Marie Gauthier

This Thursday, the Collected Poets Series resumes its normal first-Thursday-of-the-month schedule with the readings of poets Wyn Cooper and Amy Dryansky.

Wyn Cooper has published three books of poems: The Country of Here Below, The Way Back, and Postcards from the Interior, as well as a chapbook, Secret Address. His new book of poems, Chaos is the New Calm, will be published by BOA in spring 2010.

Amy Dryansky’s first book, How I Got Lost So Close To Home, won the New England/New York award from Alice James Books. She’s been nominated for several Pushcart Prizes, awarded fellowships to the MacDowell Colony, Vermont Studio Center, Villa Montalvo and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She’s also a former Associate at the Five College Women’s Studies Research Center at Mt. Holyoke College, where she looked at the impact of motherhood on the work of women poets.

For more information on this month’s poets, or a schedule of the upcoming events, please visit the Collected Poets website.

*

Last week’s reading with Baron and Jim and the student poets of the Mohawk Arts and Education Council was fantastic! The “Retirement Sale” at the bookshop began last week, so of course the store’s been completely deluged with customers. Door-to-door, wall-to-wall, it’s totally crazy, and I’m exhausted. Closing the doors at the end of each day is a major trial in itself. So I arrived at the reading early-ish, but later than I prefer, and more than a little tired.

But then the first student poet got up to read, and he snapped me out of it — how can someone so young already be so polished in his performance? All the student poets impressed, but Seth, he was my star pick, no question. I may be slightly biased by the fact that he used to be our neighbor. But I had no idea he would be one of the students reading that night, so it was a great surprise. Also great was to see how engaged he was by the readings of Jim and Baron, how utterly at attention he was — exactly the purpose of CPS, ensnaring the next generation of poetry-lovers!