First Friday Poetry Reading at Callicoon Library
Open Mic First Fridays continues at the Western Sullivan Public Library! Join us Friday, October 4th, from 6:15pm to 8:30pm at the Delaware Free Branch on 45 Lower Main St. in Callicoon to see an accomplished featured poet and participate in open mic. All performers and poets are welcome! Share a poem, song, story, or other inspiration. Register on the library’s calendar at www.WSPLonline.org. For additional information, email wsplprograms@rcls.org.
The evening starts at 6:15pm with open mic sign-up and continues with Eric Baylin, a poet, sculptor, and musician, who currently resides in North Branch in Sullivan County. He served as Sullivan County Poet Laureate for 2021-22. A teacher of visual art for over 50 years, he recently retired after spending 37 years at Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn. During his term as Poet Laureate, he gave poetry workshops for adults and young people and read his poems at numerous county events including the Bagel Festival in Monticello, the Jeffersonville Jamboree, and the Members’ Annual Reunion at Bethel Woods. He co-curated an exhibit at DVAA “For the Love of Wood” which included artists, craftspeople boat builders and others who worked with wood. He is currently working on a series of sound poems that hang in the balance between poetry and music and was recently awarded an individual artist’s grant from DVAA to develop this work. He plays keyboard, writes songs, and also is a member of a ukulele band. He is especially interested in using poetry and music as vehicles to bring communities together.
