Conversations @the Loft

Guest Speaker, Margaret Gibson Thursday, April 16th 1 pm – 2:30 pm Connecticut Poet Laureate, Author, Professor Emerita, Margaret Gibson “Margaret Gibson has created a voice and an art that connect the sensuous experience of the physical world with the inner life,” Pattiann Rogers has written. Nationally and internationally acclaimed, Margaret Gibson poetry is characterized by an uncommon diversity. The voice may be predominantly lyrical and meditative, and yet there are award-winning, book-length narratives in which she fully inhabits the consciousness of her personae. Hers is “a finely crafted lyricism and attention to detail rare among poets today,” wrote Brian Henry. Gibson herself has said, “Writing poetry is an act of attention and receptivity. You study whatever it is that strikes your attention—whether a scarlet tanager, river, field, or forest, whether mother, daughter, alcoholic, photographer, lover. You take what’s given into that part of the self that inquires, test, embraces, and embodies. Outer and inner coalesce and fuse.” “Everything is ultimately connected; everything, therefore, is both personal and impersonal. We’re part of an enormous, sometimes painful, sometimes joyful experience of unfolding Consciousness.” “We’re here to find the things that are broken and to mend them, to find where there is fracture or division and to create a wholeness.” Also the author of a memoir about growing up in Richmond, Virginia, Gibson has lived for forty years in Preston, Connecticut, with her husband, writer David McKain. She has taught in many colleges and universities, at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Admission is complimentary for Thread Members and $5 for guests. Thread Members, please call to register, seating is limited.