Poet Sue Ellen Thompson will be the speaker for the St. Michaels Library Lunch & Learn on Monday April 1, 2024, at noon to discuss her book, “Sea Nettles: New & Selected Poems.”
The poems explore relationships between people of three generations as they evolve over decades. At the center of many of the poems is a transgender child.
The child’s stubborn, gritty insistence on being true to herself is revealed, as well as the mother’s struggles to come to terms with her child’s identity and the grandfather’s loving relationship with this child.
Like so many of us, the speaker in these poems often attempts to take refuge in “Foolish wishes, passing thoughts, dreams abandoned…” but she can’t avoid the sharp truths that come with complicated relationships. And whose relationships, if they are true if they are deep, are ever free of complications?
“I love how this collection gives us decades of insight into family, offers epiphanies that are only available after many years have gone by. These are personal poems with a wide perspective, intimate poems that take the long view.
Old dreams, old lenses, old shames and old losses are met with a new spaciousness and clarity. Each poem is like a stepping stone that bridges the present and the past,” said Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, author of “Hush.”
Thompson’s poems have been read more than a dozen times on National Public Radio by Garrison Keillor. They have also been featured in U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser’s nationally syndicated newspaper column and have received numerous awards, including the 1986 Samuel French Morse Prize, the 2003 Pablo Neruda Prize, and two Individual Artist’s Grants from the State of Connecticut.
She is the author of six books including “They” (Turning Point Books, 2014), and “The Golden Hour” (Autumn House, 2006), which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Thompson is also the editor of The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry (1st edition), a selection from the work of 94 American poets that is used in college classrooms across the country.
After living in Mystic, CT, for most of her adult life, Thompson moved in late 2006 to the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay.
She is now teaching at The Writers’ Center in Bethesda and mentoring adult poets. In 2010, the Maryland Library Association selected her as the winner of its prestigious Maryland Author Award, which is given to a poet every four years for his or her body of work.
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