Winter Nights Ramble to feature poet laureates

SALISBURY — A Winter Nights Poetry Ramble with Poet Laureates Margaret Gibson and Frederick Douglass Knowles is scheduled for Thursday and March 11 on Zoom.

The event is being presented by the Scoville Memorial Library.

“Find a comfortable chair, light a fire, have a glass of wine or port in hand or herbal tea and relax for a live poetry reading,” library members said in a statement.

Frederick-Douglass Knowles II is an educator and activist, “fervent in achieving community augmentation through literary arts,” according to a statement.

Knowles is the inaugural Poet Laureate for Hartford. His poems have been selected as a finalist for the New England Association of Teachers of English Poet of the Year Award, as well as a nominee for a Pushcart Prize.

He is a recipient of the Nutmeg Poetry Award and the 2020 Connecticut of the Arts Fellow in Artist Excellence for Poetry/ Creative Non-Fiction. Knowles is the author of “Black Rose City” and an associate professor of English at Three Rivers Community College in Norwich.

To learn more, visit www.frederickdouglassknowles.com/

Gibson, who is now Connecticut’s poet laureate, is the author of 12 books of poems, all from LSU Press, most recently “Not Hearing the Wood Thrush” in 2018. A new book, “The Glass Globe” is due to be released this year.

According to the statement, Gibson’s awards include the Lamont Selection for “Long Walks in the Afternoon,” her second book (1982), the Melville Kane Award (co-winner) for “Memories of the Future” (1986) and the Connecticut Book Award for One Body (2008).

“The Vigil” was a finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry in 1993.

“Broken Cup” was a finalist for 2016 Poets’ Prize, and the title poem from the book won a Pushcart Prize for that year. “Passage,” from “Not Hearing the Wood Thrush,” was included in The Best American Poetry in 2017.

She has written a memoir, “The Prodigal Daughter” (University of Missouri Press, 2008). Gibson is professor emerita at the University of Connecticut. She lives in Preston.

Gibson was awarded an Academy of American Poets Grant for Poet Laureates intended to support her poetry and various projects. As poet laureate, Gibson has taken as her social focus “Poetry and the Environment during Climate Crisis” and is funding videos of Connecticut poets reading their poems about the environment in natural settings and “green poetry cafes.”

Learn more about her work at www.margaretgibson-poetry.com.

To attend the Winter Nights Poetry Ramble, visit scovillelibrary.org or call 860-435-2838. The library is at 38 Main St.

Contributed photo / City of Hartford Poet Laureate Frederick-Douglass Knowles II and Connecticut Poet Laureate Margaret Gibson are reading their work live from the Scoville Memorial Library's first Poetry Ramble on Thursday.