Two of West Hartford’s poets laureate will hold a reading on Thursday, June 12, at Nature’s Classroom at Westmoor Park.

Submitted

Outgoing West Hartford Poet Laureate Ben Grossberg will welcome West Hartford’s newest Poet Laureate, Clare Rossini for her inaugural reading. She will be joined by West Hartford’s second Poet Laureate, Dennis Barone, who will read from his recently-released “Far-Dale: New and Selected Poems” on Thursday, June 12, at 6 p.m., at Nature’s Classroom in Westmoor Park.

Bench seating is available under the Nature’s Classroom pavilion, or you may bring your own folding chair.

Clare Rossini’s poems and essays have appeared in many fine journals and anthologies, including The Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, The Iowa Review, Poetry, and The Best American Poetry series. Clare’s latest collection of poetry is Lingo (The University of Akron Press). More recently she co-edited an anthology titled The Poetry of Capital (U of Wisconsin, 2020). She’s received grants and awards from the State of Connecticut, the Minnesota Arts Board, the Bush Foundation, and the Maxwell Shepherd Foundation. She has been awarded residencies at MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the American Academy in Rome.  After teaching at the college level for over four decades—including 23 years at Trinity College in Hartford—Clare recently retired.

The Nauset Press is publishing Dennis Barone’s Far-Dale: New and Selected Poems in 2025. His other poetry collections areFrame Narrative (Blaze Vox, 2018), Parallel Lines (Shearsman Books, 2011), and Separate Objects (Left Hand Books, 1998). Dennis is the author of seven books of short fiction, including On the Bus: Selected Stories (Blaze Vox, 2012). He is also the author of two novellas, God’s Whisper (Spuyten Duyvil, 2005) and Temple of the Rat (Left Hand Books, 2000), and a collection of prose poems, The Walls of Circumstance (Avec Books, 2004). Quale Press published his mixed genre book Sound / Hammer (2015) andBordighera Press published his book Second Thoughts (2017) a work of short fictions and prose poems, and the mixed-genre book A Field Guide to the Rehearsal (2022).

About the West Hartford Poets Laureate

Clare Rossini is West Hartford’s eighth Poet Laureate. The West Harford Poet Laureate is an honorary title given to a poet-resident of West Hartford who serves a three-year term with a simple mandate of promoting the art of poetry and literary writing in the West Hartford community. In 2008, the town poet laureate position was initiated by Maria Sassi (who became the town’s first Poet Laureate) in consultation Shari Cantor who was then a town council member and is now mayor of West Hartford. After Maria Sassi’s term, six other Poets Laureate of West Hartford have been named: Dennis Barone, James Finnegan, Ginny Lowe Connors, Christine Beck, Julie Choffel, and Benjamin Grossberg.

West Hartford is one of many towns in Connecticut to have named a poet laureate. There is a Connecticut Council of Poets Laureate, see their website: https://ctpoetlaureates.com/.

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