Poetry Reading At Booth Library

Poet Jean Valentine will give a reading of selected poems from the new book Late and Soon by Helen Ruth Freeman, in the antiques reference room on the third floor of the C.H. Booth Library, Tuesday, November 18, at 2 pm. All are invited to attend. Refreshments will be served.

Helen Ruth Freeman spent most of her adult life in New York City. A graduate of Wellesley College with an MA from Columbia University in English and comparative literature, she was for many years a teacher and chair of the English department of a New York City public high school. In 1971 she founded the New York City High School Poetry Festival, a program to encourage students to write poetry. She continued as director of the program until her retirement in 1983. She was a founding member of the board of directors of Poets House in New York City.

Thrice widowed, with one daughter and four grandchildren, Ms Freeman married Merlin Fisk in 2000. It was a late-in-life marriage for both, happy and harmonious. They divided their time between New York City, East Hampton, N.Y., and Brookfield, until Ms Freeman died in 2007.

The more than 60 poems in this new collection are about nature, change, death, and aging. Ms Freeman selected and refined each of the poems for this volume prior to her death; her husband saw the book to its completion.

Jean Valentine, whose work appears regularly in The New Yorker and other national publications, was a teacher and mentor for Ms Freeman and often participated with her in poetry readings. She maintained a long and close friendship with Ms Freeman and Mr Fisk.