In celebration of national poetry month, there will be a reading of 17th century metaphysical poet John Donne at the Old Whaling Church at 4 p.m. on April 19. The program will also include the music of William Byrd and other composers from the English Renaissance. Donne’s work will be read by John Ortman and Elizabeth Villard, who will be joined by Matt Pelikan on recorder and violin, and Jan Hyer on cello.
People who merely have heard about Slow Food — the “eco-gastronomic” movement aimed at counteracting the effects of fast food on American diet, farming and lifestyle — might associate it with the rarified, elite world of famous chefs, expensive foods and politically correct eating that tends to be too dear for regular folk.
Award-winning author Linda Kenney Miller, who wrote Beacon on the Hill, spent her childhood summers at Oak Bluffs. Her grandfather, John A. Kenney, vacationed on the Vineyard ever since 1913 when his wife’s family first bought the Kenney cottage on Huntington avenue.
It’s possible to put two and two together and come out with a number not exactly four. Ann Coleman Allen of West Tisbury bears the last name of one of our original settler families, and she teaches courses on Vineyard history. One could reckon, therefore, that her interest in the subject stems from the irresistible pull of family genealogy.
In a program called The Hidden History of the United States, author and journalist Russ Baker will discuss his new book — Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the powerful forces that put it in the White House and what their influence means for America — on Wednesday, Sept. 9, at 7 p.m. at the Vineyard Haven Public Library
Mr. Baker contends that the national security establishment behind the Bushes rise continues to maintain a grip on the Obama administration.
Fanny Howe of West Tisbury was honored last week with the 2009 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, awarded annually by the Poetry Foundation to a living American poet for lifetime accomplishments that warrant extraordinary recognition. The $100,000 that accompanies the award is one of the largest literary prizes in the nation.
The Oak Bluffs library welcomes Lou Berger, seasonal resident and former head writer for Sesame Street for 11 years, for a reading of his book, The Elephant Wish on Tuesday, August 11 from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m.
The book is a modern fairy tale, in which Eliza Prattlebottom, on her eighth birthday, makes a wish: “Oh, I wish that an elephant would come and take me away!” Two days, six hours, thirty-seven minutes and nine seconds later, Eliza’s wish comes true.
Six years ago, West Tisbury resident Paul Karasik traveled to Oxford, Md., to meet the son of Fletcher Hanks, a great undiscovered comic book cartoonist who first caught his attention 20 years earlier when he printed portions of Mr. Hanks’s work as the associate editor of Raw magazine, the international comics and graphics review. Mr. Hanks had spent three years in this quiet fishing town on the shore of the Chesapeake Bay, during the advent of the comic book industry, from 1939 to 1941, scripting, drawing and inking 51 bizarre, edgy and masterful comic stories.
West Tisbury author Cynthia Riggs will talk about her latest book Death and Honesty, the eighth in her Martha’s Vineyard mystery series, at the Chilmark Public Library on Wednesday, May 20, at 5:30 p.m.
