Former Grolier Owner will read from her favorite poems at Newton Free Library!

FORMER OWNER OF FAMED GROLIER POETRY BOOK SHOP TO READ POETRY FROM HER
FAVORITE POETRY PATRONS!

Newton Free Library 330 Homer St. Newton, Mass. April 10 7PM



The Annual Poetry Festival Features Martha Collins, Louisa Solano, Joan Houlihan & Open Mike
In honor of National Poetry Month, the Library will present its 34th Annual Evening of Poetry, sponsored by the Friends of the Library. Martha Collins, Louisa Solano ( former owner of the Grolier Poetry Book Shop in Harvard Square) and Joan Houlihan will read on Tuesday, April 10, 7:00PM, followed by an Open Mike with a one-poem/ person limit. Refreshments will be served.

This festival and the year-long series are coordinated by Doug Holder, publisher of Ibbetson Street Press.

Collins is the author of a book-length poem, Blue Front, as well as four other books of poetry: Some Things Words Can Do, A History of a Small Life on a Windy Planet, The Arrangement of Space, winner of the Peregrine Smith Poetry Competition and The Catastrophe of Rainbows. She has also edited a volume on Louise Bogan and co-translated two collections of poems from the Vietnamese, The Women Carry River Water by Nguyen Quang Thieu and Green Rice by Lam Thi My Da. In Blue Front, Collins dissects a horrific lynching that occurred in her hometown when she was a child. Booklist, writes: “Collins employs a staccato, matter-of-fact tone that strikes like a sledgehammer at persistent, if hidden, hate. More than worthy as poetry, Blue Front is also a powerful statement about America and a potent reminder of humankind’s terrible potential.”

Solano owned the Grolier Poetry Bookstore from 1974 until 2006 when she retired. Virtually everyone in modern American letters came through the Grolier’s doors in Harvard Square. Founded in 1927 by Adrian Gambet and Gordon Cairnie, it is the “oldest continuous book shop” devoted solely to the sale of poetry and poetry criticism. Solano, a 1966 graduate of Boston University and bookstore habitué since 1955, took over operation of the store after Cairnie’s death. She will read from her favorite patrons’ poems.

Houlihan is the author of Hand Held Executions and winner of the Green Rose Award from New Issues Press for The Mending Worm. She writes “Boston Comment,” a series of essays that focuses on contemporary American poetry and appears regularly on Web del Sol. Founding director of the Concord Poetry Center, she is editor-in-chief of Perihelion and senior poetry editor of Del Sol Review.