Hole in The Head Review Poetry Reading Series – July 2023

Thursday, July 27, 2023
7:00 pm – 8:00 pm

The Maine Jewish Museum is proud to be collaborating with Hole in the Head Review to host quarterly poetry readings at the Museum.

Two acclaimed Maine poets, Claire Millikin and Mihku Paul, will be the featured readers.

Claire Millikin is the author of nine collections of poetry as well as two early chapbooks. She lives in coastal Maine and teaches art history and American studies at the University of Maine and Bates College. Three of her poetry books have been noted as finalists for the Maine Literary Award, and her book Dolls was selected as a 2022 semifinalist for the PSV Poetry Book Award for North American Writers and Publishers. Of her newest book, Transitional Objects, Kirkus Reviews notes the “deep artful sorrow in the manner in which the poet notes the passing of time…a profound understanding of suffering and resilience.” Critic and poet Wayne Koestenbaum writes of “[Millikin’s] quiet austere music and its metaphysical dignity, and the subtle threads of danger and damage running beneath the poised surfaces,” while poet Jeri Theriault describes Millikin’s poetry in Elegiaca Americana, as “a dirge not only for her own childhood or her family but for the whole country.” Publishing as Claire Raymond, she is the author of nine books of feminist scholarship.

Mihku Paul is an Indigenous Wolastoqey poet and visual artist born and raised on the Penobscot River. Her recent work includes Msi-te ktahkomiq Kintagot (The Whole Earth Resounds) for Whitman on Walls and Thrall, Her Signal Skin and Pomegranate (Atlantic Vernacular). Paul’s work has been published internationally and translated into French and Spanish.  Forthcoming are two poems in the anthology Root to Seed, and an ekphrastic experimental film for the Belfast Poetry Festival in October 2023 which includes footage shot in Greenland, an original score, and spoken word with film-maker Dawn Nye at UMaine Farmington. Mihku lives and works in Portland.

Registration is FREE, but required.

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