No charge for the program. Advance registration required. Register online in order to receive the Zoom session invitation link and readings packet. Please email Michael Bellacosa at mbellacosa@wiltonlibrary.org with any questions.

Lucille Clifton expressed that she would like to be remembered “as a woman whose roots go back to Africa, who tried to honor being human.” “My inclination,” she said “is to try to help.” Her poems reflect her three wishes as we will discover. At birth she was named Thelma Louise Sayles. She was born in 1936 and died in 2010. She grew up in Buffalo, attended Howard University and SUNY near her home. She received many awards and was Distinguished Professor of Humanities at St. Mary’s College in Maryland. Two of her books were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in the same year. Her long, illustrious career began when Langston Hughes discovered her and published her poems in his anthology The Poetry of the Negro in 1970. In addition to her many books of poetry, she wrote 17 books for children.

Her poetry shines with the themes of strength and endurance through adversity, pride of her race, and of being a woman.  Her imaginative interpretations of myths speak to us. She works in understatements, saying much in few words, short lines, missing punctuation and capitalizations. She is skilled in the art of understatement. She talks directly to us.

Janet Krauss, who has two books of poetry published, “Borrowed Scenery,” Yuganta Press, and “Through the Trees of Autumn,” Spartina Press, has recently retired from teaching English at Fairfield University. Her mission is to help and guide Bridgeport’s  young children through her teaching creative writing, leading book clubs and reading to and engaging a kindergarten class. As a poet, she co-directs the poetry program of the Black Rock Art Guild. Several of her poems have been published in Ameythst Review.