The Bookey Readings planned in Hallowell

HALLOWELL — The Bookey Readings at The Harlow will present four poets who are completely new voices to the Harlow Gallery: Lisa Panepinto, Mark Swiedom, Matt Hopkins and Dennis Pollock.

The event will begin at 7 p.m. Friday, July 22, at the 160 Water St. gallery. Refreshments will be served and a $3 donation to benefit the gallery is appreciated at the door.

Panepinto is the author of two poetry collections, “On This Borrowed Bike” (Three Rooms Press, 2013) and “Island Dreams” (Cabildo Press, 2009). Her writing has appeared in The Accompanist, Maintenant, Pittsburgh City Paper, Planet Drum, Red Flag Poetry and more. She has served as a mentor and a senior companion with the United Way of Allegheny County and as an AmeriCorps VISTA with the Penobscot Indian Nation, and received the President’s Volunteer Service Award. She is poetry editor for Cabildo Quarterly, an online and print literary journal.

Swiedom has lived in Maine for the last 28 years where he’s worked for the Jay Paper Mill. Laid off in November last year, what appeared to be disaster for him and his family instead turned to opportunity. He now attends Central Maine Community College where he is studying for a degree in Medical Coding. Swiedon began writing poetry in 2010 after he and his daughter attended the Augusta Civic Center’s event for Maya Angelou. He says he was so impressed and inspired by what poetry could do, he began writing the very next day. He lives with his wife Dawna, as well as their dogs and llamas in Hebron.

Hopkins is a Research Associate for the AIRNET, a non-profit based out of Massachusetts developing in-depth industry studies and presentations about clean technology, sustainable development, inequality and the finance of innovation. His research work appears in some recent posts and articles can be found on Market Watch, The Huffington Post, The Institute for New Economic Thinking, and The Harvard Business Review. Currently a resident of Manchester, he is also a habitual writer of poetry, building a collection of poems that seek to deal with more intimate themes of life, love, and family. As a poet, he was recently nominated for an Emerging Artist Grant in Literature from the St. Botolph Foundation of Boston.

Pollock winters in an 1850 farmhouse in Hinsdale, Massachusetts, and summers in Manchester. He is married, has two grown daughters, and has made his living as a psychotherapist, more recently in home repair and as a tree nurseryman. He has one book of poetry out from Slate Roof Press entitled “Frozen Rope,” based on events in Hinsdale in 1810.

For more information, call 622-3813.


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