Dye & Bleach House Poetry Series (3rd Thursday of the month)
FREE ADMISSION
(DONATIONS GRACIOUSLY ACCEPTED)
3rd Thursday of the month thru May 2026
Steve Veilleux
Welcome to EC-CHAP’s Dye & Bleach House Poetry Series! The series will be facilitated by Steve Veilleux., published author and Poet Laureate of Thompson, CT. All sessions will take place in the Dye & Bleach House Community Gallery, 156 River Road, Willington, CT.
The show’s format will consist of two open mic segments as well as a segment for the featured artist. Intermission will give audience and poet the chance to meet one another and the opportunity to purchase signed publications.
The open-mic segments will provide the opportunity for audience members to read their own original work. We are planning to allow for two half-hour sessions, one at the beginning of the event, and the other at the end. Readers will be given up to five minutes to present, and we will have a signup sheet.
The Featured Readers for April 16th include Joshua Michael Stewart and John Hodgen.
Joshua Michael Stewart
Joshua Michael Stewart is the author of Break Every String, The Bastard Children of Dharma Bums, and Love Something. His work has appeared in Modern Haiku, Massachusetts Review, Brilliant Corners, New Flash Fiction Review, and Best Small Fictions 2025. His latest book is Welcome Home, Russell Edson—a graphic novel & prose poem hybrid created in collaboration with llustrators Bret M. Herholz and Aaron J. Krolikowski. website: joshuamichaelstewartauthor.com
There’s a fearlessness in Joshua Michael Stewart's poetry—tough, tightly written narratives and monologues about living poor with broken people (some of whom are your closest relatives) in hard times. This heartfelt gritty work reminds me of the hardscrabble accounts of humanity in some of our best poets. You can't help but respect the maker of these streamlined vehicles, for his guts and his unsentimental, vivid poems. -Tony Hoagland
John Hodgen
John Hodgen is Writer-in-Residence at Assumption University and Advisory Editor at New Letters at the University of Missouri at Kansas City. He won the AWP Donald Hall Prize in Poetry for Grace (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006), the Bluestem Award for In My Father’s House (Emporia State University Press, 1993), and the 2002 Balcones Poetry Prize for Bread Without Sorrow, (Lynx House Press, 2001). Pitt Press also published Heaven & Earth Holding Company in 2010. His latest book, What We May Be is out from Lynx House Press/Washington State University in May 2024. Poem “Hamlet texts Rosencrantz and Guildenstern About Playing on the Pipe” published in Best American Poetry 2017.
Writers who are interested in featuring should reach out to Steve Veilleux by email: Veilleuxs50@gmail.com or phone 860-324-4942.
Please join us for EC-CHAP’s D&BH Poetry Series! This program is hosted by the "Eastern Connecticut Center for History, Art, and Performance" (EC-CHAP) and Steve Veilleux. Doors 6:00pm / Presentation 6:30pm. Free Admission - Donations Accepted
For more information, please call 860-324-4942.