SPL Seaside Series: weekly open-air events in Small Cove Park every Wednesday in July and August
From 12.00 pm until 1.00 pm
Stuart Kestenbaum will read his own poems as well as a selection of poems by other Maine poets that were featured on Poems from Here, a weekly series he developed for Maine Public Radio. The show aired from 2016-2021, coinciding with Kestenbaum's term as Maine's 5th poet laureate.
Stuart Kestenbaum is the author of six collections of poems, most recently Things Seem to Be Breaking (Deerbrook Editions 2021), and a collection of essays The View from Here (Brynmorgen Press). He was the host of the Maine Public Radio program Poems from Here and was the host/curator of the podcast Make/Time. He was the director of Haystack Mountain School of Crafts from 1988 until 2015. More recently, working with the Libra Foundation, he has designed and implemented a residency program for artists and writers called Monson Arts. Stuart Kestenbaum has written and spoken widely on craft making and creativity, and his poems and writing have appeared in numerous small press publications and magazines including Tikkun, the Sun, the Beloit Poetry Journal, the New York Times Magazine, and on the Writer’s Almanac and American Life in Poetry. He served as Maine’s poet laureate from 2016-2021.
Former US Poet Laureate Ted Kooser has written “Stuart Kestenbaum writes the kind of poems I love to read, heartfelt responses to the privilege of having been given a life. No hidden agendas here, no theories to espou—se, nothing but life, pure life, set down with craft and love.”
SPL's Seaside Series is free and open to all. We encourage participants to bring their own seating—a camp chair or even just a blanket—plus enough sunscreen and bug spray to keep them happy. In case of rain, the event will be moved indoors to SPL.