Words Out Loud marks its ninth year of Sunday afternoon readings of work by Vermont writers at the historic 1823 meetinghouse, the Old West Church, presented in tandem with the annual fall Art at the Kent exhibit in Kents Corner, Vermont. This year, “Words Out Loud: Poetry, Place, and the Passage of Time” will be an all-poetry series of readings by engaging literary Vermonters: Sept. 17, Sean Prentiss and Scudder Parker; Sept. 24, Sarah Audsley and Nadine Budbill; and Oct. 1, Nadell Fishman and Sydney Lea.
Book sales and signings and a chance to meet the presenters will follow the readings. Donations suggested. No tickets required for the readings. Please arrive early to allow time for parking and seating ahead of the 3 p.m. start.
Vermont poets Sean Prentiss and Scudder Parker will be the first to read in this year’s series on Sunday, Sept. 17.
Sean Prentiss is the award-winning author of “Finding Abbey: The Search for Edward Abbey and His Hidden Desert Grave,” which won the National Outdoor Book Award, Utah Book Award, and the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award, and the author of “Crosscut: Poems.” He is also the author of two textbooks: “Environmental and Nature Writing,” and “Advanced Creative Nonfiction.” Prentiss is coeditor of “The Far Edges of the Fourth Genre: Explorations in Creative Nonfiction” and coeditor of “The Science of Story: The Brain Behind Creative Nonfiction.” He and his family live on a small lake in northern Vermont, and he serves as an associate professor at Norwich University.
Scudder Parker’s first volume of poetry, “Safe as Lightning” (Rootstock Publishing, 2020) was awarded the Best Poetry Book of 2020 by the Independent Publishers of New England. His poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals including Sun Magazine, Crosswinds, The Lascaux Review, Northern Woodlands, Sky Island Journal, Vermont Life, Northern Woodlands, and Twyckenham, and his poem “The Poem of the World” was awarded an Honorable Mention in the 2021 Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest. A passionate gardener and proud grandfather of four, Parker lives with his wife, Susan, in Middlesex.
For more information about Words Out Loud and other programs of this year’s Traces exhibit, go to kentscorner.org/2023-readings.