CUSHING — Camden Conference, in partnership with the Cushing Public Library, presents Ellen Goldsmith, for a poetry session featuring poems by ten contemporary poets from India, on Sunday, Nov. 12, at 1 p.m. This in-person event is open to all.

Poetry opens doors into the personal, social, political and psychological fabric of a country, its particular concerns as well as universal themes, according to Camden Conference, in a news release. This year’s poetry session features poems by ten contemporary poets from India, poems that explore questions of identity and culture as well as current realities. Some titles: “Migrations,” “Burn the Sari” and “Who Are You?”

Readers will both read and respond to their poem. Together, the poems and commentary will create a collage of ideas and emotions. In this participatory session, there will be opportunities for attendees to engage with the poems. The handout will be posted on the Camden Conference website and also available at the session.

Presenter Ellen Goldsmith’s books include Left Foot, Right Foot, Where to Look, Such Distances and No Pine Tree in This Forest Is Perfect, which won the Hudson Valley Writers’ Center 1997 chapbook contest. Recent poems have appeared in numerous journals and two anthologies, Enough: Poems of Resistance and Protest  and Waiting: Poems from the Pandemic. She holds an Ed.D. in Educational Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University, is professor emeritus of The City University of New York and lives in Cushing.

This event is presented in anticipation of the 37th Annual Camden Conference, “INDIA: Rising Ambitions, Challenges at Home” taking place live from the Camden Opera House from February 16-18, 2024.