The Woods Hole Public Library will present an evening of poetry written by two long-time summer residents. The two poets will be Joan Burstyn and David Epstein, both frequent library patrons. They will read from their own work.
Joan Burstyn is a professor emerita of history and education from Syracuse University. She has published four volumes of poems, and was the winner of the 2007 Milton Dorfman poetry prize. Treasures Stored for Winter, her most recent book of poems, may be heard by scrolling down Joan’s webpage to the 2014 WCAI recording. One of her most disturbing poems in her most recent book is called “Lament of Two Mothers” which she will read with her friend Dorothy Stracher. Recently the poem has been set to music.
David Epstein, a life-long Woods Hole summer resident, grew up winters in Lexington, Massachusetts. Since 2000, he has been a resident of West Hartford, Connecticut. Despite living in different places, he often wakes up in the middle of the night in the imaginary town of Sonnetville. This is a place where, just to prove one’s self-worth, one has to write some kind of a sonnet before going back to sleep.
David has a Ph.D. in literature from Brandeis University, specializing in 19th and 20th century poetry and fiction. He says that {“ For work I repair vandalized multi-family buildings in New Britain, Connecticut. I am on the Board of the “Hartford Friends and Enemies of Wallace Stevens”. He has three children, at least one of whom writes poems, and all of whom have also been life-long summer residents of Woods Hole.
During summers he spends as much time as possible on the waters around Woods Hole, Massachusetts, racing sailboats and writing humorous race accounts for friends and the Enterprise.
David says his poetry “reflects my efforts to garner wisdom in a vacuous world, and to understand cosmological conundrums like Dark Energy and Black Holes.” He adds that he has “ recently been publishing a few poems, but a book-length volume of my poetry has yet to occur.”
This event is free and open to the public. It will be held at the Library’s lower level, which is handicapped accessible.For more information, call 508-548-8961.