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What Is Home

Project background

Workshops

Community members from all over the Seacoast have had the unique opportunity to explore the theme: WHAT IS HOME with some of New Hampshire's most distinguished authors.  

During the six weeks that the groups met, participants created poems that reflect individual experiences and thoughts of home. The groups worked under the direction of Mark DeCarteret, Marie Harris, Maren Tirabassi, Katherine Towler, and Portsmouth Poet Laureate, Mimi White.

Each group leader helped to inspire fresh ways to look at the theme. WHAT IS HOME is a project of the Portsmouth Poet Laureate Program and is supported in part by a grant from the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation - Piscataqua Region, and by a grant from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Summer/fall 2006 events

WHAT IS HOME?

This is the theme the Portsmouth Poet Laureate Program invites the community to continue considering this fall. Organizations around the city are already responding in various ways to the theme established by Mimi White as her project as city poet laureate.

  In the playbill of "Oliver!" at Prescott Park, the audience was encouraged to consider "What is Home?" in a reference to the play.

  On July 28, The 100 Market Street Gallery (shown above) opened its exhibit of visual art made in response to the "What is Home?" theme. Six poems by Portsmouth Poet Laureate "What is Home?" writers are on display until Oct. 15.

Those who visit Strawbery Banke Museum are having an opportunity to enjoy period poems that address "What is Home?"

At the Children’s Museum (above) you can see a display discussing the history of the building that has been home to the museum since its inception. This display considers the "What is Home?" question in light of the museum’s planned move to Dover.

• There is a show of 32 poems from PPLP writers paired with pieces of art that the writers feel express the ideas of their poems will run from Oct. 6 to Jan. 5, 2007, at the Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage gallery (above), 25 Maplewood Ave., Portsmouth, and is curated by Susan Savory. The gala opening was Friday, Oct. 13.

• Carolyn McGee of Buyers Brokers of the Seacoast (above) asked recent home buyers to comment on their homes for the "What is Home?" theme. The comments and pictures of their homes are on display in the front window of the office at 33 Deer St., Portsmouth.

• A Pontine Theatre performance (above) based on poetry written in PPLP's WHAT IS HOME project was held Friday, Oct. 20 at 8 p.m. The evening was hosted by Portsmouth Poet Laureate Mimi White.
The poems were performed by 7 community members
including Mimi White, Greg Gathers and Marguerite Matthews. Some of the poets whose work was performed are:

Maryka Ford
Jessica Purdy
Pat Spalding
Stephanie C. Holt
Belinda Braley
Cynthia Muse 
Jo Ann Orr
Denise Hart
Terri Karnan 
Sherry Fawcett
Karen Galipeau   
Patricia F. Corliss
Patricia Martine 
Mimi White
Peter Cady
Sally Hirschberg  
Lydia Baghdoyan

The performances were held at West End Studio (W.E.S.T.) at 959 Islington Street Portsmouth.

• More activities in the fall will be held at Nahcotta Gallery, Art Around Town, RiverRun Bookstore and at the  Seacoast Science Center.

• New Hampshire Theater Project's "Odyssey" is playing at WEST Theatre, 959 Islington St., Portsmouth, at 8 p.m. on Fri. & Sat. and at 2 p.m. on  Sunday from Nov. 17th to the 26th.  It's  a funny/tragic well-acted play about "finding home" and struggling to get home.  Chuck Grosky's poem "Cartography" is printed in the program. 

• The 200 women of Voices from the Heart will answer the question "What is Home?" in song on Nov. 18 at 4 and 7:30 p.m. at South Church in Portsmouth. The question has been posed to the group by Portsmouth's own poet laureate, Mimi White, and the Portsmouth Poet Laureate Program's (PPLP) project, "What is Home?" In this just-in-time-for-Thanksgiving concert, Voices will explore this engaging theme through song. Three Seacoast composers have chosen poems from the PPLP's project and written pieces commissioned for Voices from the Heart. UNH music professor, Christopher Kies has selected Ann Driscoll's poem, "A Poet's Life"; Russ Grazier, Jr., director of the Portsmouth Music and Arts Center, has chosen "Six-Thirty A.M. Ten Degrees February Eleventh Two Thousand And Six," by Merrilyn San Soucie; and Joanne Connolly, director of "Voices from the Heart," has chosen "This Place" by Marcia MacCormack, "In a Wood-Warmed Room on Valentine's Eve Thinking About the Persistence of Love, I Realize," by Marie Harris, "Ancestors Imagined," by Susan Savory and "A Vision" by Celeste M. Provencher. Tickets are $8 and are now available at Serendipity, 41 Pleasant St. in Portsmouth. Any remaining tickets will be available at the door. This concert is sure to sell out so get your tickets early. Call Voices from the Heart at (207) 451-9346 for more information or visit voicesfromtheheart.org and www.pplp.org.

• Or right here on the Web site, you can download a booklet of writing exercises designed in response to "What is Home?" write with friends or on your own. Some of the lessons are ones used with the PPLP writing groups earlier in the year.