Sandwich Poet Jan Goldman featured at Feb. 7 event

MOULTONBOROUGH — Audiences at the Moultonborough Public Library’s monthly 'Evening of Poetry' will be treated to an interesting mixture of poems – some political, some personal, and some fantasy – from Sandwich poet Jan Goldman on Tuesday, Feb. 7, at 7:30 p.m.

The event will also feature an unlimited open mike time, and audience members are encouraged to bring their own writing or music to share with the group. The library is located at 4 Holland Street, at the intersection of Routes 25 and 109. The event is free and open to the public, and complimentary refreshments will be served.

Jan Goldman was born in Florida, where her father was stationed in the Army, but by the age of two she moved to Moultonborough – then Sandwich, Vermont, New York, Wisconsin, and New Jersey – before finally settling back in Sandwich in 1993. She graduated from Livingston College and the Graduate School of Education, both units of Rutgers in New Jersey. She then worked for the Department of Alumni Relations at Rutgers, and later at the Animal Rescue Force. When she returned to New Hampshire, she worked for the Retired Senior Volunteer program (RSVP), Moultonboro Academy, and Moultonboro Central School. She married in college, then divorced and dropped out to become the single mother of her daughter, and 20 years later she remarried and gained three stepsons.

Goldman has read at the Baptist Meetinghouse and the Wentworth Library, both in Sandwich, and has been a previous contributor to Moultonborough’s poetry nights. She is active in Page Coulter’s weekly poetry group, where she says she uses her participation "to prod my pen into getting off its backside into my hand, and to poke my undisciplined brain into thought and action." She is grateful to her mother and grandmothers for their hours of reading to her, instilling the love of words, and appreciating the wonders of nature. She loves spending time with her children and grandchildren, and she also enjoys yoga, dogs, reading, solving puzzles, and distance swimming in Squam Lake.

The Moultonboro Library’s 'Evening of Poetry' series is organized by local poet and artist Priscilla Burlingham. Upcoming evenings will feature Harmony Markey in March and Eleanor Corliss in April.

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Jan Goldman, Sandwich poet. (Courtesy photo)