Marie Gauthier

On Thursday, June 5th, at 7:30pm, poets Chard deNiord, author of three books of poetry including the recent Night Mowing, and Susie Patlove, the author of Quickening, will read from their most recent work at Mocha Maya’s Coffee House, 47 Bridge Street, Shelburne Falls, MA.

Chard deNiord is the author of three books of poetry, Night Mowing (The University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005), Sharp Golden Thorn (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003), and Asleep in the Fire (University of Alabama Press, 1990). His poems have appeared recently in Best American Poetry, American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, The Southern Review and The Iowa Review. His poems “The Tin Path” and “Sharp Golden Thorn” appear in the film “Beautiful Ohio,” starring William Hurt, Rita Wilson, and Juliana Margulies. Chard is an associate professor of English at Providence College and the co-founder of the low residency MFA program in poetry at New England College, where he also served as the program director from 2001 to 2007. He lives in Putney, VT with his wife Liz.

Susie Patlove‘s chapbook, Quickening, came out in 2007 from Slate Roof Press. Her poems have been published in several journals including Marlboro Review and Atlanta Review. Her work was anthologized in Crossing Paths: An Anthology of Poems by Women. Susie lives with her husband in Charlemont, MA at an intentional community founded in the early seventies where they brought up their three sons, and now raise sheep, chickens and vegetables. She took lay Buddhist vows in 1982 and continues to practice. She is the assistant librarian at the Arms Library in Shelburne Falls, MA.

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In the background, I can hear the torturous sounds of Barney the Purple Dinosaur singing, made palatable by the accompanying warbles of Vincent. If he weren’t mine, it would still be adorable, I promise you.

10 weeks along, I met with one of the midwives at my ob/gyn’s office today, and got to hear the new baby’s heartbeat. It never fails to awe. And it’s tremendously reassuring, a heartbeat. Until now, you’re going on faith and the mere fact of a bottomless stomach that something’s growing in there. But a heartbeat, that revving shush-shush-shush — well, now it’s real!

And there was only one heartbeat, so we’re probably not having twins — I’m a twin, so that’s always a possibility. Due to my “advanced maternal age” I’m having a first trimester ultrasound next Tuesday, so that’ll give us the final word on that!

[End of pregnancy update.]