Maine Humanities Council

• 1Let’s Talk About It
• 2News from the MHC
• 3Spotlight On: Facilitator Profile
• 4Grants and Events
• 5What We’re Reading
• 6Quote of the Month

“In reality, every reader is, while he is reading, the reader of his own self. The writer’s work is merely a kind of optical instrument which he offers to the reader to enable him to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have experienced in himself. And the recognition by the reader in his own self of what the book says is the proof of its veracity.”

— Time Regained
Marcel Proust

1. Let’s Talk About It

Life is difficult for libraries these days. Especially for small libraries, it can be prohibitively expensive to keep many full-time staff, and that’s almost always necessary in order to hold the special programs that help encourage library use in the first place. For rural libraries, these events can be critical, and give libraries a hand in being vibrant community centers.

The MHC introduced Let’s Talk About It in 1985 to help fill this need. A free program offered to all Maine libraries, Let’s Talk About It uses humanities scholars as facilitators who lead discussions about books from themed series. The purpose is dual: strengthening the state’s small libraries and also their communities by bringing people together in open conversation.

Just recently, the MHC learned of budget cuts that will threaten this program. Let’s Talk About It has received important support from the Maine State Library during the past two years. Like many other state-funded agencies, the Maine State Library has seen some major cuts. This means that the agency will not be able to continue its $25,000 grant to Let’s Talk About It for 2009, which had comprised almost half of the program’s budget.

Many readers of this list will receive a letter in the next week or two requesting support for Let’s Talk About It. We don’t take these appeals lightly; in this case, replacing the $25,000 grant would mean continuing the program’s reach to 31 libraries and more than 700 community members in Maine.

Let’s Talk About It is particularly precious to small towns. “Without the ‘packaged’ series, where you have done so much of the planning and organizing AND provided a facilitator, our library would not have had an adult book discussion group,” wrote the librarian of Lubec Memorial Library. “Library staff is too part-time and over-extended. BUT it is always something I have always felt we should offer and the participants clearly liked it-especially during the winter.”

If you are interested in supporting Let’s Talk About It, please contact Diane Magras. And thank you.

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2. MHC News

In March, the MHC hosted the judging meeting for this year’s Letters About Literature contest. Letters About Literature is a national program from the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress in partnership with Target Stores. Entrants are asked to write a short letter to an author - living or dead - explaining how that author’s book changed their way of viewing the world and themselves. The MHC presents this project in Maine thanks in part to the David Royte Fund.

The contest, open to all fourth through twelfth graders, offers a chance for young readers to reflect on the work of their favorite authors, think about why reading their work was such an engaging experience, and then express those thoughts and feelings. More than 1,000 Maine students sent in letters this year, and the following received first place awards:

Benjamin McKenna, a fourth grader from Appleton Village School in Appleton, received first place for grades four to six for his letter to Gary Paulsen about The Voyage of the Frog. In his letter, Benjamin compares the grieving of the character David over his Uncle Owen’s death to Benjamin’s own experience of sadness and loss over the recent death of his grandfather. Benjamin wrote, “Like Uncle Owen, my grandfather wanted his ashes scattered over water. He wanted his ashes to go over the Kenai River in Alaska, one of his favorite fishing spots…. I know someday when I grow up and fish in Alaska that I will think of him when I am there. His ashes will be in the wind like his laughter, in the water like him fishing, and on the land, like his footsteps walking along with me as he did when he was alive.”

Dana Vigue, a seventh grader from Lawrence Junior High in Fairfield, received first place for grades seven and eight for her letter to Janet Shaw about her novel Meet Kaya. Dana’s experience reading this book helped her gain confidence in who she is as an individual during the challenging time of adolescence. Dana wrote of learning to embrace her heritage, “Kaya’s adventures captivated me. I felt like it was me who was flying through the air on a black stallion. I was the girl who took care of my dear and very best friend. I was living in an animal hide Tee Pee in a beautiful field. When I finished the first book, I quickly went out and bought the entire series. I read them every night, like a ritual. They opened my eyes to the beauty of being Native American.”

Michael Weber, a ninth grader at Edward Little High School in Auburn, received first place for grades nine through twelve for his letter to Alex Sanchez concerning his novel Rainbow Boys. Michael found support in understanding and expressing his sexual orientation through the realistic and likable characters in this book. Prior to reading Rainbow Boys, he felt alone. “At some point, during all our lives, we feel like we are the only person in the entire world and no one could understand how we feel. That is how I felt all the time when I started hitting my teenage years. I felt that I was the only person like me in the whole world, and I thought I would feel like that way my entire life. .... Reading this one story was one of the most wonderful experiences I’d had in a LONG time! For the first time, I felt that I wasn’t alone! There were characters in this story that I connected to in levels that I had never done with anyone else in my life. This novel wasn’t just a good read; it truly helped me find myself.”

The first place winners automatically advance to the national competition where two students from each level will be awarded a $500 Target gift card and a $10,000 Reading Promotion Grant to the library of their choice from Target.

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“Houses and Homes,” the theme for this month’s Born to Read book list, explores the many kinds of homes that people and animals can have. From family houses to apartments to birds’ nests, the books on this list will help broaden children’s minds and realize that their homes aren’t the only ones out there.

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Podcast Update—Missed Winter Weekend? You can hear three great talks from it thanks to Humanities on Demand, the MHC’s podcast project. Talks by Peter Aicher, Barbara Boyd, and Michael Putnam on Rome and The Aeneid are now available. Also new on this section of the MHC’s website: presentations from the Stonecoast M.F.A. program, including a reading by Penelope Schwartz Robinson and a one-act play by Cindy Williams Gutiérrez; and, in the children’s section, a performance by storyteller Pamella Beliveau. Finally, the Portland Public Library’s Brown Bag Lunch Series had presentations by authors Martha Tod Dudman (Black Olives) and Elizabeth Marshall Thomas (The Old Way: A Story of the First People and The Hidden Life of Dogs) that are now online. As with all MHC podcasts, just clicking on the link and turning up your computer’s sound will allow you to listen.

3. Facilitator Profile: New Books, New Readers

Bangor resident Annaliese Jakimides brings a unique perspective to her facilitation of several MHC programs: New Books, New Readers, Born to Read, and Let’s Talk About It. She is a writer whose prose and poetry have been published in many journals and magazines, including Utne, GQ, Hip Mama, and Beloit Poetry Journal; included in collections (including The Other Side of Sorrow, The Long Meanwhile, and most recently About Face, which will be published this month); and chosen from 35,000 submissions for inclusion in National Public Radio’s This I Believe series that was broadcast in January. Annaliese writes a monthly personal essay and an arts interview for the Bangor Metro, for which she is also a consulting editor and copy editor. Annaliese tells us that “probably two of the more meaningful additions to my ability to contribute to these Humanities programs are the 30 years I spent on a dirt road in a very small town in northern Maine and the parenting of my three children.” When she leads a discussion, Annaliese brings to the table not only her experience of being a rural Mainer but also the extensive background of a writer.

This comes in very handy for New Books, New Readers in particular, where new adult readers are being introduced to the wonders and joys of literature through a facilitated reading and discussion program using the best of children’s literature.

“I am not there to teach literacy,” Annaliese told the MHC. “I am there to explore literature and to make the life connections that great literature makes. With those life connections, we create readers who are explorers in the best sense of that word.”

She asks participants to think about the basics of publishing-covers, dedications, illustrations, and who (publisher or writer/illustrator) gets the final say and why—and what their choices would have been. With students’ participation, she studies patterns in the language. She talks about Maine roots and how that influences a writer’s or illustrator’s vision. She encourages them to tell their own stories and to read as much as they can outside of the program.

Annaliese’s New Books, New Readers groups include Literacy Volunteers in Bangor, a GED English class at Waterville Adult Education, both men and women at the Penobscot County Jail, and, most recently, a group of immigrant English language learners at University Park in Orono. Her participants are quite different, but she enjoys finding ways to helping each learn to love literature.

“What I find most amazing about the New Books, New Readers program is that we come together around a theme, four sessions around Friendship or Memory, History, Real Life, Differences. The list is long. And through these children’s books, adults of all levels, who have no experience in discussing books past whatever their school experiences may have been, discuss the books individually, the process of writing the books, pay attention to the illustrations, thematically connect the books within a session and across sessions, and relate it all to their own stories, their own lives.”

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4. Grants and Events

Events funded by MHC grants include a performance in Freeport by musicians from rural India; the second annual Maine Festival of the Book in Portland; and a poetry competition in New Gloucester for young adults.

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The recently funded grants list includes:

$1,000 to the Seal Bay Festival, Vinalhaven, for Workshops with Students and Regional Artists: Finding Creative Links between the Arts through Improvisation
Festival composers and musicians will participate in workshops with elementary students and visual and performing artists at Belfast’s Waterfall Arts Center. Together they will explore the creative links between verbal narrative, visual imagery, physical movement and music composition, using musical improvisation as a starting point for discussion and discovery.

$1,000 to Lubec Landmarks, Inc., Lubec, for McCurdy’s and the Smoked Herring Industry Downeast: Visual Documents as History and Art
Lubec Landmarks will tell the story of the smoked herring industry in the area after 1880, and lead visitors through exhibits and public programs to think about how photographs in the exhibits may serve as history and as art.

$1,000 to the Maine Historical Society, Portland, for Agreeable Situations
A day-long symposium that celebrates the anniversary of Agreeable Situations: Society, Commerce and Art in Southern Maine, 1780-1830. The program will explore the significance of this landmark book and bring scholars, curators, and the public together to consider key issues in the study of material culture in Maine today.

$1,000 to the Brackett Memorial United Methodist Church, Peaks Island (Portland), for For the Love of Peaks
For the Love of Peaks is a photographic and written exhibit in June of 2008 at the Gem Gallery on Peaks Island featuring older Peaks Islanders. Fran Houston, who moved to Peaks Island in 2003, has interviewed and photographed many older island residents for this exhibition.

$500 to the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Deer Isle, for Visiting Artist David Jauss
Award winning writer David Jauss will be an artist-in-residence at Haystack from August 2 through August 15, 2008 as part of the Visiting Artist Program. Mr. Jauss will work with 5th session workshop participants at Haystack, present a public program on August 4, and write a monograph interpreting the contemporary craft world and craft making.

$325 to the Friends of the Lisbon Library, Lisbon Falls, for Wings, Stings, and Leggy Things Summer Reading Program
The Children’s Department of the Lisbon Library will present Greg McAdam’s show “Stop Bugging Me, I’m Reading!” as a culminating activity for the “Wings, Stings, and Leggy Things” Summer Reading Program.

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5. What We’re Reading

This booklist includes personal favorites of MHC staff members, as well as books used by MHC programs. This month, featured titles are How My Parents Learned to Eat, The Creative Family: How to Encourage Imagination and Nurture Family Connections, Eminent Victorians, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, Roderick Hudson, and Mendel’s Dwarf.

 

 

 

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6. Quote of the Month

“This series opened my eyes to poetry. I have a better appreciation of poetry. [Our facilitator] encouraged us to think creatively- we weren’t inhibited because he was so supportive of our thoughts. The best part? Learning how to enjoy poetry. What a gift!”

—A Let’s Talk About It participant in Tenant’s Harbor.

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