Author Hosted By Garden Club—

Flowery Prose, Created With Purpose

Town and Country Garden Club of Newtown hosted a program with special guest Susan Kinsolving on October 8. The program was part of the club’s regular monthly meeting and was presented in the multi-purpose building on Riverside Road in Sandy Hook.

Ms Kinsolving, a renowned poet, read excerpts from her book Among Flowers, which was conceived and written by her in collaboration with the artist Susan Colgan. The book features paintings of many varieties of flowers by Mc Colgan, accompanied by poems about the flowers by Ms Kinsolving. It was Ms Kinsolving’s first release and it was published by Clarkson Potter, the distinguished gardening division of Random House, with nationwide distribution.

In her presentation last week Ms Kinsolving explored common garden flowers through botanical history, myth, fact and fable in a humrous and poetic way.

“She has a great sense of humor, and her poems are readily understandable,” Liz Arneth, a member of Town & Country Garden Club of Newtown, said. “Her presentation was dramatic, and interesting, and very exciting to watch. The audience reaction was very positive.

“To include that much detail, but to have such beauty in her writing, was quite a combination,” Mrs Arneth added.

Before reading each poem, Ms Kinsolving explained some of the results of her research into the folklore of each flower, and explained how she constructed each poem.

“It helped to clarify the images in each poem that much more,” said Mrs Arneth. “She was also very happy to answer questions. There was great dialogue between her and her audience.”

A book signing followed the reading, with a number of participants purchasing copes of Among Flowers that evening.

In 1999 Grove press published Ms Kinsolving’s book Dailies and Rushes, which also included many horticultural poems in a section called “Small Bouquets.” The book was a finalist for The National Book Critics Circle Award.

Poems by Susan Kinsolving have appeared in anthologies and magazines. She has taught poetry at the University of Connecticut and California Institute of the Arts, and has received numerous awards for her work including a Connecticut Commission on the Arts Poetry Fellowshop. Her work has been presented at schools, clubs and libraries in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Scotland, Switzerland, and throughout the United States.

Her poem “Dance Steps” was presented to Her Majesty the Queen of the Netherlands and televised during The 2000 Four Freedoms Awards ceremony. Earlier this year the poem was performed by The Baroque Choral Guild in six cities in Italy and California.

A poem by Ms Kinsolving about American history was commissioned by a Daughter of the Cincinnati and presented at the French Consulate in New York.

Ms Kinsolving’s newest collection of poems, The White Eyelash, will be published this month by Grove Press.