RUMFORD — Karin Spitfire, performance poet laureate of Belfast and a wilderness guide, will present her unique poetry at First Light on 28 Congress Street in Rumford, Sunday, Nov. 22nd, between 2 and 4 p.m.

Spitfire has edited a poetry column in the Waldo Independent, taught a poetry workshop at the Belfast Free Library funded by the Maine Humanities Council and hosted a poetry that raised $1,200 for the Waldo County Interfaith Fuel Assistance Fund. She has been on the steering committee of the Belfast Poetry Festival for four years, chairing the festival in 2008 when she brought the first evening of performing artist and poet collaborations. She has recently received a commission from the Working Women Dance Collective and is also collaborating on works with two visual artists. 

Lee Sharkey, recipient of this year’s Maine Art Commission Individual Artist Fellowship in Literature, associate editor of the nationally respected Beloit Poetry Journal, founder of the U of Maine at Farmington women’s program, has said of Spitfire’s poetry : “Their forms are chant, exhortation, polemic, and prayer. And insistent energy encircles them.”

Spitfire’s poetry is available in her recent book, “Standing with Trees.” She has created works in the modern form of performance poems such as Corpus Callosum, the original Standing with Trees, Sports and Art, and Wild Card Anatomy, combining dance and poetry. She will read at the Cornelia St. Cafe in NYC at the book release party of Uphook Press’ 2009 anthology of performance poets, “you say, say,” in which her performance poetry appears.

Jim Mello, of Farmington, and Tom Fallon, of Rumford, will open the afternoon for Spitfire with their own work.

Mello, author of the poetry book, “Early late Bloom,” organizer of the first poetry workshop in Rumford, counselor and owner of First Light Counseling Services, devoteee of Bob Dylan, has read at many venues around the state. 

Fallon is the recipient of two Maine Art Commission grants, a former Maine Times poetry editor, author of four books of poetry which includes the recent collection, “Now.” He is unique as an experimental writer in the state as he combines visual art and literature in a new way with larger size meditative works to be viewed “on the wall.” He has published the only short stories on the Maine paper mill in the 20th Century. 

Refreshments will be available. 


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