The Lenox Library is pleased to co-host an event with The Bookstore, in association with St. Rocco’s Poetry Collective in Albany, NY, in memory of their late good friend, poet Bernadette Mayer. On January 7, 2023, a marathon reading of Midwinter Day – Mayer’s book-length poem about the Town of Lenox, written all on one day, December 22, 1978 – will take place in the Library’s Reading Room from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m.
Bernadette died at the age of 77 last month at her home in East Nassau, NY. She and her former husband, the late poet Lewis Warsh, lived in Lenox from 1976 until the early 1980s and spent inordinate time at both the Lenox Library and The Bookstore. Their three children, Marie, Sophia, and Max were raised on a steady diet of books from both places.
Written at 100 Main Street, Midwinter Day is, as Alice Notely noted, “an epic poem about a daily routine. In six parts, it takes us from awakening and emerging from dreams through the whole day – morning, afternoon, evening, night – to dream again.”
” . . . a plain introduction to modes of love and reason/Then to end I guess with love, a method to this winter season/Now I’ve said this love it’s all I can remember/Of Midwinter Day the twenty-second of December.”
Please call The Bookstore 413-637-3390 or email bookstoreinlenox@gmail.com for more information.