Newtown Poet Laureate Lauren Clifford has been working for a few years on poetry to celebrate America 250, the 250th anniversary of the signing of The Declaration of Independence.

The first works she introduced publicly were part of her “American Mettle” series that focuses on the four Founding Fathers of Connecticut who signed The Declaration of Independence: Oliver Wolcott, Samuel Huntington, Roger Sherman, and William Williams. Clifford presented the first installment of that series on July 4, 2025, at East Cemetery in Litchfield. One of the first Semiquincentennial events in Connecticut was conducted that day by Daughters of the American Revolution-Mary Floyd Tallmadge Chapter in Litchfield.

Clifford’s poem begins on July 9, 1776, the day a copy of The Declaration of Independence was read in New York City to General Washington’s troops and a surrounding crowd. Its message, she said, gave those soldiers a new-found hope integral to the American spirit.

Her second installment was presented the following day at The Samuel Huntington Homestead in Scotland (Conn.), where the property’s namesake was born. The poem takes place in the Pennsylvania State House as Huntington is signing The Declaration of Independence on August 2, 1776.

Clifford has been researching and visiting towns and cities across the state for a few years, following themes encompassing the American spirit. She is composing documentary and narrative poems to portray some of the lesser-known stories.

Newtown and area residents will have an opportunity to hear three of her four “American Mettle” works, and other thematic poetry, when C.H. Booth features her as its special guest on Tuesday, April 21, at 6 pm. A 90-minute program, “American Mettle: Original Poetry Capturing the American Spirit During the Revolutionary War,” will focus on heroes and heroines that impacted Connecticut, including signers of The Declaration of Independence, women, slaves, indigenous people, and children.

“My poetry is very historically based. My style is rooted in history,” she said April 3. Clifford sat down with The Newtown Bee to talk poetry, history, inspiration, and the upcoming special event in her hometown. “I like doing research, especially in my own community and surrounding communities.”

When The America 250-CT Commission was established in July 2022 by Governor Ned Lamont, Clifford was quick to see where her writing would work perfectly as the state, and the entire nation, began looking at its past to celebrate the milestone.

“When I found out about Governor Lamont’s initiative I thought ‘This is right up my alley!’ That really set the spark. I love doing the research and then presenting it to communities,” she said.

Rich History To Explore

Clifford is the second person to hold the title Poet Laureate of Newtown. She was appointed to the post in July 2024, succeeding Lisa Schwartz.

While the position carries a three-year term, Clifford stepped in three months before Schwartz’s term ended when the first poet laureate moved out of the area. Her full term will continue to September 30, 2027.

Among the duties of the honorary position are to foster public appreciation of and participation in poetry and literary arts; to be present for at least one public event per year as requested by the Newtown Board of Selectmen and/or Newtown Cultural Arts Commission (NCAC); to serve as an auxiliary member of NCAC; and to serve as an ambassador in the greater arts community.

Clifford unintentionally began acting on that last point before she was appointed Newtown’s poet laureate. In May 2022 she attended a seminar concerning the 1777 Battle of Ridgefield. Sponsored by Ridgefield Historical Society, the seminar also concerned the skeletal remains of four soldiers discovered under the foundation of a house that was being renovated in 2019.

Clifford was so moved by the topics, and having lived in Connecticut most of her life, she was inspired to write an elegy for the men as a way to pay tribute to them. “By Light From The Fire: Elegy for the Unknown Soldiers Who Died in the Battle of Ridgefield, 1777” was the resulting quintain, or a five-stanza poem.

Each of the first four stanzas, she told The Newtown Bee that spring, represents what one of the soldiers might have been doing on the days leading up to the Battle of Ridgefield and on the day itself. The stanzas show each man admitting his fear that he may be forgotten. The final stanza acknowledges the men were never given proper funerals.

With Connecticut being one of the original 13 colonies, Clifford pointed out last week, “it means we have so much rich history in our state. One of the reasons I wanted to do this was for my own education.”

Even the small state of Connecticut has multiple layers to sort through and decipher, Clifford said.

“When I was in elementary and middle school, it was all about the white males and the Founding Fathers,” she said. With the nation heading toward its 250th anniversary — while looking a little deeper into its past — Clifford wants the record to be clearer and more inclusive.

“I want to take a deeper dive. I want to understand who else was involved — the Native Americans who were involved, the enslaved families who were involved,” she said. “Even from a global perspective, when you think of the American Revolution, you think about Empire vs Colonies but there were so many more layers than that,” she continued. “It was Loyalists vs Patriots, and then there was the view of civilized people vs the savages, so you get the Native Americans in there too.

“Most people think of the Civil War as Abolitionists vs slavery, but there was that in the American Revolution too. It was not as prevalent, obviously, but that was there as well,” she said. Neighbors and even families fought against each other.

“The father would be on the Patriots side and the son would say ‘No, I want to stay with England, so I’m staying a Loyalist,’” she said. “There is definitely so many layers. It’s multi-tiered. There’s a lot of information.”

Poetry Celebrating Ties To Connecticut

The poems she has selected for her readings at Booth Library will focus on people with ties to Connecticut. “Revered and Hailed,” told in conversation form between 16-year-old Sybil Ludington and her father ahead of the young girl’s 40-mile all-night horseback ride to stir American militiamen to attack British forces near Danbury, will be among them. Ludington’s ride led to the only inland battle of the American Revolution, Clifford pointed out.

“She had gumption, she’d just turned 16, she went over 40 miles, in terrible weather, she had so much against her,” Clifford said, ticking points off with her fingers. “Paul Revere was 40 years old, he had a partner, the weather was much better that night, and he only did between 12 and 20 miles.”

In her work, Clifford has the teenager “press all the buttons,” she said, laughing. “They know how to do that.”

Sybil tells her father she’s listened to his stories about Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys, and Paul Revere, and Nathan Hale. She respects that her father is a militia leader, but Connecticut needs their help, she also tells him. She understands his concerns, that he thinks she’s too young, but she knows the route and she needs to do this.

The repeated verse in the poem has young Sybil telling her father Henry “I want to be revered like Paul Revere / I’m longing to be hailed like Nathan Hale.”

The autumn 2025 release of The American Revolution, the six-part documentary by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein, and David Schmidt, was also helpful in introducing Clifford to others with local ties.

“He brought up someone in Connecticut by the name of Rebecca Tanner. She was of the Mohegan tribe and she had lost her husband in the French-Indian War and she had five sons who all died in the American Revolution. They were fighting for the Patriots, and I didn’t know anything about her or the Native American piece in Connecticut before that,” she admitted.

Phillis Wheatley is another woman Clifford learned about through the Burns documentary. A slave whose enslavers educated her, Wheatley learned new languages and was well versed in the Bible, making hers an unusual story.

Wheatley also wrote elegies, including one for David Wooster, who died during the Battle of Ridgefield. The Hartford Courant (then The Connecticut Courant) published Wheatley’s work, said Clifford.

“She wrote all these poems that were genius for the day, but no one believed that she wrote them because they were so good,” Clifford explained. “I have a story about when she has to go to a trial in front of all of these white male leaders to prove herself, to prove her worth.”

That poetic story will also be included in the Booth Library program. The individual perspective will be one of three types Clifford will include, she said. The commemorative poems — the “American Mettle” series — is the second type.

Poetic vignettes, with overarching perspectives between multiple people, such as demonstrated in “Revered and Hailed,” is the third.

The program title, Clifford said last week, leans not only toward her poetry series about the four Connecticut Founding Fathers, it also celebrates the American spirit.

“There were certain traits Revolutionaries had — perseverance, resilience, the commitment to liberty. When you think about the signers of the Declaration, they committed treason. They had targets on their back as soon as they did that.

“But they, and all the soldiers who fought in the war, and the Native Americans, and the enslaved individuals who ended up fighting up fighting for their freedom — they all believed this new country was worth fighting for and worth dying for. It shows how fragile liberty is, and how it can be taken away. Those values, we still have today.

“That’s really what I consider our American mettle,” said Clifford, who has begun using the hashtag #donotmeddlewithourmettle to tie her work and its very patriotic themes together.

“American Mettle” will be presented in the meeting room of C.H. Booth Library, 25 Main Street. Registration is requested and available at chboothlibrary.org. Additional information is available by calling 203-426-4533.

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Managing Editor Shannon Hicks can be reached at shannon@thebee.com.