CALAIS — This year’s Words Out Loud series at the Old West Church is themed “Don’t Forget to Write,” emphasizing the importance of keeping up communication. Three Sunday afternoon readings, which are part of Art at the Kent offerings, begin at 3 p.m. on Sept. 13.
“Writing and the written word have the power to carry us through difficult times, to carry us through beautiful times … and to keep us plugging along on this mysterious journey,” Words Out Loud coordinator Mary Elder Jacobsen said in a recent interview.
Jacobsen pointed to a comment poet Matthew Olzmann includes in the acknowledgements in “Constellation Route,” his latest book, as an example of one type of communication. “A significant amount of gratitude is owed to David James who, nearly twenty years ago in a classroom at Oakland Community College, said, ‘Matthew, all poems are basically letters, especially yours.’”
She shared one of Olzmann’s poems from that book: “Letter to the Person Who Carved His Initials into the Oldest Living Longleaf Pine in North America — Southern Pines, NC.”
Tell me what it’s like to live without
curiosity, without awe. To sail
on clear water, rolling your eyes
at the kelp reefs swaying
beneath you, ignoring the flicker
of mermaid scales in the mist,
looking at the world and feeling
only boredom. To stand
on the precipice of some wild valley,
the eagles circling, a herd of caribou
booming below, and to yawn
with indifference. To discover
something primordial and holy.
To have the smell of the earth
welcome you to everywhere.
To take it all in and then,
to reach for your knife.
Olzmann, an assistant professor at Dartmouth College and poetry editor at New England Review, who also teaches in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, will read on Sept. 20.
The first readings on Sept. 13 will feature two writers who have lived the immigrant experience. Born in Korea and raised in the United States by a Chinese American family, Sasha Hom won the 2025 Vermont Book Award in fiction for her novella, “Sidework.” Michael Dumanis was born in the former Soviet Union and came to the United States when his parents were granted political asylum. The author of “Creature,” a finalist for the 2023 Vermont Book Award in Poetry, he teaches at Bennington College and is editor of Bennington Review.
On Sept. 20, along with Olzmann, Vievee Francis will read. Francis is an author of four books of poetry, including “The Shared World,” winner of several awards, and the Burlington Northern Foundation Professor in Creative Writing at Dartmouth College.
On Sept. 27, Emma Paris and Ted Levin will read. Paris, a junior at Bennington College, served as the Vermont Youth Poet Laureate in 2025. Levin has authored several books, including “The Promise of Sunrise: Finding Solace in a Broken World.”
Located at 758 Old West Church Road, Adamant (Calais), the 200-year-old Old West Church is not ADA accessible and has no heat, so attendees are encouraged to bring layers of clothing. Each Sunday after the readings, there is a reception down the road at the Kent Museum in Kents Corner, where attendees can meet and chat with the authors.
