Stitching, poems by Polly Brown, has just been released through Every Other Thursday Press, with design and production by Sarah Bennett.
Stitching gathers poems of quiet action: observing, standing witness, moving forward, mending, singing. Describing Stitching, Jeri Theriault (author of Self Portrait as Homestead), says, “Polly Brown shows us how to carry on ‘stitch by stich,’ drawing themes of heritage and nature together like ‘two sides of a wound,’ incorporating the past into the present, and making of these wounds, not just a healing, but warmth and heirloom, a patchwork to cherish and hand down.”
This button will take you to information about how to buy, read, or hear Stitching, and to sample poems and audio recordings.
Poetry communities and influences
Welcoming libraries. In a small town, two lively independent bookstores. Poet activists. A reading series where I feel at home. And organizations that encourage and connect writers from all over the (huge) state of Maine.
Since 1986–and still, thanks to Zoom–I’ve met twice each month with this wonderful group of mostly-Boston-area poets, to workshop and celebrate poems. We also run Every Other Thursday Press.
I spent decades working with wise, creative colleagues and hundreds of brave and funny young writers; they all convinced me that reading, writing, speaking, and listening are functionally magical powers.
The Joiner Institute’s Summer Writing Workshops gathered American veterans of the war in Viet Nam, writers and veterans visiting from Viet Nam, young veterans from more recent wars, and people (like me) trying to understand the shadow of war for a family member. The workshops are no longer running, but I still treasure help I found there for writing about hard things.
Cheryl Perreault, a genius at empowering individuals, also has a gift for nourishing communities. For years she ran a poetry venue at Hopkinton’s HCAM studio. I could walk there, from my house in Massachusetts. Videos and friendships remain. Cheryl has continued to invent new ways to nourish groups of poets and storytellers and musicians, right through the Covid epidemic and our present troubles.
Through years of living midway between Boston and Worcester, I feasted at both tables. WCPA gave me an award that was a crucial shot in the arm; published my poems in their journal and nominated them for prizes; offered years of opportunities to lead workshops for students at St. John’s and Bancroft and also a one-time, memorable workshop for adults in the backyard of Stanley Kunitz’s childhood home, next to the pear tree.
Here’s a piece of luck no poet should ever take for granted: the gift of knowing ordinary civilians—non-poets—who’ve somehow learned to welcome poems into their lives. Welcoming a poem, for me, means sitting with it—or walking around with it—and reading it more than once, maybe including out loud. Ultimately, though, I give credit to anyone…
I’m still thinking about courage. Given when and how and where we are now, all of us, it’s not surprising. Some of the bravest people I’ve known have been eleven-year-olds. (Or ten, or twelve.) In 2001, the day after 9/11, I sat with a group of kids shaken but still thinking together: trying to come…
1 Some time in the late 70s, my father and his wife were visiting us in upstate New York, and we had taken them to see a small lake nearby. Walking along the shore, my father suddenly began reciting poetry, lines (I think, now) from “Thanatopsis” by William Cullen Bryant: To him who in the…
I have no idea why this block appears twice. I’m trying to figure out which one actually works. (The joys of being a website amateur.) But if you fill in your address, you’ll get my blog posts in your email.
I have no idea why this block appears twice. I’m trying to figure out which one actually works. (The joys of being a website amateur.) But if you fill in your address, you’ll get my blog posts in your email.
I have no idea why this block appears twice. I’m trying to figure out which one actually works. (The joys of being a website amateur.) But if you fill in your address, you’ll get my blog posts in your email.
I have no idea why this block appears twice. I’m trying to figure out which one actually works. (The joys of being a website amateur.) But if you fill in your address, you’ll get my blog posts in your email.
I have no idea why this block appears twice. I’m trying to figure out which one actually works. (The joys of being a website amateur.) But if you fill in your address, you’ll get my blog posts in your email.
Polly Brown / Poet 