Next Year’s Words: A New Paltz Reading Forum

Next Year’s Words: A New Paltz Reading Forum presents an evening with three outstanding writers: Mary Newell, Marge Boyle, and Kateri Kosek On Wednesday, February 16, 2022 at 7:30 – 9:30 pm via Zoom.

The poet Mary Newell, whose doctorate focussed on the environment and embodiment in women’s writing, contrasts a childhood memory with a contemporary reflection on the dangers of migration in the poem “Adrift in undrinkable waters”.

As a toddler, bewitched by/ starfish, a rip tide almost / carried me away. Safe arms/ surrounded tumbling hollers.

Then, later in the poem,

Arms can’t reach through/ a newscast to help those/ stripped from home land/ who risk the turbulent vault// The ocean tantalizes.

Marge Boyle recalls childhood pain and joys in her memoire piece, “We’d Rather Be Home”, where the children are taken to the doctor’s office,

Dr. Kressler told her, each time, “Well brought up children don’t cry even when they get
a vaccination.”

We cried even when we saw a sibling getting a shot or receiving a shaming talk about sucking her thumb or not taking naps or being overweight. Mom’s stress about these visits grew even greater when Dad came with us because Dr. Kessler was doubly insistent on “good children” when both parents were present.

Kateri Kosek is a poet and essayist who lives and teaches English in the Berkshires. She also surveys the bird population and the inter-dependence of all that lives in our environment. From her poem, “Because everything is liminal”,

But even here the hardwoods are creeping up/ the mountain slopes, overtaking. The thrush cleaving// to its warming peaks. Liminal zones themselves on the move:/
the lines between wave and sand, sand and salt-/ marsh, saltmarsh and intractable oceanfront// real estate.

Register at: https://cutt.ly/NYW-Feb-2022

Sign-up for the open mic is held at the beginning of the program.

Like our FB page! https://www.facebook.com/NPNextYearsWords/
Sign up for our mailing list: On Facebook or at https://mailchi.mp/d69c149a083b/npnextyearswords