BRATTLEBORO — Brooks Memorial Library hosts the 10th season of Vermont Reads with a series of poetry readings from the Vermont Reads book “Poetry 180,” compiled by former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins.
At the event - set for Thursday, Oct. 3, at 7 p.m., in the Library's Main Room - Guilford poet Ken Hebson has organized local published poets Arlene Distler, Barbara Benoit, Charles Butterfield, Wyn Cooper, Ed Rayher, and Tim Mayo to read their favorite poems from the book.
The readings will be paired with the reader's own poetry; students from Brattleboro Union High School will read as well.
The event kicks off the Brattleboro Literary Festival, which runs Oct. 3 to 6.
The festival was founded in 2002 by a small group of bibliophiles from area bookstores and libraries. The first festival featured Nobel Prize-winning author Saul Bellow in his last public appearance.
Since then, the festival has presented nearly 300 authors, including winners of the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, Newbery Medal, and the Caldecott Medal.
The festival is made possible with a grant from the Vermont Humanities Council.
Collins created “Poetry 180” as a poem-a-day anthology to make poetry less daunting by assembling what he calls “a selection of short, clear, contemporary poems which any listener could basically 'get' on first hearing - poems whose injection of pleasure is immediate.”