BRATTLEBORO-ByWay Books & More, 399 Canal St., hosts Gregg Orifici, a poet, memoirist, international educator and garden and landscape designer, on Wednesday, Sept. 17, at 6 p.m.
Orifici has gardened in residence at the Great Dixter in England, Villa San Giuliano in Sicily, and Jardin Botanico de Vallarta in Mexico, and he says those experiences have inspired his creativity, both on the page and in the New England gardens he designs. Orifici holds a Juris Doctor degree from Vanderbilt University and a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of New Hampshire. He lives with his artist partner and four Jack Russells on a hilltop garden-in-progress in southern Vermont.
His new collection of poems, Rattle of the Sun, came out in July. It is described as "an arresting, first-time poetry collection." Organizers said in a news release "One doesn't often combine poetry and gardening with the word 'arresting,' but Orifici's book of poems, compiled over decades, experiments with language and invites the willing reader on a pilgrimage through flowering and feeling."
The poems reference plants which embody human eccentricities, coming-of-age reflections on difference, and detailed exultations on exotic and everyday places. "The insights are off-beat and heart-gripping," said organizers.
Poet David Rivard writes: "Rattle of the Sun marks out the arc of a life whose worldly range is astonishingly wide. […] But Orifici's spiritual journey is what's really at stake here, the stops along that road rendered in intense, abundant detail."
This Arts item was submitted to The Commons.