Local poet Charlotte Cox to read at the Laconia Public Library on Thursday

LACONIA — Lakes Region poet Charlotte Cox will read from her newly published first book, Currents in the Stream, at the Laconia Public Library's poetry evening on Thursday, Jan. 15, at 6:30 p.m. in the Rotary Hall auditorium. This event is free and open to the public, and it will offer time for audience members to share their own writing or music. The library is located at 695 Main Street, just north of downtown.

Currents in the Stream, released this past fall by North Star Press, has already gathered high praise from New England's poetry luminaries. Patricia Fargnoli, New Hampshire Poet Laureate 2006-09, says: "Here among the wealth of these poems, you will find . . . childhood memories, family relationships, lyrical poems of nature, of marriage, of travels, of loss and, finally, of a woman alone in the world redefining her place in it. These poems glow with clarity, close observation, and a sensitive perception of the world." In addition, John-Michael Albert, editor of the Poets' Guide to New Hampshire and former Portsmouth Poet Laureate, declares: "The highs and lows, the tragedies and comedies, of Charlotte Cox's rich life compress beautifully into the structures of lyric poetry. This is poetry that leaves plenty of room for us, her readers, to fire up our sympathetic memories."

Cox's writing has won prizes in the Poetry Society of New Hampshire's National and Member Contests and in the River Run Seacoast Poetry Contest. Her poems have been published in the Poets' Guide to New Hampshire, The Poets' Touchstone, Piscataqua Poems: A Seacoast Anthology, and The Widow's Handbook (Kent State University Press, 2014). She has had articles published in Library Journal, Public Libraries, and Seacoast Living, and she has been a featured reader throughout the Lakes Region. Cox will be available to sign copies of her book after the reading.

The second part of the Laconia Public Library's poetry event will provide an open mike time for poets, musicians, and other writers from the audience. Listeners are encouraged to participate, so bring something to share, and plan on Jan. 15 as a good occasion to meet other creative people in the area.

For more information, call the Library at 524-4775.