April is Poetry Month! Celebrate with us on April 22!

Come to the Dover Public Library on Tuesday, April 22 at 6:30pm for an upbeat musical visit with balladeer John Perrault. Hear the poems and songs that make us laugh, cry, tell our story, and remind us who we are.

Guitar in hand, this former Portsmouth Poet Laureate will sing the story of Song & Poetry—the passion of their engagement, the bliss of their marriage, the tragedy of their divorce, and now their long process of reconciliation.  This getting back together began with the work of Wordsworth and Coleridge, who counseled merging the old ballad form with the personal lyric from the heart. Emily Dickinson took heed.  As did Frost.  As did Langston Hughes.  And it continues right through today in the poetry and songs of writers like James Wright, Mary Oliver, Bob Dylan, and Lennon & McCartney.

This free program, a salute to the romantic tradition, is sponsored by the Friends of the Dover Public Library in conjunction with the New Hampshire Humanities Council.

John Perrault is the author of “Jefferson’s Dream” (Hobblebush Books, 2009); “Here Comes the Old Man Now” (Oyster River Press, 2005); and “The Ballad of Louis Wagner” (Peter Randall Publisher, 2003).  His poems have appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, Commonweal, Poet Lore, the Salmon Poetry Anthology Dogs Singing, and elsewhere. He is a New England Foundation for the Arts and NH State Council on the Arts touring artist, and a presenter for the NH Humanities Council.

John was a co‐recipient of the Rosalie Boyle/Norma Farber Award, 2008, from the New England Poetry Club; a finalist in the 2007 Comstock Review Poetry Contest; and a past recipient of the Virginia Prize from The Lyric.  He was poet laureate of Portsmouth, New Hampshire from 2003‐2005.

Selected ballads and poems may be sampled at johnperrault.com. For more information, call the Dover Library at 603-516-6050.