Pablo Medina Poetry Reading with Special Guest Dede Cummings 4.10.24
South Newfane Schoolhouse, 387 Dover Rd, South Newfane, VT, 05351
Thursday, April 11, 2024 – 7:00 pm
FREE
Join us for a special evening at the South Newfane Schoolhouse with world-renown, award-winning, poet, author, and Williamsville resident, Pablo Medina reading from his newly released book of poetry Sea of Broken Mirrors. Celebrated Vermont poet and publisher, Dede Cummings will join as his special guest. Proceeds from Sea of Broken Mirrors at the event will be donated to the South Newfane Schoolhouse accessibility ramp project.
Medina’s new collection Sea of Broken Mirrors is a book of questions and incantations. Full of lush sonics and surreal yet contemporary imagery, the book offers Medina’s take on biblical canticles. His work is grounded in descriptions of Vermont’s nature —still beautiful despite the ravages of global warming—as well as memories of his youth and family.
Born in Cuba and raised there until the age of twelve, Medina infuses his work with Cuban culture. For him, cultural identity is not a static reality, but a vessel riding the sea into the unknown. The poems explore how the diminishment of self (indeed, its ultimate disappearance) can be a way of engaging with the world, the essence of which is found in the language of poetry.
Dede Cummings is a writer, publisher, and commentator for Vermont Public Radio. At Middlebury College, she was the recipient of the Mary Dunning Thwing Award, attended the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference as an undergraduate fellow. Upon graduation from college, she worked for David R. Godine, Little Brown and Company, and Shambhala Publications in Boston. In 1986, she moved to Vermont and studied with Hayden Carruth at the Bennington Writers’ Workshop. In 2013, she was a poetry contributor at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Her poetry has been published in Mademoiselle, The Lake, InQuire, Vending Machine Press, Kentucky Review, Connotation Press, Mom Egg Review, Figroot Press, Green Mountains Review, and Bloodroot Literary Magazine. She was a Discover/The Nation poetry semi-finalist and in 2016, she was awarded a writer’s grant and a partial fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center. Dede was the recipient of the 2016 Homebound Publications Poetry Prize and her full length poetry book entitled To Look Out From was published in April 2017. Her second poetry collection entitled The Meeting Place is came out in spring 2020 from Salmon Poetry of Ireland. Dede lives in Vermont where she designs books and runs Green Writers Press.
The event is free and open to all. Proceeds from Sea of Broken Mirrors at the event will be donated to the South Newfane Schoolhouse accessibility ramp project.
The South Newfane Schoolhouse, built in 1865, is owned and operated as a community center by an all-volunteer board of the South Newfane Community Association (SNCA). The SNCA is currently engaged in raising funds for the RAMP UP the South Newfane Schoolhouse project to ensure accessibility to all community members. More information at https://www.facebook.com/SouthNewfaneSchoolhouse.
