C.H. Booth Library will host an afternoon of fine poetry and music on Saturday, October 18, from 2 to 4 pm.

The event, “Voices of Poetry/At the Booth,” will feature readings by the poets and writers Kristen DeVoe, Patrick Donnelly, Michael Klein, and Amy Nawrocki and acoustic music by the guitarist Buzz Turner.

Admission for the event will be free, thanks to sponsorship from the Friends of the Cyrenius H. Booth Library.

Voices of Poetry was founded by poet and poetry activist Neil Silberblatt. Since 2012, VOP has presented a series of poetry (and music) events, featuring distinguished poets and writers and talented musicians, at venues throughout Connecticut, including Ridgefield Public Library and The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, New Britain Museum of American Art, The Silo/Hunt Hill Farm Trust in New Milford, Hartford Public Library, Gunn Memorial Library in Washington, and Minor Memorial Library in Roxbury.

VOP also has presented poetry events aimed at raising support for community organizations. Voices of Poetry/Thanks for the Giving raised more than $1,200 for Loaves & Fishes, the soup kitchen and food pantry in New Milford.

VOP hosts a Facebook group page which at last count had more than 1,500 members, including numerous poets, writers, editors, composers, musicians (in all genres), professors, publishers, and fans of the printed, written, or sung word.

For inquiries about the October event in Newtown, contact Lucy Handley, Booth Library’s adult program director, at 203-426-4533 or visit CHBoothLibrary.org.

For details about other Voices of Poetry events, contact Neil Silberblatt at voicesofpoet@gmail.com.

The Poets & Writers

Kristen DeVoe received her bachelor’s degree from Johns Hopkins University and did graduate work at Yale Divinity School and Columbia University’s social work program. She worked for 12 years as a clinical social worker at Garner Correctional Institution, the maximum security prison in Newtown.

She now dedicates her time to raising consciousness about mental illness, trauma and resilience through the spoken and written word (affectionately called “hairballs”).

Ms DeVoe has shared her “hairballs” at Voices of Poetry events at Minor Memorial Library in Roxbury and Byrd’s Books in Bethel, and has read at other venues throughout Connecticut.

Patrick Donnelly is director of The Poetry Seminar, one of three summer programs at The Frost Place, a poetry conference center at Robert Frost’s homestead in Franconia, N.H.

He has taught creative writing and public speaking at Colby College and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. He has also taught at Smith College, and the MFA programs of Pine Manor College and Lesley University. He was Thornton writer-in-residence at Lynchburg College in Spring 2006, and in 2009 taught poetry reading and writing to fifth graders at Gardner Pilot Academy in Allston, Mass., in a residency funded by the Harvard-Allston Partnership Fund and founded by massPOP (Massachusetts Poetry Outreach Project).

Mr Donnelly is a 2008 recipient of an Artist Fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and a member of the Massachusetts Poetry Outreach Project Advisory Board. He received the Richard Soref Scholarship in Poetry in 2003 and the Margaret Bridgman Fellowship in Poetry in 2004, from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, as well as grants from the PEN Fund for Writers in 2000 and 2001.

His book, The Charge (Ausable Press, 2003, since 2009 part of Copper Canyon Press), was a 2004 finalist for The Publishing Triangle Award for Gay Male Poetry. His poetry collection, Nocturnes of the Brothel of Ruin (Four Way Books, 2012), was a 2013 finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry.

Michael Klein’s most recent poetry collection, The Talking Day (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2013), was a finalist for both a Lambda Literary Award and the Thom Gunn Award. His first book of poems, 1990 (Provincetown Arts Press, 1993), tied with James Schuyler to win the Lambda Book Award. His memoir, Track Conditions (University of Wisconsin Press, 2003) – also a Lambda Award finalist - was about his experiences on the racetrack and being groom to Kentucky Derby winner, Swale.

Mr Klein has also published a book of essays, The End of Being Known (University of Wisconsin Press, 2009), and edited Poets for Life: 76 Poets Respond to AIDS (Persea Books, 1993), winner of the Lambda Book Award; Things Shaped in Passing (Persea Books, 1997; co-edited with Richard McCann); and In the Company of My Solitude (Persea Books, 1995; co-edited with Marie Howe).

His next book, A Life in the Theater, will be published by Sibling Rivalry Press in 2015.

Mr Klein teaches in the MFA Program at Goddard College and is on the faculty of the summer program at Castle Hill Center for the Arts in Truro, Mass.

Amy Nawrocki is a Connecticut native, raised in Newtown and now living in Hamden. She received a Bachelor’s degree from Sarah Lawrence College and a Masters of Fine Arts from the University of Arkansas.

She has received numerous awards for her poetry and has published three chapbooks with Finishing Line Press, along with three Connecticut history books, co-authored with her husband, Eric D. Lehman. Her most recent book, Four Blue Eggs, was a finalist for the 2013 Homebound Publication Poetry Prize.

She teaches English and Creative Writing at the University of Bridgeport.

The Musician

Buzz Turner plays contemporary acoustic finger style guitar. He fuses traditional western European structure with American musical idioms.

Alternating between soft, delicate finger style passages and rapid-fire displays of masterful technique, Mr Turner has shared his music and all-ages humor with appreciative audiences throughout the United States, including at Voices of Poetry events at House of Books in Kent, Washington Art Association in Washington Depot, and Cornwall Bridge Gallery.