MIDDLEBURY — Local poets Gary Margolis and Nancy Means Wright will present their new collections of poetry at a book launch on Sunday, April 24, at 4:30 p.m. at the Middlebury Inn.
Margolis will read from and sign his new collection, “Runner Without a Number.” These poems move from Gettysburg’s battlefield to the Boston Marathon, from Rome to Vermont, through the nuclear desert of Yucca Flats, Nev., and through love’s emotional seasons of joy and regret, desire and disappointment. They invite us to contemplate how we locate ourselves in nature and in the human heart, in our real and imagined, fragmented and whole stories.
A poet, counselor, husband, father and grandfather, Margolis was a Robert Frost and Arthur Vining Davis Fellow and has taught at the University of Tennessee, University of Vermont and Bread Loaf Writers’ conferences. His third book, “Fire in the Orchard,” was nominated for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.
Wright will read from and sign “The Shady Sisters,” her new poetry collection that embodies the voices of two Vermont sisters of Scots-Irish heritage. The voices alternate to tell the sad-funny-traumatic stories of their lives. They address a woman’s desire to live a whole life, and the choices she has to make. They consider: Who and how do we love? What knocks us down? What keeps us going? Younger sister Fay survives a failed marriage and breast cancer; widow Ruth ends up with another woman, rejoices in a grandson’s birth, and worries: “Will a midwife compass me out through the dark?”
The author took inspiration (metaphorically) from poet Louise Glück: “Of two sisters one is always the watcher, (Ruth) / one the dancer (Fay).” Nancy Means Wright is also the author of several novels and nonfiction books. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies and journals. She was a Bread Loaf Scholar for a first novel, and scholar for the Vermont Humanities Council. She has received an Agatha Award, and a fiction grant from the Society of Children’s Book Writers. A longtime teacher and actress, she lives in Middlebury.
Refreshments will be served. There is plenty of parking available. Books will be available to purchase. For more information, contact Jenny Lyons at 802-388-2061 or [email protected].