Category Archives: Poetry

New Haven Bioregional Group POTLUCK & POETRY

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SATURDAY, JANUARY 26 • 6:00 p.m.
First Unitarian Universalist Society of New Haven
featuring Evidence of Flossing by Naturalist Jen Payne

On Saturday, January 26, the New Haven Bioregional Group will host author and naturalist Jen Payne for a poetry reading and book signing featuring her book Evidence of Flossing: What We Leave Behind. The event, held at the First Unitarian Universalist Society of New Haven (608 Whitney Avenue, New Haven), begins with a potluck supper at 6PM, followed by the reading at 7PM.

Come listen to a selection of poems that are, at their heart, love poems to the something greater within all of us. Inspired by Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and Mary Oliver, they explore the human condition juxtaposed to the natural world and the possibility of divine connection.

Evidence of Flossing: What We Leave Behind follows on the heels of Payne’s 2014 well-received book LOOK UP! Musings on the Nature of Mindfulness, and continues a dialogue about our innate connection with nature. Both books will be available at the event, which is free and open to the public.

Jen Payne enjoys writing about our relationships with each other, with our natural world, and with our innate creativity. Installations of her poetry were featured in exhibitions at the Arts Council of Greater New Haven and Kehler Liddell Gallery (New Haven), and her work has been published by The Aurorean, Six Sentences, the Story Circle Network, WOW! Women on Writing, and The Perch, a publication by the Yale Program for Recovery & Community Health. Jen is a member of the Guilford Poets Guild and the Connecticut Poetry Society. You can find more of her work on her blog Random Acts of Writing, www.randomactsofwriting.net.

Connecting New Haveners to their life place, the New Haven Bioregional Group sponsors walks, films, canoe trips, potlucks, and other events to help us connect with our natural and built environment, and to build community and local resilience.

For more information about this event and others, please visit www.newhavenbioregionalgroup.org.

A Guilford Poets Guild Trio: Juliana Harris, Jane Muir, Gordy Whiteman

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Please join the Guilford Poets Guild for a special reading by three of its members: Juliana Harris, Jane Muir, and Guilford Poet Laureate Gordy Whiteman. This special Second Thursday Poetry Series reading will be held on Thursday, November 8 from 6:30 – 8:30 p.m. at the Guilford Free Library.

Juliana Harris has contributed poetry to The New York Times, The Mid-America Poetry Review, The Best Times, Chicken Soup for the Soul and The Kansas City Star, among other publications. A native of Kansas City, Missouri, she has lived in Guilford since 1979 where she is a member of the Guilford Poets Guild. She has recently published a collection of her poems entitled Portraits. She is the author of two novels and is currently at work on her first mystery.

Poet Jane Muir says, “I was born six weeks before the Great Depression. It’s been all uphill since then, financially at least. I’ve seen the world change immensely. In my childhood, whenever a plane flew overhead the whole family would run outside to see it. Now astronauts have been to the moon. I graduated from what was then Connecticut College for Women; now it’s co-ed. I worked in publishing and advertising in New York City and after marriage was, as most women in those days, a stay-at-home mom. Don’t think that wasn’t work! Then I went to work at a local paper, a job I really loved. I moved to Guilford in the mid-nineties, took courses in poetry at Southern Connecticut State University, and joined the Guilford Poets Guild, where currently I’m the oldest member. In age, that is.” Muir’s new book, Bulletin from Suburbia, is due out before Christmas.

Gordy Whiteman was born to Guilford in 1929. He is a member of the Guilford Poets Guild and serves as its co-president with Jane Muir. He is the author of Whitfield Crossing, and Home Town Guilford. Whiteman is a founding member of the Connecticut Coalition of Poets Laureate and serves as Guilford’s first Poet Laureate.

Remember to bring your own poem to share during the Open Mic which is open to accomplished and aspiring poets of all ages wishing to present one original composition to a live audience.

The Guild’s Holiday Roundtable is scheduled for Thursday, December 13. For more information, visit guilfordpoetsguild.org.

The Guilford Free Library is located at 67 Park Street in Guilford. This program is free and open to all. Refreshments will be served. Please register by phone, in person, or online (203) 453-8282, guilfordfreelibrary.org.

Find Evidence of Flossing and Explore Our Divine Connection with Nature

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Every day, we are reminded of our direct effect on the world around us—the Pacific island of garbage twice the size of Texas, the billions of plastic water bottles thrown out each year, the millions of sea birds and marine mammals killed by our collective debris. But there is a great disconnect: we hear about the problems, we can understand the implications for us and for Earth, but we still consume and discard flagrantly. Our daily habits, our conveniences, our latest and greatest products defy any regard for our legacy on this magnificent planet.

Naturalist and poet Jen Payne responds to this conundrum with a heartfelt and heady collection of writing in Evidence of Flossing: What We Leave Behind. Inspired by Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and Mary Oliver, she helps us explore how our human condition can be healed by rediscovering our divine connection with nature.

Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies Professor Peter Raymond says “The collection of writings and photographs powerfully remind us of our role as stewards and the positive impact we can make on the world around us.”

This curious, full-color book includes 75 poems that are underscored by an absurd and heartbreaking assortment of original and vintage photographs, including a series of discarded dental flossers that prompted the title of the book.

No matter your faith or following, Evidence of Flossing speaks to the common heart that beats in you and in me, in the woods and on the streets, across oceans and around this planet. It is, as National Public Radio contributor David Berner writes, “an unflinching account of our unshakeable relationship to the modern world…God, nature, and ourselves.”

Evidence of Flossing: What We Leave Behind follows on the heels of Payne’s 2014 well-received book LOOK UP! Musings on the Nature of Mindfulness and continues a dialogue about our innate and spiritual connection with nature.

Jen Payne lives and works in Connecticut. She is the owner of Words by Jen, a graphic design and creative services company founded in 1993, and a member of the Arts Council of Greater New Haven, the Connecticut Poetry Society, Guilford Arts Center, the Guilford Poets Guild, and the Independent Book Publishers Association. Her writing has been featured in several art installations and published by The Aurorean, Six Sentences, the Story Circle Network, WOW! Women on Writing, and The Perch, a publication by the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health.

For more information or to order books, please visit the Three Chairs Publishing website, www.3chairspublishing.com. Books may also be purchase through online and independent booksellers.

Jen Payne is available for book readings, book signings, or small discussion groups featuring poems from Evidence of Flossing: What We Leave Behind, essays from LOOK UP! Musings on the Nature of Mindfulness, or a combination of both. Please contact us for more information or to schedule an event today!

Evidence of Flossing: What We Leave Behind.
Purchase a signed copy today!