The Nature Conservancy. Protecting nature. Preserving life.™

On November 30 at 7 p.m., the Old Town Elementary School will host an evening of poetry as a stop on the journey of the Maine Poetry Express, an initiative of Maine Poet Laureate Wesley McNair and the statewide literary arts organization, the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance.

The Maine Poetry Express, a metaphoric train, is traveling to a series of 14 stops throughout the state over the next few months, bringing together Maine poets and townspeople for shared readings that combine poetry with testimonies about the literary form’s relevance to the lives and concerns of all people.

The theme of the November 30 event will be the Penobscot River, and the wild nature and community values that the river supports. The poems read by community members, drawn from a diversity of poets, will celebrate the blessings of Maine nature in general and the restoration of the Penobscot in particular.

The site organizers, or “conductors,” of the event are Jeanna Tuell, principal of Old Town Elementary School, and Cheryl Daigle of the Penobscot River Restoration Trust. On hand will be Maine poets Patricia Ranzoni and Kathleen Ellis, and Penobscot poet Sherri Mitchell. They will be joined by special guests Roger Milliken, President and CEO of the Baskahegan Company, Bucky Owen, former commissioner for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and Professor Emeritus of Wildlife Ecology at the University of Maine, Old Town Elementary School teacher Mary Bagley, and two OTES students.

The primary goal of the Maine Poetry Express, McNair explains, is to show that poetry belongs not only to literary specialists but to all of us. He adds: “This promises to be an evening of poetry as you’ve never heard it before!”

The Maine Poetry Express is a project of the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance and Maine Humanities Council. This event is sponsored by The Nature Conservancy and Penobscot River Restoration Trust.