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History of the Chilmark Public Library with Barbara Stewart.
This talk was part of the Chilmark Tri-Centennial celebration in 1994.
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Chilmark History Film Clips:
Martha's Vineyard Sign Language & the Deaf Community - Signs for fish. From a 1994 interview with Eric Cottle.
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Welcome! We are a full-service library with a collection of 32,000 items -- books, magazines, newspapers, movies and more. Our technology offerings include computers, wireless internet access, copies, fax, camera card readers and a scanner. We're here to serve you. Please let us know how we can help.
Storm Closing: The library will not open in the morning on Saturday, Sept. 4. We will open at 2 p.m. if conditions permit.
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Elisa Brickner Annual Poetry Contest 2010: 2010 Winners have been selected! It was wonderful to hear them read their poems Sat, Aug 14. Click here (or scroll down) to view the winning poems!
2010 Summer Lecture Series: Join us in the large meeting room for these exciting and interesting lectures by a wide variety of distinguished speakers.The summer lecture series is sponsored by the Friends of the Chilmark Public Library. Click here for dates and times!
| • Free Lecture Series - Wednesday, Sept. 1st, 5:30 PM: | |
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Photographer and author Alan Brigish presents his photo-documentary, Martha's Vineyard - Now & Zen West Tisbury photojournalist Alan Brigish will discuss his new book: Martha’s Vineyard –Now & Zen with photographs in slide show with music on Wednesday, September 1 at 5:30 PM at the Chilmark Public Library Their website describes the book: “That something in the air— unnamable, intangible—and a compelling sense that something here is extraordinary... Renowned island storyteller Susan Klein, and photographer, Alan Brigish explore communities, traditions, and transformations of the Island of Martha’s Vineyard. Susan, who grew up on the island, tells of the way it was. Alan, with a perceptive sense of the moment, shows the way it is. Geraldine Brooks, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Literature, says, “There are may beautiful books about Martha’s Vineyard, but this is the indispensable one. Alan Brigish’s ravishing photographs capture the island as it is; Susan Klein’s warm and wistful words remind us of what once was. One third of this island’s open and wilder spaces are still up for grabs. It is for our generation to decide if we want more tourist dollars and more development, or whether we will take stewardship of this precious, fragile place, preserving it for our children and the children of the future. Anyone who loves the island needs this book.” Brigish is a South African-born documentary photographer who has lived in the USA for nearly forty years and has been photographing Martha’s Vineyard for thirty years. Since 1997, he has documented his travels in Bhutan, Botswana, Brazil, Cambodia, China, Cuba, England, Ethiopia, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Laos, Lithuania, Myanmar, Namibia, Netherlands, Russia, South Africa, Tanzania, Thailand, Tibet, Ukraine, USA and Uzbekistan. Brigish shoots using digital still photography and edits and prints his own work. His previous book, Breathing in the Buddha received an Honorable Mention in the 2010 San Francisco Book Festival. His work may be seen at www.brigish.com or at his year-round gallery in West Tisbury. This program is sponsored by the Friends of the Chilmark Public Library. Admission is free. For more information please call 508-645-3360. |
The Sustainable Book Club 2010 Please join this island-wide book group, reading and discussing books that examine our relationship with nature. The group is sponsored by the Martha’s Vineyard Library Association, Mass Audubon’s Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary, The Trustees of Reservations, and other Island Conservation Organizations.
The Secret Life of Lobsters by Trevor Corson
Wed, Sept 22
10:30 am
Oak Bluffs Library From Amazon.com:
In this intriguing and entertaining book, Corson, a journalist who has reported on such diverse subjects as organ transplants and Chinese sweatshops, brings together the often conflicting worlds of commercial lobstermen and marine scientists, showing how the two sides joined forces and tried for 15 years to solve the mystery of why the lobsters were disappearing.
Musings on Homecoming. As I Get Off the Bus... As I get off the bus, I check to see if my hair is scragglyElisa Brickner Annual Poetry Contest 2010: 2010 Winners have been selected! It was wonderful to hear them read their poems Sat, Aug 14. Below are the winning poems:
First Place Winners:
Begin Again.
Aliza Astrow,
(Junior High).
Let me begin again
As a pencil
Moving swiftly
Across a once-blank page.
Hesitating at a comma,
But never stopping
The continual
Rush of words,
Until my tip breaks
And I shed my skin
Like the serpent
I write about.
Let me begin again
As a stream
Rushing,
Flowing,
In a perfect flow.
Never to be obstructed
By a silly rock
Or any bump
That tries to stop me.
Pushing on,
My once timid,
Polite,
Quiet manner forgotten.
Let me begin again
As me.
Claire Wiener,
(High School).
A diverse range of meanings mark this word
as one of the most difficult to pin down;
To a refugee, a far gone dream of a place they hope their children will see,
to me, a tangible reality
that lies just a few squares forward
from today’s date in its own square on my calendar---
But even to me it takes on a multitude of meanings:
The sight of my own front door opening inwards into a plain but warm living room
sometimes it’s the sweep of green and golden agricultural land
marked out in circles by the necessity of center pivot irrigation
under the wings of a Denver bound plane,
or the dusky mountains lined with sandstone
and bristling with sweetly scented Ponderosa pines.
And yet
it’s the first sight of green tunnels,
trunks bending inwards in a polite bow to the black tar and asphalt of the road
branches sweeping overhead over the centerline in a green sunshade;
A view of the ocean beyond green fields;
Entering a musty smelling house with colorful and familiar rooms.
Walking out your own door sometimes is a dangerous thing
and a homecoming can never be without meaning for me
knowing that though I am home and my life will resume
I am not entirely the same.
Second Place Winners:
Isabella Quinones,
(Junior High).
It is
It always is
I never have time to brush it
My mother always yells,
Remember to brush your hair
And I always reply,
I’m reading my book, I’ll be down in a minute
But maybe,
Maybe I don’t want to care about how I look
Maybe I don’t want to brush my hair
In the morning
Maybe I don’t want to change my shirt
Even though I have been wearing it
For as long as I can remember
And maybe, just maybe,
I don’t want to take a shower and put deodorant on
But the girls at school
They make a big fuss over
Everything
If I walk in wearing a dress and actually remembering to
Shave my legs
They take me in as their own.
But if I forget to do all of this,
And show up in messy braids, a stained t-shirt
And cheap Walmart jeans they turn me away
As if I weren’t the same girl as I was
Yesterday. Plantain Chips.
Ava Geyer,
(High School).
The secret of plantain chips
is that they are tasteless----
like the gnawing on the sole of your own shoe,
or letting the communion wafer melt in your mouth,
waiting-
expectantly-
for bliss.
Plantain chips are like everything
else I
serve up
on this rollicking, heaving,
beast of dreams:
the coconut “fudge”,
the watery rum punches,
the vacant smiles that say:
“I am too provincial,
too 2-dimensional,
to fully appreciate
the deep-seated irony,
the privileged strains
of your liberal joke---
but I will punch your ticket
and let
you
pass---
so you can turn to the
40 year old paralegal from Rhode Island
next to you
and complain about the service. Everything---
from the smiling sun
to the blue blue sea
is right where you imagined it to be---
but your digital camera,
your toddler
and your hangover somehow
distracted you
so that when you get home-
you will find yourself longing
for the sun.
Has it ever occurred to you,
that I , too
sometimes long for the sun?
I’ve lived my life underneath it;
It’s absorbed my fears and my
traumas, too
And sometimes
don’t you ever
just want to
get away?
This contest, now in it's 15th Year, was created to foster a love and appreciation of poetry. Click here for more details about the contest!
• Chilmark Library's Historical Digital Archive About the Chilmark Deaf Community - Sneak Peek!
Click Here to view! We will be adding more shortly, including interview videos with Chilmark elders, filmed in the late 1970s and early 1990s.
| • Summer Reading Program Sign up begins Monday June 28! |
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Come in and sign up for the Summer Reading Program. This year's theme is Go Green @ Your Library. Come get your reading log and start earning coupons of appreciation from local merchants! |
DVD Display Spotlight: August is sand, surf, summer season! Watch some beachy movies!
| My Summer of Love Knife in the water Blue Crush The Edge of Heaven Shark's Tale Into the Blue |
Lito & Stitch Jaws Jaws 2 Jaws 3 The Beach |
My Summer Story Endless Summer Endless Summer 2 The Sea Surf's Up |
When the Sea Rises Swimming Pool Nights in Rodanthe The Sea Inside Summer Hours |
Looking for a specific title? Search in our catalog, request a title, email us. You can also call us at 508-645-3360 and we can reserve a title or do an interlibrary loan for you.
| • Art Exhibit: Tracy Thorpe: Watercolors - Oceanus On display in our large meeting room Aug 14-Sept 3. Opening reception - August 14, 3-5 PM. |
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The Oceanus image was painted out of my love for the ocean, all it's creatures in their vast diversity, and a feeling of helplessness about the state of our waters. Meant to be directed at children, I hope the image will inspire a youthful interest in the watery world around us.The original painting will hang in the upcoming Chilmark library show, and Oceanus prints will be available to purchase, with 50% of profits going to IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Additional watercolors hanging in the show are taken from images I personally find beautiful, whether inspired by Nature, or everyday life. Opening reception will be on Saturday, August 14, 3-5 o'clock, and the show will run until September 3. Tracy L. Thorpe |
Come join Kristin Tue and Sat 10:30 –11:15 AM for fun, music, and story-telling. See more photos!
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• Free Blood Pressure Clinic. Wed. Sept 16, (12:30 - 1:30 p.m.) Town Nurse Laura Murphy from the Visiting Nurse Association will be holding walk-in blood pressure clinics in the Chilmark Public Library conference room. They will be held at the same time: 12:30-1:30 p.m. the THIRD Wednesday of every month. No appointment necessary.
Town of Chilmark Tri-Centennial Celebrations DVDs! Come check out our original DVDs with interviews, presentations, and more from the 1994 Town of Chilmark Tri-Centennial Celebration. The Tri-Centennial was a year-long celebration, with a wide range of local people participating and sharing their stories and historical knowledge about all aspects of life in Chilmark's first three hundred years. We have just put these DVDs on the shelf, and so the content has not been seen since the 1994 celebration!
Come check out more original Chilmark history DVDs, including interviews with old time Chilmarkers (Eric Cottle, Donald Poole,and Gale Huntington) about sign language and the Chilmark Deaf community, and local maritime and fisheries-related DVDs.
Here are just a few Chilmark Tri-Centennial 1994 Celebration titles:
| Along South Road Over South Menemsha Harbor Day History of the Chilmark Post Office |
History of the Chilmark Library & History of Middle Road History of the Elizabeth Islands Birthday Party & Fireworks Handcrafts & Hobbies |
• Chilmark History Film Clips:
Martha's Vineyard Sign Language and the Deaf Community
