Actor, poet to perform
David Mills as Langston Hughes.
MANCHESTER–Manchester Community Library will welcome Manhattan-based poet and actor David Mills, who will bring three unique programs to the community. In partnership with Vermont Humanities Council, the library will host Mills the first week of April to kick off National Poetry Month.
On Tuesday, April 1, Vermont Humanities Snapshot Series will host Mills for a reading and discussion of his poetry collection “Boneyarn.” The presentation will highlight a rarely discussed topic in American history, featuring groundbreaking poems about slavery in New York City. The event will begin at 5:30 pm and will take place in person at the library as well as online, live streamed by GNAT-TV.
Mills returns on Wednesday, April 2, at 11 am, to lead a writer’s workshop titled “Manhattan Slavery and Your Song.” In this generative and experimental workshop, participants will use excerpts from historical texts about antebellum New York, colonial New York maps, Manhattan slave cemetery photographs, dialogue and documentary poems, and poems about New York City slavery, to meditate on the history of slavery in lower Manhattan—where the oldest and largest slave cemetery in the United States is located.
On Thursday, April 3, at 1 pm, Mills will arrive at the library as Harlem Renaissance writer Langston Hughes. The one-person dramatic rendition of Hughes’ poems and short stories will take the audience on an odyssey spanning five decades of Hughes’ writings.
For more information or to sign up for the April 1 livestream visit www.mclvt.org. All library programs are free and open to the public at 138 Cemetery Avenue.
