This month’s poem is “Spiral Woman (homage to Louise Bourgeois)” by Katherine Ferrier. Call 207-828-5607 through July 31 to hear Katherine’s poem, read by the author.
The poem originally appeared in 2021 as part of ARTWORD: Ekphrasis at the PMA, a joint program of the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance and Portland Museum of Art. In celebration of the long, intimate relationship between poetry and visual art, MWPA and Portland Museum of Art created ARTWORD in collaboration with beloved poet, teacher, activist, and MWPA co-founder Lee Sharkey (1945-2020).
Katherine Ferrier (she/her) is a queer poet, dancer, textile artist, teacher, and community organizer based in Rockland, Maine. Her research grows out of a deep practice of paying poetic attention to the world, and lives in the intersecting communities of movers, makers, writers and activists. Her work has been featured in Uppercase Magazine, The Knot, Contact Quarterly, and several poetry anthologies, including A Dangerous New World: Maine Voices on the Climate Crisis, and a self-published collection of photographs and poems about making, called Thread Says Stay.
Katherine is a founding member of The Architects, an improvisation ensemble whose collaborative performance history spans over 30 years, with whom she continues to teach and perform. Since 2019 she has been a core member of @the_stillness_collective, a place-based interdisciplinary and improvisational collaborative making work along waterways in Midcoast Maine.
Instagram: @katherinemferrier
The 2024 Poetry Hotline is a screenless exhibition available to anyone with access to a phone. The 2024 Poetry Hotline offers audiences a direct line to Maine-based and national poets and their visions for the future, and another medium to connect and inspire audiences with heartache, love, humor, rage, and regeneration.
