Poetry Reading at Clinton Art Gallery’s Poetry Place

On Sunday, August 18, The Clinton Art Gallery’s Poetry Place will present a reading by Antoinette Brim, Reginald Flood, and Jen Payne. This will be the fifth reading in the 2019 Sunday Series, which each month draws an extremely enthusiastic audience, who delight in listening to the work of some of the State’s finest poets, including a variety of talented and entertaining open mic readers. As always, the August 18 reading will take place in the Laurel Ann Olcott Art Center, 20 East Main Street in the heart of Clinton, beginning at 2.00 PM. In addition to enjoying excellent poetry, the audience has the opportunity to browse through a rich display of arts and crafts for sale at the gallery, and learn about the many writing and art workshops offered at the gallery, which was recently awarded a Best on the Shoreline 2019 Reader’s Choice Award. The reading is free and open to the public, and audience members are encouraged to come early, as seating is limited. Wine, cool drinks, snacks, and sweets will be served, and books will be available for sale and signing following the reading.

Antoinette Brim, author of These Women You Gave Me, Icarus in Love and Psalm of the Sunflower, is a Cave Canem Foundation fellow, a recipient of the Walker Foundation Scholarship to the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and a Pushcart Prize nominee. Her poetry, memoir, and critical work has appeared in various journals and magazines, as well as in anthologies. A printmaker and collage artist, Brim recently exhibited both poetry and monoprints in Jazz: An exhibition of Poetry, Prints, and Photography at the Sumner McKnight Crosby Jr. Gallery in New Haven, and Sheroes, in partnership with the Alliance of Women Veterans at the Grove in New Haven. A sought-after speaker, editor, educator, and consultant, Brim is an Associate Professor of English at Capital Community College.

Reginald Flood is a native of south-central Los Angeles, who now lives in a small town in southeastern Connecticut with his family. He is the author of Coffle (Willow Books 2012) and Refugeed (Willow Books 2018) and has been awarded a National Endowment of the Arts Literature Fellowship in Poetry and a National Endowment of the Humanities Summer Fellowship. He is an associate professor of English and Coordinator of African American Studies at Eastern Connecticut State University, where he teaches African American literature, creative writing, and composition. He is a Cave Canem Fellow.

Jen Payne has published three books: LOOK UP! Musings on the Nature of Mindfulness (2014), Evidence of Flossing: What We Leave Behind (2017), and the chapbook Waiting out the Storm (2019). Her poetry has been featured in exhibitions at the Arts Council of Greater New Haven and the Kehler Liddell Gallery (New Haven), and in Chapter & Verse: Return, a curated poetry event. Her work has been published by The Aurorean, Six Sentences, the Story Circle Network, and WOW! Women on Writing; in the international anthology Coffee Poems: Reflections on Life with Coffee; and in The Perch, a publication by the Yale Program for Recovery & Community Health. She is a member of the Guilford Poets Guild and the Connecticut Poetry Society, and is the owner of Words by Jen, a graphic design and marketing company in Branford.