Edna St. Vincent Millay Celebration

Millay Celebration at the Library and Mt. Battie September 8

The library and Whitehall Inn will co-host a special event featuring the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay at the Library on Saturday, September 8, at 11:00 am. “The Maine Coast in Millay’s Poems” will feature readings, a slide presentation, and group discussion on “Renascence,” “Ragged Island,” and other poems of place in Millay’s work, with poets and scholars Linda Buckmaster, Kathleen Ellis, Judith Hakola, and Gary Lawless. The event is free and open to all. There will also be readings atop Mt. Battie on Saturday afternoon.

Poet Kathleen Ellis will begin the presentation with a slide talk about prominent Maine coastal locations in Millay’s life and work, followed by Judith Hakola discussing nature in Millay’s work, Gary Lawless discussing Ragged Island and its place in Millay’s life and poetry, and Linda Buckmaster discussing Millay’s early life along the Maine coast, including the near-drowning incident around age 10, which she refers to in several of her poems.

Participants:

Linda Buckmaster, poet, former Belfast poet laureate, & faculty, University of Maine at Augusta

Kathleen Ellis, poet, coordinator of Millay Anniversary Celebration, Whitehall Inn, & faculty, Dept. of English & Honors College, University of Maine, Orono

Judith Hakola, currently teaching senior college course on Millay; faculty, Dept. of English, University of Maine, Orono, where she teaches an annual course on Maine Writers

Gary Lawless, poet, co-owner of Gulf of Maine Bookstore, Brunswick, & leader of writing workshops on ecopoetry & human justice

Later on Saturday, at 2:00 pm, poets, Whitehall guests, and community members are invited to drive (or hike, as Millay did regularly) to the top of Mt. Battie in Camden Hills State Park and meet at the Millay plaque for a mountaintop Millay Marathon Reading of “Renascence” and other poems. The Millay readings will feature poets Annaliese Jakimides, Gary Lawless, Carolyn Locke, Barbara-Maria, Jim Mello, Bruce Pratt, Karin Spitfire, and many others.