Poetry Comes to Life in Maine Libraries
On June 13 and 14, 2005, the Maine Humanities Council brought together twenty librarians from around the state at the Bangor Public Library. They gathered to learn ways of expanding poetry programs and services at their libraries, and to share their programming ideas, through Poetry in the Branches, a training created by Poets House and sponsored by the Maine Humanities Council, Tom’s of Maine, and the Maine State Library.
Poets House is a literary center and poetry archive in New York City that developed the Poetry in the Branches training to increase poetry awareness and poetry-related programming in public libraries.
This was one of the first Poets House trainings in the nation to take place outside of New York City. Maine Poet Laureate Baron Wormser and poet Dave Johnson joined Lee Briccetti and Marsha Howard of Poets House to work with the Maine librarians. MHC organized a poetry reading in conjunction with the program to give participants both the pleasure of hearing Maine poets Kathleen Ellis, Wes McNair, Candice Stover, and Kate Chappell read from their work, and the opportunity to meet poets who have worked with libraries. All in all, Poetry in the Branches was enthusiastically received. As one participant said, “I think this program will add vitality to our libraries—and help reach people on a deeper, delight-filled level.”
Four lines from Baron Wormer’s “Swayed”
from his book entitled When
(Sarabande Books, 1997)
