Hartford Open Mic Event 

ATRIUM
Wednesdays, 6-7:30 pm

H.O.M.E  is a weekly open mic with a focus on poetry, promoting literacy, writing, community engagement, and ownership over words and experience, both collective and individual. Open to all. Hosted by performing poet and artist Zulynette Morales. Bring your best 3-5 minutes of material.  Quick writing workshop from 6 to 6:15 pm.

This program is a partnership among Hartford Public Library, UConn Library, and Zulynette Morales

Open House

Friday, September 15

September is Library Card Sign-up Month. Visit any HPL branch during our city-wide Open House event for music, activities, and more! We'll also be kicking off Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15-October 15), and and Welcoming Week (September 15-25) with board games played around the world.

UConn Writing Center

WALLACE STEVENS WRITING ROOM
Noon - 4 pm
First Saturday of the month:
Saturday, October 7
Saturday, November 4
Saturday, December 2

First come, first served: please sign up upon arrival for about an hour of attention.

WHO WE ARE: Students, Graduate Students, and Professors from UConn Hartford. We are people interested in writing in all its forms. We believe the best writing comes as part of a dialogue.

WHAT HAPPENS HERE: You bring your writing to us and we discuss it with you. Any stage of writing: planning, drafting, or revising is welcome. Any kind of writing: academic: essays/writing for classes will be accepted. Professional: resumes, cover letters, applications can be reviewed. Creative: stories long & short, poetry, non-fiction are acceptable. Personal: letters, memoirs are okay. Your work will receive multiple levels of attention. Conceptual: content, theme, and organization. Mechanical: sentence structure, clarity, and grammar.

Poets on Poetry Series

The Connecticut Poetry Society holds its monthly poetry book group discussions on the fourth Saturday of the month, 10:15 am-12:15 pm,  in Room 26 on the Ground Floor of the Downtown Library.Poetry is free and open to the public. 

Lorine Niedecker presented by Jim Finnegan

CLASSROOM 140
Saturday. September 30, 10:15 am

Lorine Niedecker (1903-1970) is a twentieth-century, second-wave, Modern American poet often identified with the Objectivists. Living most of her life on the shores of the Rock River near Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, she is perhaps best known as a poet of place who wrote about the Blackhawk Island that she loved. Her work ranges from modernist folk poetry (NEW GOOSE, 1946) to haiku-like forms to long poems such as "Lake Superior" and "Wintergreen Ridge" (NORTH CENTRAL, 1968). She is admired for the subtlety of her tightly crafted, nuanced and deliciously ironic poems, as well as for her total devotion to her calling.

Jim Finnegan is a former poet laureate of West Hartford.

Upcoming dates for 2017-18:

October 28, 2017: Murial Rukeyser
November 17, 2017: William Blake
January 27, 2018: Gertrude Stein
February 24, 2018: Wislawa Szymborska
March 31, 2018: Claudia Rankine
April 28, 2018: Frank O'Hara
May 26, 2018: Gerard Manley Hopkins
June 30, 2018: TBD

For further information, visit www.ctpoetry.net.
To nominate a poet for discussion or volunteer to moderate, contact:
Christine Beck
christinebeck90@gmail.com
860-655-3263

Time To Try Tied Weaves

Hartford Artisans Weaving Center Exhibition
July 10-September 30, 2017

Glass Cases, Hartford History Center
Downtown, 3rd Floor 

Every year the Hartford Artisans Weaving Center challenges its members to learn a new structure or technique.  Tied weaves produce intricate patterns and textured looks.  The artisans often used two or more shuttles carrying different wefts. All the weft threads are “tied” to the warp at regular intervals to produce a stable and durable fabric.

The Center encourages people with low or no vision and those 55 and older to develop their skills and interest in weaving original and beautiful handwoven items.

Fran Curran, director of the Center, says this is a group that is often overlooked. Weavers learn the craft of handweaving on small looms, find comraderie with other artians and produce scarves, throws, and wall hangings for sale.

Support comes from the Fisher Foundation of the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, and the Greater Hartford Arts Council.

ART WALK

ArtWalk at Hartford Public Library offers one of the largest and most stunning exhibition spaces in greater Hartford and the opportunity for Hartford residents and others to view art in a magnificent setting in our city.

Hartford Times: The Newspaper & The City

July 15-September 30, 2017

For 160 years, Hartford had two daily newspapers.  The Hartford Courant, a morning paper, was founded in 1764, and the Hartford Times, an evening paper founded in 1817.  Many people read both papers for their often contrasting news coverage.  Like the Courant, the Times was much more than just a newspaper; it was a vital presence in downtown Hartford.  Its building was used as a podium by politicians and a stage for community events.  The Times ceased publication in 1976 and today its story lives on in the Hartford History Center at Hartford Public Library.  The current exhibition draws on photographs and artifacts from the Hartford Times Collection. It celebrates the re-opening of the Hartford Times Building as the centerpiece of the University of Connecticut’s new downtown campus and welcomes UConn faculty, staff, and students to their newly renovated space in the Hartford Public Library.

Connecticut Dances: A Visual History

ATRIUM
September 1-26

Connecticut Dances is a photographic exhibition celebrating dance and spotlighting the pioneers, innovators, teachers, performers, creative artists and important historical dance events that have transformed the cultural landscape of Connecticut. The project covers a century of dance in the state and draws from 2000 images of beginning dance students, professional dance companies, and significant performances.

Connecticut Dance Alliance began the project in 2014, which has resulted in a touring exhibition of over 200 photographs with explanatory text on large panels. An accompanying 450-page book includes photos and essays from the dance world.

Information: www.ctdanceall.com

When Hartford's Melting Pot Turned Brown:
The Puerto Ricanization of Frog Hollow

Photographs by Robert Pawlowski

HARTFORD HISTORY CENTER
September 15 – November 3, 2017
Reception/Program: Thursday, September 21, 6 pm

From 1900 to approximately 1965, Hartford’s Frog Hollow neighborhood was a bustling industrial village, home to some of Hartford’s most famous manufacturers including Pratt and Whitney, Billings and Spencer and Pope Manufacturing. Because of its mix of ethnic factory workers including Irish, Swedes, Germans, English, Lithuanians, and French Canadians, it was often called Hartford’s “melting pot.” But by the 1960s, its major industries began to shut down leading to its decline. By 1975, when the first of these photographs were taken, the neighborhood had reached a low point. Between 1975 and 2000, the Frog Hollow Puerto Rican population grew from 10% to 72%. Pawlowski shows through photographs that the Puerto Ricanization of Frog Hollow brought a revitalized Park Street, rehabilitated housing, safer streets, political power, and cultural exposure.