Maine Poet: Three Poets

Three Poets June 12

Camden, Me.-Three accomplished poets will present their new work in a reading at the Camden Public Library on Tuesday evening, June 12, at 6:30 pm. The poets are Wendy Rapaport, Carol Bachofner (newly proclaimed Poet Laureate of Rockland), and Gayle Portnow.

Gayle Portnow grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and now lives in Camden, Maine, where she is often rapt in fog, a favorite subject of her poetry. She returns to her apartment in Manhattan but spends cherished time writing and enjoying life “the way it should be” near the harbor in Maine. She makes poems and photographs of atmospheric conditions, and writes stories about growing up in Brooklyn and other random curiosities. She is the proud mother of three daughters in the arts--a film-maker/professor, an artist, and an actor.

Maine poet Carol Bachofner writes poems that appeal to the idea that we are all connected, to each other and to nature. She writes with a strong sense of place through narrative. She enjoys writing in traditional form as well as in open form (free verse). Founding editor of Pulse Literary Journal, Carol teaches poetry in her community, Rockland, Maine and “on the road” via workshops and conferences. She was a featured speaker at the Winter Wheat Conference at Bowling Green University in 2007 and at the Maine Literary Festival in 2009. Bachofner was the founder of the annual Poetry Month Rockland in 2010, a city-wide celebration of everything poetic. Carol, author of 4 books of poetry, was a finalist in the 2011 Maine Literary Awards.

Wendy Satin Rapaport is a licensed clinical psychologist and has specialized in individual, marital, family, and group therapy for patients with diabetes for more than 30 years. Her doctoral dissertation was on “Humor as a Coping Mechanism in Diabetes.” In 1999, she was awarded the National Health Information Award for her book, When Diabetes Hits Home: The Whole Family’s Guide to Emotional Health. She is also a professor at the University of Maine graduate school of social work, teaching group therapy in health settings. Her love of writing “good enough” poetry resulted in “On the couch with the good enough poet.”

“I am wiping tears from my eyes of laughter and female soul-mate type understanding of ‘Commonplace But Absolutely Necessary’,” writes Nanette Gionfriddo, owner of Beyond the Sea Bookstore in Belfast, of the work of Gayle Halperin Portnow. “Absolutely perfect. One of the best things I have ever read. She simply nailed it. I am still chuckling, though teary-eyed from the complexity of anger & horror, and then embarrassment for feeling that way. Her timing was perfection. ‘How can anyone lose a teakettle?’  ‘But he lost my teakettle.’ Such disturbing disbelief and irritation.  I loved it.”