Poetry, Storms And Bird Haiku: Local Authors To Sign Book

If you’re looking to read cosmopolitan poetry, learn about the Cape’s wild storms, or admire photos of birds coupled with haiku, this is the week for you as three part-time Cape Codders will sign and speak about their work.

The opening poem in Maxim D. Shrayer’s new poetry collection “Kinship” (Finishing Line Press, 2024), “At the Elbow of Cape Cod,” begins with these words: “Dusk in September/tender, like sealskin/ lilted, like lavender.” In an email interview last week Shrayer said this is a poem about “immigrant and Jewish identity and about the present, very tense political and ideological climate in America.” Shrayer, who was born in Moscow in 1967, immigrated with his parents to Providence, R.I. in 1987.

While Shrayer gazes out to the wide world in his poems, he says South Chatham, where his family has a cottage and has “spent some of the happiest days of our lives…is both the emotional setting for and the place of composition of many poems in this collection.”

Shrayer, a professor of Russian, English, and Jewish Studies at Boston College, dedicates “Kinship” to his wife Karen E. Lasser and their daughters Mira and Tatiana. He is the author of over 25 books of poetry and memoir in English and Russian.

“We often attain clarity when we’re at the boundaries, be they physical or metaphysical,” he says. “For me as a writer my beloved Cape Cod and its extremities provide an environment where I experience a sense of clarity and feel compelled to express it in verse.”

Shrayer began writing the poems in “Kinship” after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. “I remember waking up to the news of the war in Ukraine and thinking: This is just so unbelievable, so unfair, so devastating.”

Then, on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, he revised “Eretz Israel,” a cycle of seven poems about visiting Israel with his then 9-year-old daughter Tatiana. He calls his edits “a form of grieving through verse and in verse.” He hopes that people who have become hostile to Israel since Oct. 7 will find poems in “Kinship” where “Israel plays a significant and positive part.”

Shrayer will sign “Kinship” at Yellow Umbrella Books in Chatham on Friday, Aug. 16 from 1 to 3 p.m.

Many Cape Codders will tell you they “love a good storm.” The atmosphere gets moody, even tense, as you run into your neighbors out shopping for batteries, milk, bread and wine. Prolific author Don Wilding, a part-time resident of Dennis, shares this mindset. In fact, when he was growing up, “some suggested that I pursue meteorology as a career.” While Wilding did not become a weatherman, his new book, “Historic Storms of Cape Cod” (The History Press, 2024), reflects his intense interest in weather.

Wilding opens with the Hurricane of 1938, a storm that has been used as a benchmark of terrible storms for generations. Horrifyingly, “most of the people in its path were completely unaware of what was heading their way.” While the storm was a bit less severe on the Lower and Outer Cape than on the Upper Cape, rumor had it that Provincetown had been completely washed away.

The Hurricane of ’44, though, slammed the Lower Cape. In Chatham the bridge to Morris Island was swept away in a high tide. The steeple was blown off the Universalist Church (now St. Christopher’s). The cover illustration on “Historic Storms” shows the tangled destruction wrought at Stage Harbor.

The book goes right into the 21st century, which has brought us some “storybook” storms. The first was the blizzard of January 2005 when up to three feet of snow fell on some parts of the Cape. That Dec. 9, winds gusted up to 75 miles an hour in Chatham. In Brewster, branches fell off trees along Route 6A, causing people to seek shelter at the old Cape Cod Sea Camps and in Laurino’s Restaurant. Other people were caught in the Orleans Stop and Shop where they were treated to a feast in the store’s conference room while a generator kept them warm.

Wilding will speak on “Historic Storms of Cape Cod” on Monday, Aug. 19 at 2 p.m. at the Eldredge Public Library in Chatham. The talk is free, but registration is recommended through eldredgelibrary.org as space is limited.

We might recall that Emily Dickinson wrote a poem called “Hope is the Thing with Feathers.” Now photographer Rebecca Cornell Ahrensfeld, who divides her time between Harwich and Key West, and bestselling children’s author Natasha Wing of Colorado, have teamed up to create “Feathers & Verse,” a collection of Cape Cod bird photos coupled with haiku. Ahrensfeld and Wing were roommates at Fairleigh Dickinson College in New Jersey and have remained friends. Wing, who is a fan of Ahrensfeld’s bird photos, generated the idea of creating a book with photos, poetry and information on the birds.

The featured birds range from piping plovers and snowy owls to both migratory birds and birds that make Cape Cod their home.

Ahrensfeld will sign copies of her book on Wednesday, Aug. 21 from 6 to 8 p.m. during the Harwich Port Stroll. Her shop, Reciprocity — An Artisans Market in Harwich — is at 4 Cross St. in Harwich Port.