ROCKLAND — Poets Ellen M. Taylor and Claire Millikin will read from new books on themes of home, liminality, vulnerability, and beauty at a reading to benefit Connecting Across Cultures, Friday, Nov. 4, at 5:30 p.m., at hello hello books and Rock City Café, 316 Main Street in Rockland.

Connecting Across Cultures, previously known as the New Mainers Coastal Task Force, is a network of volunteers that celebrates diversity and helps New Mainers as they navigate life in the Midcoast and beyond.

Taylor and Millikin will read both individually and in conversation.

Ellen M. Taylor will read from Homelands, recently published by Moon Pie Press. 

Millikin writes, "the poems of Homelands remind us that even in the desolate times of 21st century climate and human rights catastrophes, the human capacity to witness and create beauty persists."

Dr. Taylor is the author of two previous collections of poetry, Floating and Compass Rose, as well as a chapbook, Humming to Snails. Dr. Taylor has also published scholarship on Maine poets Celia Thaxter, Elizabeth Coatsworth, and Kate Barnes. She teaches writing, literature, and gender studies at the University of Maine at Augusta and lives with her family in Appleton.

Claire Millikin will read from Elegiaca Americana, newly published by Littoral Books, and from Transitional Objects, published this spring by Unicorn Press.

Millikin is the author of nine books of poetry, including Dolls, a semifinalist for the 2022 PSV Poetry Book Award for North American Writers & Publishers. As editor of Enough! Poetry of Resistance and Protest she received a 2021 Maine Literary Award. Millikin teaches art history at the University of Maine, and the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts.

The reading is free to the public, and sliding scale donations and a portion of all sales will be donated to Connecting Across Cultures. Drinks and light refreshments will be available. For more information, contact hello hello books at staff@hellohellobooks.com or 207-593-7780.