Claudia Taylor’s voice echoed throughout the Martha’s Vineyard Museum on Friday for her first public reading as the Island’s new poet laureate.

The stones from volcanos,
The shells from the sea,

Former Poet Laureate of the United States Billy Collins had planned to visit Featherstone Arts next week but had to cancel his appearance.

As a child, sitting in front of
the bookcases at home,
I often revisited Beth’s death,
in Little Women, that morning in May

I have lived 79 years and if I didn’t wake up tomorrow no one would say I died young.

“Black as ink” / A simile just right / Yet as a metaphor, / “Inkwell” takes flight / More than a beach / On the Vineyard’s shore / This enduring icon / Transcends ocean waves.

I’m out for a walk along the bluffs overlooking Vineyard Sound / To shake off the grip of premonition, of ominous threat.

Richard (Dick) Fligor, retired merchant and Edgartown poet, includes 65 poems in the second edition of his book of verse, Breakfast Poems.

For Island-based author Kate Feiffer, writing has always taken precedence over her artwork.

A perennial question / Asked of Islanders / Is for the birds / Who've flown the coop.