Well-known Door County poet Ralph Murre will be the featured reader at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Dickinson Series August 11 at 7 PM. “If things go as planned, my reading in the Dickinson Series will be the de facto launch party for my third book, The Price of Gravity, which will embody many of my recent poems, and also reaches back to include a few pieces from as long as seven or eight years ago, which I feel may be worth another look. I’m proud of this manuscript, as I am of my earlier books, Psalms, a chapbook which combines a longish 15 verse song-poem with a like number of my pen-and-ink drawings, and Crude Red Boat, a collection from Cross+Roads Press, which has become rather difficult to find now.”

Murre said he came to writing poetry rather recently. “The writing thing got started roughly as the 21st century rolled in, and is going OK, I guess. I’m the second of three sons of parents who taught us we could do most anything we put our minds to, so I put my mind to about 30 different occupations and obsessions. More of my work appears in obscure literary journals now, and less on bar napkins. If you insist on being a poet, the best you can hope for is some stranger telling you that something you wrote mattered, and that’s happened, so I feel pretty successful.”

Following Murre’s reading, other poets are encouraged to share their works. The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 10341 Hwy. 42, Ephraim, sponsors this event at no charge as a forum intended to enhance both the appreciation and writing of poetry. A reception follows the readings.