New York poet Harry Newman joins Livingston’s Marc Beaudin for an evening of poetry on Tuesday, July 11, at Elk River Books.
Newman is the author of Led from a Distance, a sequence of political poems exploring the moral and emotional consequences of years of war fought at a distance and mediated mainly through screens, when seen at all. His poetry has appeared in Salmagundi, Rattle, North Dakota Quarterly, The New Guard, Saranac Review and many other journals over the last 20 years. Active in theater as well, his plays include The Occupation, Dry Time—written in the early 1990s and likely the first climate change related play—The Dark, and a translation of Patrick Süskind’s Der Kontrabaß (The Double Bass), which have been presented at the Contemporary American Theater Festival, the New York Public Theater, Theater Krefeld Moenchengladbach and other theaters around the US and in Europe.
Beaudin, a co-owner of Elk River Books, is the author of Life List: Poems, the hitchhiking memoir Vagabond Song: Neo-Haibun from the Peregrine Journals and the album From Coltrane to Coal Train: An Eco-Jazz Suite, featuring members of the bands Morphine and Orchestra Morphine: Dana Colley, Billy Conway and Laurie Sargent. His work has appeared in Cutthroat, Whitefish Review, Deep Wild Journal and is forthcoming in Orion. A former Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness Foundation artist-in-residence, he has been widely anthologized in publications dedicated to environmental and social justice. He writes, directs and designs for the stage, and has performed his poetry and spoken word at venues throughout the country, both solo and with a wide variety of jazz, blues and rock musicians.
Terry Tempest Williams, author of Refuge, When Women Were Birds and numerous other books, describes Life List as, “Exquisite and full of life like the birds themselves. In each poem we find clarity and compassion as we stand on the razor-edge of uncertainty.”
Elk River Books is located at 122 S. 2nd St. in downtown Livingston. The free event begins at 7 p.m., and a book signing and reception will follow.
