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Join us for this celebration of our photographers, as we announce the winners in each category: Color, Black & White, and this year’s challenge theme, “Triumph". Refreshments will be served. 

Coinciding with the Joy of the Lens is the Friends' Photo Lottery. Current Friends members, as well as anyone who joins the Friends by 5 p.m. on April 25, will be entered into the Friends’ Photo Lottery for a chance to win Lilac Breasted Rollover Takeoff  by Linda Cullivan.

Sarah V. Schweig is the author of the chapbook S. Her second book, The Ocean in the Next Room, won the Jake Adam York Prize. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Black Warrior Review, BOMB, Boston Review, HTML Giant, the Iowa Review, Tin House, Verse Daily, the Volta, West Branch, the Winter Anthology, and elsewhere.

Join John Gillespie in celebrating Poetry Month. Owen Lewis will share his works with us. 

Owen Lewis is the author of three collections of poetry, Marriage Map, Sometimes Full of Daylight, and Field Light, and three chapbooks. best man was the recipient of the 2016 Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize of the New England Poetry Club. Field Light was a “Must Read” selection of the Massachusetts Books Awards. Major prizes include: The E.E. Cummings Prize (2024), The Rumi Prize for Poetry/Arts & Letters (2023), The Guernsey International Poetry Prize (2023), and The International Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine (2016). Other prizes include: Second Prize 2018 Wigtown (Scotland) International Poetry Competition and Finalist, 2017 Pablo Neruda Award. His poetry has appeared in Nimrod, Poetry Wales, The Mississippi Review, Southward, The Four Way Review, Cider Press Review, and Arts and Letters. He is a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University in the Department of Medical Humanities and Ethics and lectures extensively on topics of Narrative Medicine.

Young Critics is an ongoing bookdiscussion group for kids in grades 4 and 5. We meet every month from Octoberto May at the library for great books, great conversation and a pizza dinner! Must be registered to attend!

Join Bowdoin Professor Patty Jones and Bowdoin Senior Issie Gale as they discuss the newly planted Pollinator Park at the Topsham Solid Waste Facility and the importance of landscaping for pollinators with native plants. This talk is co-sponsored by the Topsham Conservation Commission.

Dr. Tomah will give a talk on the doctrine that legitimized the colonization of indigenous lands and its profound effect on native peoples, from the perspective of those who have suffered under it. He is a language keeper, director and curator of the Sipayik Museum, and teacher of the Passamaquoddy language and culture. 

About the author:  

A language keeper, Tomah is the director and curator of the Sipayik Museum. A teacher of the Passamaquoddy Tribe, he has served on the tribal council. In 2024 he received an honorary doctorate degree from Colby College. 

Dwayne Tomah is currently working with the Library of Congress on translating the Passamaquoddy wax cylinders. They are the first recordings in the world of Native languages and were recorded in 1890 by Jesse Fewkes, who borrowed the device from inventor Thomas Edison. Tomah has also been involved in repatriation and the Land Back movement to share historical truth regarding the Doctrine of Discovery from the Indigenous perspective.

Cohosted by Forest Circles and Topsham Public Library. For more information, contact Regina Strongheart  rstrongheart@gmail.com

This event DOES NOT take place at the library..

It will be at:

Social Goose, 94 Maine Street, Brunswick, ME

 For more information, contact John Gillespie at jgillespie@beyondtbl.com

Young Critics is an ongoing bookdiscussion group for kids in grades 4 and 5. We meet every month from Octoberto May at the library for great books, great conversation and a pizza dinner! Must be registered to attend!

Join Lindsey, the Teen Librarian for the latest romance book club. Make new friends, enjoy pizza, soda and a scrumptious dessert all while chatting about relationships. Sign up required for new additions, please call TPL (725 - 1727) to add your name to the group. This month's book is The Boy Who Steals Hearts by Emily Lowry #2 in the Hallisburg Prep Series

Kate Kearns is the author of You Are Ruining My Loneliness (Littoral Books, 2023), and a chapbook called How to Love an Introvert (Finishing Line Press, 2015). Her work has appeared in Maine Women Magazine, the Maine Sunday Telegram “Deep Waters” section, and on Maine Public Radio’s “Poems from Here”. Her poems have also been published in Salamander, Peregrine, Northern New England Review, Sugar House Review and elsewhere. Kate was a finalist for the 2024 Charles Simic Poetry Prize and the 2024 Maine Postmark Poetry Contest. She earned her MFA from Lesley University and BA from Sarah Lawrence College.

Gibson Fay-LeBlanc's first collection of poems, Death of a Ventriloquist won the Vassar Miller Prize and was featured by Poets & Writers, and his second, Deke Dangle Dive, was published by CavanKerry Press in 2021. His poems have appeared in magazines including The New Republic, Tin House, The Literary Review, FIELD, Poetry Northwest and Orion. His prose has appeared in Guernica, Kenyon Review, Publishers Weekly, Slice, and other places. He also served as the City of Portland’s fifth Poet Laureate, ending a three-year term in 2018. With graduate degrees from UC Berkeley and Columbia University, He has taught writing at conferences, schools and universities including Fordham, Haystack, and University of Southern Maine, and helped lead community arts organizations including The Telling Room, SPACE Gallery, and Hewnoaks Artist Colony. He currently serves as executive director of the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance and live in Portland with his family. 

Join us for a poetry reading from Lauren Saxon. Lauren Saxon is a queer, Black poet and engineer living in Portland, ME. She loves her cats, her Subaru, and being chronically online. Lauren's work is featured in Barrelhouse, Empty Mirror, Across the Margin, Homology Lit, and more. Her debut chapbook, "You're My Favorite" won the 2023 Maine Literary Award for Book of Poetry, and is out now with Thirty West Publishing. 

Barry Allen, the Flash, uses his super speed to change the past,but his attempt to save his family creates a world without super heroes,forcing him to race for his life in order to save the future. Rated PG-13. Popcorn will be served.

We will try out different techniques and projects, and explore our creativity! For ages 7-12. Sign up required on a monthly basis.

Sonic, Knuckles and Tailsreunite to battle Shadow, a mysterious new enemy with powers unlike anythingthey've faced before. With their abilities outmatched in every way, they seekout an unlikely alliance to stop Shadow and protect the planet. Rated PG. Bringpillows and blankets for extra coziness! Popcorn will be served.

Show your love for the Earth by decorating a cookie. VolunTeens have put together cookie kits to decorate for Earth Day. The enormous heart cookies will be decorated with an earth and a heart. Must Sign up at the front desk or call 725-1727. The first twenty people to fill the spots are in. All ages welcome.

Various activities willbe set up in the children’s section – activities may include art projects,sensory activities, experiments, building activities, and more! Designed for ages 7 and up, but open to everyone with adult supervision.

After receiving an unexpected callfrom her wayfinding ancestors, Moana must journey to the far seas of Oceaniaand into dangerous, long-lost waters for an adventure unlike anything she'sever faced.  Running Time: 1 hour 40 minutes. Rated PG for action/peril. Recommendedages 6 and up, but all are welcome. Bring pillows and blankets for extracoziness! Popcorn will be served.

Various activities willbe set up in the children’s section – activities may include art projects,sensory activities, experiments, building activities, and more! Designed for ages 7 and up, but open to everyone with adult supervision.

Build something to fit our theme, or create your own ideas! 

Various activities willbe set up in the children’s section – activities may include art projects,sensory activities, experiments, building activities, and more! Designed for ages 7 and up, but open to everyone with adult supervision.

Join us for a reading from Katherine Hagopian Berry

Katherine Hagopian Berry has appeared in the Café Review, SWWIM, and Feral among other places. Her first collection, Mast Year, was published in 2020 and she has two collections, Landtrust (Nature Culture Publishing) and Orbit (Toad Hall Editions) forthcoming in 2022. She is a poetry reader for the Maine Review.

Mike Bove is the author of four books of poetry: Soundtrack to Your Next Panic Attack (Aldrich Press, 2024), EYE (Spuyten Duyvil, 2023), House Museum (Moon Pie Press, 2021), and Big Little City (Moon Pie Press, 2018). His work has appeared in the U.S., U.K., and Canada in publications including Rattle, Chestnut Review, Tar River Poetry, Rust & Moth, and the anthologies Wait: Poems From The Pandemic and Writing The Land. In 2021, he was winner of the Maine Postmark Poetry Contest and a finalist for a Maine Literary Award in 2023. In 2024, he served as writer-in-residence at Acadia National Park. He is Editor of Hole in the Head Review, a biannual poetry journal.

Samaa Abdurraqib, PhD lives in Wabanaki territory, close to the ocean and the mountains. Recently, her poetry can be found in Enough! Poems of Resistance and Protest, Bigger Than Bravery: Black Resilience and Reclamation in a Time of Pandemic, Cider Press Review, Writing the Land: Maine, and in her self-published chapbook Each Day Is Like an Anchor (2020). Lis McLoughlin, PhD is founder and director of NatureCulture LLC, and the Writing the Land project. She publishes the Writing the Land anthologies and other books, and produces events such as the online Authors and Artists Festival. nature-culture.net writingtheland.org Shanta Lee is an award winning writer across genres, journalist, visual artist and public intellectual actively participating in the cultural discourse with work that has been widely featured. Shanta Lee is the author of poetry collections poetry collection, GHETTOCLAUSTROPHOBIA: Dreamin of Mama While Trying to Speak Woman in Woke Tongues (Diode Editions, 2021) her latest illustrated poetry collection, Black Metamorphoses (Etruscan Press, 2023). Her latest work, Dark Goddess: An Exploration of the Sacred Feminine, is on view at the University of Vermont's Fleming Museum of Art.To learn more about her work, visit: Shantalee.com.

Come see some BIG vehicles upclose!  All ages are welcome; event will take place rain or shine.  Our parking lot will be full of BIG vehicles,so please park at the rec field (30 Foreside Road)!

The Maine 3 Railers O-Gauge ModelRailroad Club will be setting up a running model railroad display in our bigmeeting room! Come watch the trains and see how they work, and talk to clubmembers!

Join John Gillespie in celebrating Poetry Month. Various Maine poets will read and discuss their works. Bring your own lunch. Coffee and tea provided. This week's poets are Cammy Thomas & Bob Carr.

Cammy Thomas is an American poet. Her first book, Cathedral of Wish, received the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America.^[1] A fellowship from the Ragdale Foundation helped her complete her second, Inscriptions. Her third collection, Tremors, appeared in 2021. All are published by Four Way Books. Two of her poems, under the title Far Past War, were set to music by her sister, composer Augusta Read Thomas.^[2] The premiere of this choral work was performed by the Cathedral Choral Society at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. in March, 2022. 

Robert Carr is a Pushcart and Best of The Net nominated poet whose work has appeared in the Bellevue Literary Review, Cortland Review, Crab Orchard Review, Lana Turner, Maine Review, Massachusetts Review, Rattle, Shenandoah, Sonora Review, Tar River Poetry, and other publications. He is a 2022 Monson Arts resident; co-editor for the 2019 Ghana Literary Group anthology, Bodies and Scars; and a member of Writing the Land, an initiative pairing poets and land trusts in order to promote preservation.

Join us for our final poetry month program. We will be holding a reception and poetry walk featuring poetry from Mt. Ararat students.