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MATTAPOISETT PUBLIC LIBRARY HOSTS THREE RENOWNED AREA POETS
By Robert Chiarito
Wanderer
April 9 2008
MA
With each passing week the Mattapoisett Public Library opens the
curtain to one of the many new features that the newly-renovated
facility has to offer. This past weekend the Friends of the
Mattapoisett Free Public Library christened the building's sparkling
new conference room as it presented "An Afternoon of Poetry" on Sunday,
April 7. The event featured three area poets of national renown:
Franklin D. Reeves, Diana Der-Hoavanessian and Margot Wizansky.
It would take a poet's mind to find the advantage hidden beneath the
gloomy, rain-filled clouds that have been haunting the SouthCoast
of late, but Margot Wizansky, who has been helping to organize
the library's spring poetry readings the last several years, said:
"We're kind of glad that it rained today. We get a better turnout
when it rains because people tend to do yard work on nice days in the
spring around here." Humor was just one of the many elements that the
three poets used as they each offered pieces of recent work during
the hour-long reading.
After being introduced to the capacity audience by Friend's board
member Ellen P. Flynn, Mr. Reeves took the mike first, reading from his
book, Toy Soldiers. Mr. Reeves, who has won hundreds of awards for his
work and who has been published in countless journals and periodicals,
chose pieces that drew from his personal experiences that have taken
him from being a combine operator and a long shoreman on the Hudson
River, to the heights of academia as a professor at both Columbia and
Wesleyan Universities. His most personal piece spoke of his father
who he described as "the most irresponsible man"in introducing a poem
about him called, "The Lover."
The personal was a theme with each of the three poets throughout the
reading. One of the most moving moments of the afternoon came as Diana
Der-Hovanessian read a poem that she had written about her Armenian
grandmother who chose to lose an arm to the Turkish interrogators who
tortured her rather than give up information about her son whom they
suspected was a part of the Armenian resistance that preceded the
genocide the Armenians suffered at the hands of the Ottoman Empire
during World War I.
For Ms. Wizansky her personal reflection came in the form of the work
that she and her husband have done with adults who suffer disabilities
as well as a series of love poems. She described, in loving detail,
her appreciation of her husband's willingness to wash her delicates
as sign of his affection saying, "He knows what I need when I place
the basket in the kitchen."
The event concluded with a question-and-answer session followed by a
reception and refreshments. The occasion also gave Library Director
Judy Wallace the opportunity to share a collection of antique maps
and charts that had been donated by Bill Betts, Jr. The maps made
for handsome wall decorations and ranged from a reproduction of a
1527 map of the globe to a 130-year-old cadastral map of Mattapoisett.
The next event scheduled at the Mattapoisett Free Public Library
leading up to this summer's grand opening will be a Family Reading
Night. The reading night, on Wednesday, April 16 from 6:00 to 7:30 pm,
is be presented jointly by the Mattapoisett Public Library and the
Tri-Town Early Childhood Council as part of a nationwide celebration
of the Week of the Young Child. The program will be geared to children
from 2 to 6 years old and is free of charge. For further information,
please contact the Early Childhood Office at 508-748-1863.
By Robert Chiarito
Wanderer
April 9 2008
MA
With each passing week the Mattapoisett Public Library opens the
curtain to one of the many new features that the newly-renovated
facility has to offer. This past weekend the Friends of the
Mattapoisett Free Public Library christened the building's sparkling
new conference room as it presented "An Afternoon of Poetry" on Sunday,
April 7. The event featured three area poets of national renown:
Franklin D. Reeves, Diana Der-Hoavanessian and Margot Wizansky.
It would take a poet's mind to find the advantage hidden beneath the
gloomy, rain-filled clouds that have been haunting the SouthCoast
of late, but Margot Wizansky, who has been helping to organize
the library's spring poetry readings the last several years, said:
"We're kind of glad that it rained today. We get a better turnout
when it rains because people tend to do yard work on nice days in the
spring around here." Humor was just one of the many elements that the
three poets used as they each offered pieces of recent work during
the hour-long reading.
After being introduced to the capacity audience by Friend's board
member Ellen P. Flynn, Mr. Reeves took the mike first, reading from his
book, Toy Soldiers. Mr. Reeves, who has won hundreds of awards for his
work and who has been published in countless journals and periodicals,
chose pieces that drew from his personal experiences that have taken
him from being a combine operator and a long shoreman on the Hudson
River, to the heights of academia as a professor at both Columbia and
Wesleyan Universities. His most personal piece spoke of his father
who he described as "the most irresponsible man"in introducing a poem
about him called, "The Lover."
The personal was a theme with each of the three poets throughout the
reading. One of the most moving moments of the afternoon came as Diana
Der-Hovanessian read a poem that she had written about her Armenian
grandmother who chose to lose an arm to the Turkish interrogators who
tortured her rather than give up information about her son whom they
suspected was a part of the Armenian resistance that preceded the
genocide the Armenians suffered at the hands of the Ottoman Empire
during World War I.
For Ms. Wizansky her personal reflection came in the form of the work
that she and her husband have done with adults who suffer disabilities
as well as a series of love poems. She described, in loving detail,
her appreciation of her husband's willingness to wash her delicates
as sign of his affection saying, "He knows what I need when I place
the basket in the kitchen."
The event concluded with a question-and-answer session followed by a
reception and refreshments. The occasion also gave Library Director
Judy Wallace the opportunity to share a collection of antique maps
and charts that had been donated by Bill Betts, Jr. The maps made
for handsome wall decorations and ranged from a reproduction of a
1527 map of the globe to a 130-year-old cadastral map of Mattapoisett.
The next event scheduled at the Mattapoisett Free Public Library
leading up to this summer's grand opening will be a Family Reading
Night. The reading night, on Wednesday, April 16 from 6:00 to 7:30 pm,
is be presented jointly by the Mattapoisett Public Library and the
Tri-Town Early Childhood Council as part of a nationwide celebration
of the Week of the Young Child. The program will be geared to children
from 2 to 6 years old and is free of charge. For further information,
please contact the Early Childhood Office at 508-748-1863.