Manuel Philes. De animalium proprietate. 

Manuscript, Paris, 1564. The Greek text of Manuel Philes, manuscript written by Angelus Vergecius (Ange Vergèce) of Crete at Paris in 1564. Illuminated possibly by his daughter. Bodleian Library, University of Oxford

Salisbury Forum

Government Regulation: Really? with Carol Browner

Tuesday, March 28 - 7 p.m. via Zoom

Vivian Garfein, member of the Salisbury Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Commission, and former Central Director of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection will interview Carol Browner. Browner has had a lifelong commitment to securing environmental and public health protections, working in the private sector and serving two presidents, a governor and two senators.

Register for the Zoom event here

Current Fiction Book Group led by Claudia Cayne

April 8 | 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm UTC+0

What Storm, What Thunder by Myriam J.A. Chancy

At the end of a long, sweltering day, an earthquake of 7.0 magnitude shakes the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince. Award-winning author Myriam J. A. Chancy masterfully charts the inner lives of the characters affected by the disaster—Richard, an expat and wealthy water-bottling executive with a secret daughter; the daughter, Anne, an architect who drafts affordable housing structures for a global NGO; a small-time drug trafficker, Leopold, who pines for a beautiful call girl; Sonia and her business partner, Dieudonné, who are followed by a man they believe is the vodou spirit of death; Didier, an emigrant musician who drives a taxi in Boston; Sara, a mother haunted by the ghosts of her children in an IDP camp; her husband, Olivier, an accountant forced to abandon the wife he loves; their son, Jonas, who haunts them both; and Ma Lou, the old woman selling produce in the market who remembers them all.

In person in the Oak Room for those who are vaccinated and comfortable.

Registration link – register once for all book groups

A Poetry Reading by Sally Van Doren and Emma Wynn 

Friday, April 14, 2023 - 5:30 p.m.

Scoville Memorial Library

Reading Room

At this event, Sally Van Doren will read from her fourth book of poems, "Sibilance" (Louisiana State University Press, 2023).

Emma Wynn will read from their first full-length collection, "The World is Our Anchor" (FutureCycle Press, 2023). 

Van Doren, a Cornwall-based poet and artist, explores the fertile cognitive territory between image and language. Her first book of poems received the 2007 Walt Whitman Award. A number of Van Doren's poems are available online. Her artworks draw upon a personal iconography of calligraphic gestures, handprints, and letters. Sally Van Doren’s art exhibition at the Furnace Art on Paper Archive in Falls Village is on view through Saturday, April 15, the day after this reading.

Emma Wynn received their M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity School and teaches Philosophy, Psychology, and LGBTQ+ U.S. History at the Hotchkiss School. They have been published in multiple magazines and journals and nominated for a Pushcart Prize twice. "The World is Our Anchor" is a collection of unsparing poems on the legacies of human brutality. 

Registration is required for this after hours event. Please Register Here

Image Above: Volta 5 (2023), Sally Van Doren, India ink on canvas

Three questions for... Emma Wynn

Poet (and Hotchkiss teacher!) Emma Wynn will read from their first full-length poetry collection at SML on Friday, April 14 at 5:30 p.m.

SML: How are teaching and your own poetry practice linked?

EW: I was homeschooled in a very rural part of Pennsylvania and then attended Phillips Exeter Academy. Where I grew up, we were very isolated from other people. And the community of boarding school — this place where young people are deeply known by so many supportive adults — completely changed my life. I was able to drop my insecurities of loving to read, being queer, of wanting a different kind of life than the people I grew up with and blossom into a person who was capable of connecting with others.

I teach at boarding school now because of the way in which Exeter transformed me. I want to be part of that kind of experience for other people, especially LGBTQ+ young people.

I wrote poetry all through elementary school, high school, and college, but I don’t teach English or poetry. I stopped writing for about 15 years when I was a young teacher and parent. Just living life every day was too overwhelming, and I didn’t have the time or mental space to get the distance needed to create art. But about four years ago I was advising an independent study in poetry for a very talented student at Hotchkiss, and watching her joy in working sparked my desire to write again. 

I think the break was actually very beneficial for me. I wasn’t ready to publish my work when I was a young poet; I was still working out so many things for myself that I wasn’t able to communicate clearly. I also didn’t have a strong enough sense of how to move away from telling the reader how I wanted them to feel to taking them into the experience using strong imagery and trusting that they would then feel those things naturally. So I’m not at all sad that my first book is coming out just a few months before my 40th birthday. Life is long, and I’m looking forward to writing more!

SML: What were you reading when you wrote your new collection?

EW: "The Father," by Sharon Olds. "Don't Call Us Dead," by Danez Smith. "Time Is A Mother," by Ocean Vuong. "Dog Songs," by Mary Oliver. Stephen Dunn — everything.

SML: What's your favorite poem of your own right now?

EW: "The Meadow." For those of those who grew up in families where there was domestic abuse, home is a place where we feel we belong, a place we know, and also a place we fear. I’m drawn to this poem, because I feel I was able to capture what it feels like to live in that space. The poem contains images of things I loved — the birds, the wetlands, the lightning bugs at night — and the feeling of danger that never quite went away, all mixed up together, which is what I feel when I think of home.

A Poetry Workshop with Sally Van Doren

Sunday, April 16, 2 - 4 p.m

Scoville Memorial Library

Reading Room 

"As poet Mark Van Doren (my husband’s grandfather) once said: 'The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.' This workshop is designed to generate new poems through discovering and nurture our poetic voices. Using in-class prompts, we will explore how voice emerges and creates the distinctive character that makes our poems unique. This session should be fruitful for those new to writing poetry as well as seasoned poets. We’ll draw upon the wonderful resource of a constructive small group to learn how others hear us and how we can best hear ourselves." 

— Sally Van Doren

A Cornwall resident, Sally Van Doren is a prize-winning poet and artist. The author of four collections of poetry, she has taught poetry workshops at the 92nd Street Y and other public and private institutions. She holds a BA from Princeton University and an MFA from the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Registration required — register here. Note: this Sunday workshop and the Friday poetry reading have separate registrations. If we reach capacity for this small group event before your sign up is confirmed, you will be placed on a wait list for this event, and will be among the first to hear about our next workshop.

Image below: Van Doren's forthcoming book, "Sibilance" (LSU Press, Fall 2023), with cover image reproducing Van Doren's I Can See Clearly Now (2020). India ink, watercolor and oil stick on paper.

The Friends of the Scoville Library are currently accepting donations of books for their ongoing book sales

All proceeds benefit the library's programs. Donated books should be:

-clean and in good condition so that they will be appealing to other readers

-relatively dust free, not discolored or written in

-structurally sound with intact binding and pages which are not ripped

Please no textbooks, encyclopedias, dictionaries or travel guides older than four years. Donations can be dropped off on Mondays between 10-Noon, or contact the Friends to make other arrangements