This summer, the Carl Cherry Center for the Arts illuminates the connection between the artwork and poetry of Jeanne D’Orge (Mrs. Carl Cherry) and contemporary local artists and poets in celebration of the center’s seventy-fifth year.
A poetry reading will be held at the Cherry Center on Friday, July 28th, at 7pm. Poets Jennifer Lagier, George Lober, Anne Mitchell, and Elliot Ruchowitz-Roberts will read selections of their poetry alongside the writing of Mrs. Cherry; each offering insight into the other. Reservations required. Tickets are by donation, available on eventbrite.com or by calling (831) 624-7491. Suggested donation at the door: $15.
Shared Visions: The Cherry at Seventy-Five art exhibition will open with an artists’ reception on Friday, July 14th, from 5-7pm. The event is free and open to the public. The exhibit will close Saturday, September 23rd.
About the Poets:
Jeanne D’Orge was a published poet and playwright by age twenty. Her book of verse, “Voice in the Circle,” recounts fragments from her childhood. After arriving in the United States from England, D’Orge became associated with The Others, a group of modernist poets the included Marianne Moore, William Carlos Williams and Wallace Stevens. In 1916, she made her debut as Jeanne D’Orge in “The Little Review”. Her poetry most often appeared in “Others,” the magazine founded by Alfred Kreymborg and the great art connoisseur, Walter C. Arensberg. She later published award-winning verse, including the “Lobos” poems of Scribners magazine. William Carlos Williams referred to her work as “poems of understanding and disarming technical skill.”
Jennifer Lagier is an Italian American writer, poet, and retired college librarian/instructor. She taught with California Poets in the Schools and served as an Area Coordinator for San Joaquin, Stanislaus and Tuolumne Counties. Her scholarly essays on digital resources and online education have been published in peer-reviewed journals; her poetry has appeared in many literary magazines and blogs. She is the author of twenty books of poetry and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her poetry primarily includes themes of her Italian ancestry, social justice, dementia, addiction and nature.
George Lober teaches English at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He received his Bachelor of Arts in English from San Jose State and his master of Arts in English from Fresno State. He is a recipient of the nationally awarded Ruth Cable Memorial Prize for Poetry. His poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and journals. He lives in Carmel, California
Anne Mitchell has called Carmel, CA home for over 30 years. A lifelong writer, when the year 2020 brought the unexpected realm of solitude and poetry presented itself, she became a willing conversationalist. Mitchell currently serves as a board member for the Carl Cherry Center for the Arts. She enjoys the theater, and has acted in staged readings at The Cherry, The Listening Place and Eulalia Theater.
Elliot Ruchowitz-Roberts is Professor Emeritus at Monterey Peninsula College where he taught composition, literature, public speaking and humanities for 32 years. He serves as President of the Robinson Jeffers Tor House Foundation in Carmel, California. Ruchowitz-Roberts coordinates the Foundation’s annual Prize for Poetry, annual reading series, and serves as a tour docent. He coordinated the National Endowment for the Arts, “The Big Read: The Poetry of Robinson Jeffers,” during which he read and performed Jeffers’s poetry at venues throughout Monterey County, including local libraries, high schools and colleges. The Carl Cherry Center’s high school poetry contest is named in his honor.
