Potluck and Poetry 2011

Two exciting Maine poets, Robin Merrill and Tom Lyford, will be our inspiration at CONA’s annual celebration of poetry on Saturday, December 3.  Afterward, the audience is invited to read a poem, either an original or from a favorite poet.

Robin Merrill is a freelance writer and editor from Madison, Maine. Her most recent collection of poetry, A House of Battles (2009), is available from MoonPie Press. She has also written children’s books and also serves as an editor for Scholastic, Hudson Bible and World Outreach International.

Born in Dover-Foxcroft, Maine, Tom Lyford graduated from Foxcroft Academy and received a B.S. in Education from Farmington State College. For 34 years he worked as an English teacher and is currently a part-time library clerk at the Dover-Foxcroft library. His poems and essays have been published in Sakana, Bangor Metro, Off the Coast, Wolf Moon Press Journal, Up North and the Bangor Daily News. He has published five poetry chapbooks and one full-length collection, My Cinema Paradiso. In 2009 he published a humorous prose memoir, Work Aversion Trauma: A Lifetime of Suffering, and in 2011 a childhood memoir, Playing with Fire. His poems lean toward the humorous and nostalgic.

Potluck and Poetry will be held at the Second Congregational Church in Newcastle, with the supper at 6 p.m. and poetry beginning at 7 p.m.