Poetry in motion: Evan Goldstein is the town’s first poet laureate

by Sarah Barr

Staff Writer

The 31-year-old self-described recent transplant to Old Wethersfield is the first to have a new title bestowed upon him. He was named the town’s first poet laureate by the nine-member Wethersfield Library Board.

Evan Goldstein reads at the recent Old Wethersfield Book Walk. (submitted)

“The idea came from [Anna Laurie], the organizer of Book Walk,” Library Director Brook Berry said.

“It’s exciting for a few reasons. It’s a nice way to get to know my adopted town,” Goldstein, a native of upstate New York, said.

“I have the unique opportunity to make an impact locally, encourage people to write and explore their lives and relationships with our town using language, express what Wethersfield means to them.”

To him, it is a place where history intersects everyday life. Like on a moonlit walk along the Elm Street Extension along the Connecticut River.

Evan Goldstein is a scholar, teacher, wordsmith and Wethersfield’s first poet laureate. (submitted)

“Great Meadows is such a beautiful natural space,” Goldstein said of inspiring moments like “a full moon rising above the river and reflecting off the ripples in the water.” Or on a guided tour with his wife Kendall when “we stopped to watch a bald eagle carry a huge dead branch across the river to its nest.

“The guides told us we were near the fields where the Pequot and Wangunk attacked the first Wethersfield settlers after the settlers had betrayed the Wangunk, which would become the first shot of the Pequot wars. So, this frozen river, this parcel of land preserving access to something we may have lost, this lone eagle, a dead piece of forest floating above, this buried but still ongoing blood history, I wrote a poem about that.”

Goldstein first became interested in poetry during his high school years as a way to accompany his love for music. He joked that he probably “took more poetry classes than allowed,” earning a bachelor of arts degree in English from SUNY Geneseo, where he was awarded the Patricia Kerr Ross Award by the New York State Foundation for the Arts for his poetry, photography and work with arts organizations.

Rewriting is part of his writing process. (submitted)

He also holds an MFA degree in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

Now a teacher of English at Connecticut State Community College Tunxis in Farmington and the author of numerous published poems, Goldstein looks forward to facilitating workshops, models and other public projects using poetry as a form of exploration. Poetry gives him a fresh way of looking at things.

“Poetry has a way of surprising me,” he said. “I’m excited to see what comes of [everything] when the people of Wethersfield come to readings and writings and workshops and see what comes of it.”

For those not familiar with the term or the role, a poet laureate is an official poet chosen by a government, country, or city to write for special events and promote the art of poetry. In this case, Goldstein will collaborate with the library, which is running a few contests. He will help select those award winners. But then there is a much more influential role.

“A poet laureate advises the board on arts and culture,” he said, noting that he is already making a list of how the library can expand its poetry section. Here is where he circles back to his planned workshops.

“Poetry workshops are where people can write and read together,” he said. “Another project is the public posting of poems by the people of Wethersfield,” something he calls transformative.

“Put them around town so people can see them and create a living map of how to experience Wethersfield.”

How his works of art will be used or featured is still to be determined.

“I have some poems that take place in Wethersfield that explore landscape and history. I’m not sure how they will be used, but would be happy for them to be used,” he said.

“I sit with the ghosts of the past, where a prison was and where families are today,” he added about the Wethersfield Cove where the Connecticut State Prison once stood.

“Where in 1827, prisoners marched all the way from Newgate; among them was Prince Mortimer, an enslaved man who had run errands for [George] Washington during the revolution, who was convicted at 87-years-old of trying to poison the man who enslaved him. He lived to 110, just a few feet from where I walk my dog and my baby, Henry, today,” Goldstein said.

He added that he hopes to write poems that are meaningful but also encourages other townspeople to write as a way to explore.

“If one more person thinks of themselves as a writer after this, I will have done my job,” he said.

The term of poet laureate is two years. It can be renewed. That’s time enough for him, or his successors, to plant seeds for the town’s quadricentennial celebration.

“If I’m still doing it by the time we’ve turned 400 [in 2034], I hope to have written something about it.”

Perhaps they will be included in his next dream project, publishing the first collection of his original poems. WL

For more information on Evan Goldstein visit evangoldsteinpoet.com.