Wed. Nov. 29

As one who's championed a lot of punk rock in the past, I have a hard time saying "no" to the idea of slam poetry. I also have a hard time with a lot of it. Angry, agitated and in-your-face is not always the way I like my poetry. I rather it like it the way it's written by Mary Oliver - someone the Nation describes as moving "by instinct, faith and determination" and who Poetry calls "life-enhancing and redemptive poems that coax the sublime from the subliminal. Sample from a poem testing the limits of religious doctrice and asking of goodness: "To what purpose?/ Hope of Heaven? Not that. But to enter/ the other kingdom: grace, and imagination/ and the multiple sympathies; to be as a leaf, a rose,/ a dolphin." Thirst is a contemplative poet and she'll be reading from "Thirst," a collection of 38 new poems about nature and the environment at the Coolidge Corner Theatre Wed. Nov. 29 at 6 p.m. Get your $2 tickets across the road at Brookline Booksmith prior to.

290 Harvard St., Brookline, MA 617-566-6660