BRATTLEBORO-Poet and teacher Ann Gengarelly will read from her recently published collection of poems, Loss and Invention, at Mitchell-Giddings Fine Arts gallery Friday, Sept. 19, from 5 to 7 p.m.
Chard deNiord, who served as Vermont's poet laureate from 2015 to 2019, will introduce Gengarelly and her poetry.
The book's cover features a painting, "Reflecting," by Brattleboro artist Petria Mitchell, who co-owns the venue. The word "reflecting" resonates with many of the poetic themes of the book, including journeys, dark and light, persistence, hope, ancestral wisdom, sorrow, survival, courage, compassion, healing.
Gengarelly is director of The Poetry Studio at her home in Marlboro, where for the past 25 years she has offered after-school programs in poetry and art for students in kindergarten through grade 8.
Summer workshops for youth (ages range from 8 to 17) at the Studio combine her poetry classes with art/bookmaking sessions facilitated by her husband Tony Gengarelly, emeritus professor of fine arts at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.
Since 2002, Ann Gengarelly has offered adult writing classes, as well, at the Studio. She has been a poet in the schools in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts since 1980.
Whether teaching children or adults, Gengarelly believes that the quality of reverence and the practice of respect are essential to creating a safe environment so that the participants are able to dig deep in their hearts for what is begging for a voice.
Nature frequently serves as a source of inspiration and imagery in her poems.
"I have been writing poems since 1970," Gengarelly said. "Moving from a city, living in the country, I embraced a slower pace of life and, in solitude, I discovered intimate company with the trees, plants, flowers. Surrounded by nature, I felt the need to write."
She quotes the words of poet Mary Oliver: "Attention is the beginning of devotion," which became not only the motto of The Poetry Studio, "but also a guide for my writing of poems - attention to my inner world and outer world."
Sorrow and hope, compassion and understanding
In the mid-1980s, Gengarelly met poet Bruce Smith, a professor in the Syracuse University Master of Fine Arts program, at The Frost Place, a poetry and arts center in Franconia, New Hampshire.
"We developed an email correspondence," she said, "and when I felt I was ready for a serious dialogue about my poems, Bruce and I wrote back and forth, sometimes two emails in a day about a particular poem.
"Bruce has this wonderful way of stretching the borders of my imagination and use of language without imposing his voice," she continued. "He has had a big influence regarding which poems went into Loss and Invention, but ultimately, the choice was mine."
Some poems "go way back, but most of them were written in the past 10 years," Gengarelly said of the collection, which is divided into four sections.
Loss and Invention takes the reader on a journey from where sorrow and hope intermingle to the twin promises of compassion and understanding.
The poems speak to themes that include the unknown, intimate journeys, resilience, and "the personal and the social challenges during the [Covid] pandemic, as well as so many tragic stories unfolding in the world."
'The poem came to me'
Gengarelly's previous book, Another World: Poetry and Art by Young People from The Poetry Studio, which she wrote in collaboration with her husband, was published during the pandemic.
"I was profoundly aware of the fragility of life, of what the Buddhists call Impermanence," she said of the time. "The question 'What have I not done that I would like to do' visited me often."
She thought about the poetry she had written over the preceding decades, and she "began the process of selecting poems I wanted to include in a book."
"Because I am a different woman now from the woman who wrote some of the poems years ago, I found myself adding new stanzas to a few poems, often needing an intermediary - a bird, the ancestors - to guide a poem to where it needed to travel," Gengarelly said.
"Often when I read a poem that I have written, I feel that I didn't write the poem; rather, the poem came to me," she continued. "If my heart is open, I might become the channel to receive a poem."
In these times, poetry is more essential than ever, Gengarelly said.
"Poetry, perhaps more than any other art form, speaks to the human condition," she said. "When the poets at The Poetry Studio, the younger students as well as the adults, read their poems aloud to the group in the sharing circle that concludes each class, the sacred act of witnessing unfolds. The poet is heard, something we are all hungry for.
"Most importantly, gathering together and hearing poems invites us all to feel less alone," Gengarelly continued. "We might have different stories, different histories, but there is a universal emotional landscape that we all share."
Nancy A. Olson is a freelance writer who lives in Putney. She has participated in adult classes at The Poetry Studio. Mitchell-Giddings Fine Arts is located at 181-183 Main St., Brattleboro. An informal Q & A discussion with the poet will follow the reading. Everyone's Books will have copies of Ann's book available for purchase. Refreshments will be served. For more information, call 802-251-8290.
This Arts item was submitted to The Commons.