Celebrate the Annual Roque Bluffs Poetry Festival August 28, 2010 at the Roque Bluffs Community Center. Study the art of poetry and improve your own work.

Directions provided with registration confirmation.

Poet in residence for the day-long workshop—Sandra Hutchison, University of Maine adjunct professor of English, widely published poet and author, and recent poetry editor for Puckerbrush Review.

Prof. Hutchison brings international perspective and experience from her studies in Canada and work in China, India and Israel. She received degrees including her Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Toronto.

Books to her credit include The Red Pen Society (2009), The Art of Nesting(2008) and Chinese Brushstrokes: Stories of China (1996)

Workshop begins at 9 a.m. and continues into the afternoon after a lunch break. Best to pack your own to avoid 8-mile drive to Machias. Refrigeration available. Tea, coffee and water provided throughout the day.

Roque Bluffs Community Chapel will hold a public chowder supper. After supper, the public is invited to join workshop and guest poets to read and listen to original poetry at the Community Center.

Bring copies of your publications for sale.

Festival fee $40 plus $7.50 for supper. The Salt Coast Sages will accept registrations until August 15. Send a check for $47.50 to Grace Sheridan at P.O. Box 263, Cutler, ME 04626. Also ask Grace questions: auntnabs@207me.com, tel. 207-259-3611.

Please share this with your poet friends and family.

It's history! The fourth Annual Roque Bluffs Poetry Festival on Saturday August 1, 2009 sponsored by the Salt Coast Sages was a splendid event. A group of thirteen took part in the workshop offered by distinguished poet Paddy Bushe** of Waterville, Kerry Co, Ireland. Plied with pots of coffee, cups of tea, a few green grapes and slices from the bundt style cakes provided by Roberta Crane, we absorbed insights on developing an effective poem.

Paddy read and led discussion of five handouts - examples of using place, a phrase, relationships, implied social statements, beauty in the ordinary, details that bring a poem to life for the reader.

In the second hour of the workshop, all pens were busy as thirteen drafts based on one of the handouts, were in the making either at the indoor tables, or outside on the door step or at the picnic table.

Well into the afternoon, one by one, each writer read his/her draft to the group with feedback from the listeners and perceptive comments from our workshop leader that will lead each writer to a stronger piece of work.

After supper a group gathered back at the Community Center for an open mic poetry reading. Host Jerry George welcomed Paddy and Fiona Bushe as our guests of honor , gave homage to the late Kelly Lombardi as the founder of the Roque Bluffs Poetry Festival and the Salt Coast Sages. It was Kelly's dream that Paddy Bushe be part of this festival and it was a delight to hear him share, in English and in Irish, many of his poems.

To round out the evening, the following poets also shared their work: Ray Beal, Sharon Bray, Donald Crane, Marcie Dean, Kathi Proulx, Joyce Pye, Ellen Richards, Phil Rose, Grace Sheridan, Ella Zona, Kirstin Zona.

　 
** Mr. Bushe, a native of Dublin who now lives in Waterville in County Kerry, writes in both English and Irish. He has published eight collections of poetry plus three books of translations. He has twice won grants from Ireland's Arts Council, and his poems have won at least four awards: the Strokestown International Prize, the Listowel Writers' Week Poetry Prize, the Michael Harnett Award, and the Oireachtas Prize. He has been elected to membership in Aosdána, a prestigious Irish honorary organization.
# # #

Pictures from the 2009 Festival

The Third Annual Roque Bluffs Poetry Festival was held on Saturday, August 2, 2008 at the Community Center in Roque Bluffs, Maine. Alice Persons, a distinguished poet and the editor and publisher of Moon Pie Press, conducted a workshop from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. The afternoon was free for poets and others to get acquainted with each other, do some writing, or enjoy the beach at nearby Roque Bluffs State Park.

The annual festival is sponsored by the Salt Coast Sages, a local poetry group founded by the late M. Kelly Lombardi. Fifteen poets participated in the morning workshop at the Roque Bluffs Community Center.