ROCKLAND — Mark Doty, distinguished poet and essayist, will open the Writers-in-Residence program at the Millay House Rockland with a free public reading alongside Maine poet Bruce Willard on Tuesday, July 23, at CMCA, 21 Winter St., Rockland. A reading will take place from 5 - 6:30 p.m., and a book signing and reception will follow from 6:30 - 7 p.m.

Millay House Rockland welcomes Doty as the first guest in its Writer-in-Residence series. Doty served as judge for the Millay House Rockland’s inaugural juried residency competition, an annual program which begins this Fall with poet Melissa McKinstry. The Millay House Juried Residency offers writers a month-long space for creative focus in the renovated birthplace of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. Millay House Rockland welcomes Mark Doty and Bruce Willard at its inaugural event at CMCA celebrating the Millay Writer-in-Residence program and sponsored by First National Bank.

Please be sure to reserve your seat through the website www.millayhouserockland.org as space is limited.

About the poets:

Mark Doty is the author of nine books of poetry, including Deep Lane (April 2015), Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems, which won the 2008 National Book Award, and My Alexandria, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the T.S. Eliot Prize in the UK. He is also the author of four memoirs: the New York Times-bestselling What Is the Grass, Dog Years, Firebird, and Heaven’s Coast, as well as a book about craft and criticism, The Art of Description: World Into Word. Doty has received two NEA fellowships, Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundation Fellowships, a Lila Wallace/Readers Digest Award, and the Witter Byner Prize.

Bruce Willard lives in Maine and Colorado and has published 3 collections of poems: Holding Ground (2013), Violent Blues (2016) and In Light of Stars (2021) - all 3 published by Four Way Books (NYC). In Light of Stars received an Indie Book Award Prize for Poetry in 2022. In addition to his work as a poet, Willard directs the Blue Raven Poetry Series in Rockland, Blue Raven Poetry Series | Blue Raven Gallery.

About Millay House Rockland:

Millay House Rockland is a nonprofit organization that champions poets, creators and practitioners of all the arts. Celebrating the legacy of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Edna St. Vincent Millay and the rich cultural heritage of midcoast Maine, Millay House Rockland is honored to advance its continuing mission to be an incubator of the arts that began nearly a decade ago with the rejuvenation of Millay’s birthplace at 198 Broadway in Rockland, Maine.

For more information on Millay House Rockland, please visit https://millayhouserockland.org/about.
or contact:
Ann Morris
anmorris@roadrunner.com
207-594-4601