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Literary Witnesses

Plymouth's Literary Witnesses program brings renowned authors, poets and journalists to the church for stimulating programs. Bill Moyers, Gary Snyder and Robert Bly have been recent presenters. The series is now in its 13th year.

Joyce Sutphen, Minnesota's Poet Laureate, read her own works on Feb. 5, 2012.

Jim Lenfestey, "A View of Cold Mountain through Poetry and Film" Feb. 26, 2012
[MP3] audio of the reading

Literary Witnesses' 10-year anthology

Literary Witnesses is a program of the Fine Arts Board.

 

Frost Medal winner Marilyn Nelson reads
7 p.m., May 21

Marilyn Nelson, former poet laureate of Connecticut, reads at Plymouth Church, 7 p.m., May 21. In 2012, Nelson was the recipient of Poetry Society of America’s Frost Medal, presented annually for “distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry.” Previous winners include Wallace Stevens, Gwendolyn Brooks, Allen Ginsberg, Marianne Moore, and Charles Simic. She will be accompanied by Twin Cites jazz pianist Bryan Nichols.

Suzanne Gardinier wrote in Parnassus that Nelson's poetry "reaches back through generations hemmed in on all sides by slavery and its antecedents; all along the way she finds sweetness, and humor, and more complicated truth than its disguises have revealed." Three of her books have been finalists for the National Book Award:  The Homeplace (1990), The Fields of Praise: New and Selected Poems (1997), and Carver: A Life in Poems (2001). The last received numerous nominations and awards, including the Flora Stieglitz Straus Award, the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award, and designation as both a Newbery Honor Book and a Coretta Scott King Honor Book.

Marilyn Nelson was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on April, 26, 1946. She is the author or translator of 14 books, including her young adult book, A Wreath For Emmett Till, which won the 2005 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award and was also designated a 2006 Coretta Scott King Honor Book, a 2006 Michael L. Printz Honor Book, and a 2006 Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award Honor Book. Nelson is a professor emerita of English at the University of Connecticut; was founder/director and host of Soul Mountain Retreat, a small non-profit writers' colony (2004-2010) and held the office of Poet Laureate of the State of Connecticut, 2001-2006.