APRIL OSSMANN: CALL & RESPONSE READINGS FROM WE – joined by local poet Tim Mayo

“WE,” a collection of poems by April Ossmann, will be shared in a call and response reading on Wednesday evening, 08/27, in Brooks Memorial Library’s Main Reading Room. Ossmann will also sign copies of her book WE.

WE seeks what unites us, how to change our perceptions to heal families, friendships, and country of incivility and villainization by practicing greater compassion, by seeing past egos to souls. Ossmann will read from WE, share stories of being a bridge, and invite audience participation with short (2-minute) personal stories of positive interactions with people you know or met: fellow shoppers, travelers, service providers, neighbors, etc., whose politics may differ from yours, but with whom you shared a moment of mutual humanity.  Please come prepared to share.

April Ossmann is the author of We (Red Hen Press, 2025) and Event Boundaries and Anxious Music, recipient of a VAC Creation Grant, and former director of Alice James Books, and an independent editor at: www.aprilossmann.com

Ossmann will be joined by local poet and friend Tim Mayo who will read poems from his collection Notes to the Mental Hospital Timekeeper and talk a bit about his work in a mental hospital.  Mayo will end by reading some poems from his new manuscript Muscles Memories of Love and Disaster. 

Tim Mayo’s poems have received seven Pushcart Prize nominations. His second volume of poems, Thesaurus of Separation (Phoenicia Publishing, Montréal, 2016) was a finalist for the 2017 Montaigne Medal and for the Eric Hoffer Book Award. His subsequent chapbook, Notes to the Mental Hospital Timekeeper (Kelsay Books, 2019) won Honorable Mention in the 2020 Eric Hoffer Chapbook contest. He works at the Brattleboro Retreat and is a founding member of the Brattleboro Literary Festival Author Committee.  For more information:  http://www.tim-mayo.net

Byway Books will have publications from both authors for sale.