was inspired by a remarkable collection of poetry by Kifah Abdulla, Ekhlas Ahmed, Mihku Paul, Karin Spitfire, Robert Gibbons, Terry Grasse, and Joseph Coleman, all of whom will be reading. Poet Gary Lawless was given the 2017 Constance H. Carlson Public Humanities Prize by the Maine Humanities Council, and each month he selects a poem for their “Notes From An Open Book” monthly e-newsletter. All of this event’s poets have had poems featured there, and those poems can be seen here.
Their voices touch on deep waters—nature, culture, conflict, peace, place, being. Rivers flow through these poems, along with whales, canoes, smelt shacks and forests, birch bark, pink granite, a prison cell, the call to be heard and the power of a woman’s voice. In them, you’ll find the dream of a small window, just the size of a hand, opening into a brighter place.
Gary Lawless will M.C. the event; we’ll begin reading at 3 and wrap up before the library closes at 5.