BELLOWS FALLS — Village Square Booksellers in Bellows Falls welcomes Vermont author Elayne Clift, who, with three other poets, will participate in a virtual event on Saturday, Oct. 9, at 1 p.m.
The four poets will read from and discuss A 21st Century Plague: Poetry from a Pandemic, the poetry anthology on the COVID-19 pandemic that Clift has edited.
According to a news release, the anthology was borne out of the longing “for the touch of loved ones, to fight anxiety and despair, and to adjust to the stunning effects of prolonged isolation” and for “stories about people lost to the insidious virus, and those left behind. We wanted stories of survival, coping, finding our way to the future. We wanted stories that made us laugh, weep, empathize, share sadness, become better people ourselves.”
Clift is a Vermont Humanities Council scholar and an award-winning writer and journalist whose work appears in numerous publications internationally. She has published two poetry collections, two memoirs, and three short story collections, the latest of which is Children of the Chalet (Braughler Books) .
Clift's latest book is Around the World in Fifty Years: Travel Tales of a Not So Innocent Abroad (Braughler Books). This is her fourth anthology.
Readers will also include:
• Michael Bosworth, a retiree who recently returned to writing poetry and creative nonfiction after a 45-year hiatus. He serves on the board of the Vermont Independent Media, which publishes The Commons, and belongs to the writer's group Write Action in Brattleboro.
• Rai d'Honoré holds a Ph.D. in modern languages and has taught English, French, and Spanish, as well as literature, film, history, and politics, at universities in the U.S. and abroad. She composes and sings troubadour-style songs and gives lectures and concerts on the culture of medieval Occitania at universities and other venues in the U.S. and France. Her second CD and book - on Esclarmonde de Foix, spiritual head of the resistance against the Albigensian Crusade - are forthcoming.
• Lali Sri is the author of Atma Bodha (O Books, 2012), a collection of Indian poetry in English translation. Her work has appeared in Fiction International, New York Quarterly, Daedalus, and Epiphany, among other publications, and her poetry was anthologized in Before the Dawn (Rhode Scholars Press, 2019). She teaches literature and creative writing at CUNY's Borough of Manhattan Community College.
To join this Zoom event, visit bit.ly/633-elayne. The meeting ID is 876 4607 6256, and the passcode is 039734.
The next event at Village Square Booksellers will feature Archer Mayor on Friday, Oct. 15 at 7 p.m.