SONNET READING IN GUILFORD MAY 13
I am pleased to be collaborating with Tom Ragle, also of Guilford, on a public reading of Sonnets on Wednesday, May 13. The 7:00 pm program will take place at Guilford Community Church, and is admission-free with donations welcome.
Tom is well-known as past president of Marlboro College, where he also taught literature. He is a recently-published poet, has given many readings of classic English poetry on WVEW, and is a longtime member of Write Action.
I have been reading aloud, both poetry and especially Christmas stories, since I arrived in Guilford in 1968.
Sharing a belief that poetry, which originated as an oral tradition, should be liberated from the page and read aloud, we decided to help revive the practice of public recitation of the works of both classic and less-known poets.
All the poems on this program are sonnets, giving unity to the reading, but also, because it is a short form, allowing the sampling of many eras and poets. The golden age of the sonnet, the Elizabethan period, is particularly represented, with poets such as Spenser, Shakespeare and Drayton. Donne and Milton are included, as are the Romantic poets, including Wordsworth and Keats. A favorite poet of both of us, Gerard Manley Hopkins, gets special attention. After two dozen English sonnets, we’ll move for the final dozen to American poets Edwin Arlington Robinson and Robert Frost. Several Vermont poets, as well as poets known to the readers, round out the evening.
Guilford Community Church is at 38 Church Drive, just off Route 5, the first left turn past the Guilford Country Store, and is an accessible facility.
