FARMINGTON – People sat in rapt silence awaiting the words of a poet at the Farmington Public Library last week. On April 25, the library hosted Lee Sharkey and Christian Barter for a reading of their poetry.
There were so many people in attendance that many had to sit on the floor. The viewers were composed of students, professors, poets, and those that enjoy the poetic craft.
Sharkey and Barter were introduced by John Rosenwald who said: “We do not need poems about the ego, poems that look no further than a mirror.”
Christian’s poems had to do with down-to-earth and modern issues concerning things a farm boy might see. He read from his book In Someone Else’s Home, his first anthology being The Singers I prefer. He is preparing a 60-page poem for publication that he describes as, “A landscape poem of voices.”
Sharkey’s poems were oriented around big ideas and obscure history. Her poems ask questions like, “How can a person possess another person? How can a person possess land?” Her latest book is Calendars of Fire, it is her fourth full length anthology.
Though their styles were different, the reading didn’t suffer from it. University of Maine at Farmington Professor Jeffrey Thomson said, “I thought it was a great reading. They have different styles but they compliment each other so well.”
“Poetry occurs in the space between language and the silence it emerged from,” Sharkey said. “In a world where so much language is used to manipulate, sell, or deceive poetry is a vital form of truth telling.”
