GUILFORD — The town's year-long celebration of its 250th anniversary moves into its eleventh month with a program by T. Namaya at Broad Brook Grange on Saturday, Nov. 5, at 7 p.m.
Namaya, a storyteller, poet, and humorist, has been on tour with his show - “Vermont My Home: A Celebration!” - this fall, with performances throughout Vermont.
The show takes its name from Namaya's recently released CD, Vermont My Home, based on his collection of stories, music, and poems celebrating the Green Mountain state, and the author's home on Blue Heron Pond. Many of the photos and stories are also drawn from Guilford.
“The Vermont My Home tour is a celebration of this five-season paradise we call home,” he said. “It is about the people, and some humorous anecdotes, such as the time my neighbor Josiah made a Zen pond for me.”
“The show and the CD celebrate our farms, the land, and the many reasons it is always Vermont Our Home,” Nayama said.
Among those who have reviewed his work is noted jazz singer Sheila Jordan, who has appeared frequently in Vermont Jazz Center programs in this area, and has told Namaya, “Your soulful voice is truly moving.”
T. Namaya has performed around the world in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and throughout the United States as a soloist and with his band The Jazz Beat Ensemble.
He has written three books of poetry: Eros to Godhead, God Sex Politics, and Vermont My Home, as well as a memoir, Journal of the Plague: Living and working with AIDS. His play, Beatnik Café, was performed in New York and Boston, in 2010.
Saturday evening's program brings the tour to a fitting close, as the poet's home is just over the Guilford town line in Brattleboro. As with most of this year's programs, the Nov. 5 performance is admission-free, with donations welcome for the Guilford 250th fund.
For more information, visit the celebration's website.