Images courtesy of Motel Bear Lake.
Editor’s note: This story has been edited and updated to reflect a new event partner and location for the event.
By Pat Stinson
BEAR LAKE – Poets whose works have appeared in the Freshwater Reporter will read selected poems during a Community Poetry Gathering hosted by Motel Bear Lake at Bear Lake Bar, 12323 Maple St., from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., Feb. 21. All are welcome to attend the free event for an early evening of community, connection and poetry.
Partnering with Motel Bear Lake for the event are the Z&N Farm, Freshwater Reporter, Bear Lake Promoters, and Blarney Castle Oil.
The evening will feature Bear Lake farmer Nicole Mezeske, of Z&N Farm, who will read poems from her new book, “Heart Soil.” Mezeske read her poems at a conference of farmers in Glen Arbor last year and most recently presented them at a Near and Farr Friends’ program in Onekama. Her poems share the love and travails of farming as she and her husband Zac raise their young children in the farming tradition begun by Zac’s family on land acquired generations ago. Fellow farmers urged her to publish her collection, and the book’s first printing quickly sold out. Copies from the second printing will be available for sale.
Poet Shannon Courier, of Wellston, is an outdoor enthusiast. Her poems reflect a love of nature as seen through the eyes of an area explorer and homesteader. She will read her poem “Crown of Velvet” published last fall in the Freshwater Reporter. The poem was recently chosen for inclusion in the “Michigan Bards Poetry Anthology.”
Ramona DeGeorgio-Venegas has written several stories for the Freshwater Reporter. Her first submission was a poem the newspaper published in 2019. She has self-published several fiction books based on her travels, some available on Amazon. She will read her poem “Stone Linguistics.”
Louisa Loveridge Gallas was named Freshwater Reporter’s “poet in residence” because she has submitted a poem for almost every issue since 2022. Her poems have won several awards, and she recently updated and reprinted a novella-like book, “Rescue the Good Stuff,” and a collection of poems, “Be Yourself: Everyone Else is Taken.” She will read her poem, “Basic Hygiene.”
Light refreshments will be served during the event.
