Librarians at Poetry in the Branches

How many of us have read a poem by Wislawa Szymborska, Thomas Hardy, Adrienne Rich, or Carl Sandburg in the past week? Month? Year? How about any poet? It seems that poetry is not as big a part of everyday life as it once was. Many of us at the Council think it would be wonderful if each library in Maine could offer programs that helped bring poetry back into people's lives. With the intention of making the first step toward that goal, the Maine Humanities Council coordinated a Poetry in the Branches training session on June 13 and 14 in Bangor. This training, designed to help librarians learn ways to promote poetry in the library and to find resources in their state, was created by Poets House in New York City and funded by Tom's of Maine, the Maine Humanities Council, and the Maine State Library. It was the first of its kind in Maine.

On June 13 and 14, librarians from around Maine converged on the Bangor Public Library to participate in workshops about how to present poetry programs and how to use and find real, live poets. They discussed such events for the public as open-mic sessions and poetry discussions, and each librarian received a healthy dose of inspiration and three volumes of poetry to help begin a new program.

A host of celebrities from the Maine poetry world were present, either by reading or facilitating a workshop. They included Baron Wormser, Candice Stover, Wesley McNair, Kathleen Ellis, and Kate Chappell. Other facilitators included Poets House staff Lee Briccetti, Marsha Howard, and Dave Johnson.

Attending librarians represented each of the three library districts in Maine, coming from Bangor, Brunswick, Camden, Dover-Foxcroft, Ellsworth, Belfast, Calais, Cumberland, Eastport, Guilford, Limerick, Lovell, Machias, Mount Vernon, Oakland, Orono, Portland, Saco, Scarborough, Tenants Harbor, Union, and Wiscasset. Expect to hear poetry in these towns soon.

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Say Something, by Peggy Moss, illustrated by Lea Lyon

Though Emile Zola might not agree (his novel L'Argent certainly expresses a different view), money can bring about a great deal of good. A $15,000 grant from the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation to the Maine Humanities Council's Born to Read early literacy initiative will support an anti-violence curriculum new to the Born to Read training operation. This grant will allow Born to Read to serve 45 educators and affect approximately 450 children in Penobscot and Piscataquis counties. Stories for a Peaceable Classroom, the new curriculum, will focus on themes of anti-violence and conflict resolution. Even among Maine's youngest children, a culture of violence is increasing due to exposure to violent toys and violent characters and imagery on television. Stories for a Peaceable Classroom will help caregivers prepare young children to confront cultural influences and help learn to question the make-believe violence around them.

All of us at the Maine Humanities Council offer our deepest gratitude to the Kings for this generous support.

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In July or August, please look for the next issue of Synapse http://www.mainehumanities.org/programs/litandmed/synapse/index.html, the e-newsletter of the Maine Humanities Council's Literature & Medicine: Humanities at the Heart of Health Care®. Synapse provides a forum for the Literature & Medicine community to share information, stories, questions, ideas, and suggestions, helping to make all Literature & Medicine programs as effective as they can be. Click on this link for more information about the MHC's Literature & Medicine program http://www.mainehumanities.org/programs/litandmed.

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One of the photographs by John G. Kelly on display as part of the Freeport Historical Society's 30th anniversary events, funded in part by a MHC grant Back to the Top

For a list of events funded by MHC grants, please click here: Grant Funded Events.

Longfellow's Evangeline will be at the center of a Ste-Agathe Historical Society project funded by the MHC]

The next deadlines for major grants are October 10 (draft) and November 10 (final). Deadlines for regular and discretionary grants are rolling.

$1,500 to the Arts Center at Kingdom Falls, Montville, for Artists' Lecture Series 2005
Public lectures and discussions by six well-known Maine artists who work in different media. The artists will present their work to the community and speak about their inspiration and the creative process.

$1,000 to the Norway Memorial Library, Norway, for Norway Summer Festival 2005
A speaker program for the Norway Summer Festival, celebrating the cultural heritage of the town and its important historical figures.

$1,000 to the Ste-Agathe Historical Society, St. Agatha, for Teacher Training for Acadian History and "Evangeline"
A project to provide teachers with training and curriculum guides on Acadian history and culture, with special attention to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's epic poem "Evangeline."

$750 to the Charlotte Hobbs Memorial Library, Lovell, for Signs of the Times: Collaborative Programming for Deaf and Hearing Audiences in Western Maine
A program offering American Sign Language classes to the public and a storytelling festival in both ASL & English.

$750 to Friends of the Scarborough Public Library, Scarborough, for One Book—One Community, Scarborough
This project will encourage citizens and summer visitors in Scarborough to read Ernie's Ark by Monica Wood and to discuss the book in organized meetings and spontaneous conversations.

$500 to the Boothbay Region Land Trust, Boothbay Harbor, for Videos of Boothbay Region Land Trust Properties
Professional editing of two videos showing the holdings of the Boothbay Regional Land Trust and the activities for which they are used.

$500 to the Dover-Foxcroft Historical Society, Dover-Foxcroft, for Civil War Day, 20th Maine at Roundtop
A day of Civil War remembrance and education centered on the 20th Maine and the battle of Little Roundtop at Gettysburg.

$500 to MSAD #59, Madison, for Madison's Maine Student Book Award Reading Program
A reading and discussion series for middle school students to improve their literacy levels as part of the Maine Student Book Award program.

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Dr. Robert L. McArthur, member of the MHC Board, has recently been honored by Maine's Supreme Judicial Court, which appointed him to join the trustees of the Maine Lawyers' Fund for Client Protection. Bob is a professor of philosophy at Colby College and is a member of the Task Force on the Code of Professional Responsibility. Congratulations, Bob.

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The effect of Literature & Medicine has spread well beyond Maine alone. The quote below illustrates what good this MHC-created program has done in other states:

When asked if she would participate in the program again, a nurse quickly replied "in a skinny minute." We pressed her — why? "Why would I do it again? It was a place, a safe place to share experiences and emotions that you don't have time for on the floor. And just because you don't have time for them, doesn't mean you don't experience them on some level. The stories helped me bring forward past experiences that I left behind and not dealt with or had time to reflect on." Quite simply and yet remarkably, the Literature & Medicine seminars were the only place this could happen and that, she said, "makes it invaluable." Another participant summed it up beautifully: Literature & Medicine was, she said, "a mind experience."

— Program Officer Jenny Edwards, North Carolina Humanities Council, on feedback she has heard from North Carolina's Literature & Medicine programs.

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Notes from an Open Book welcomes feedback from its readers. Please contact Diane Magras by email at diane@mainehumanities.org or by phone at (207)773-5051 ext. 208 (toll-free 1-866-637-3233, ext. 208) to respond.