Poetry Reading by Patrice Pinette

HAPPINESS, A STRANGE BIRD: New Hampshire poet Patrice Pinette to read from her new collection at Jaffrey Civic Center

Life is a spell so exquisite that everything conspires to break it. – Emily Dickinson

Jaffrey, New Hampshire – September 6, 2025 – Jaffrey Civic Center is pleased to announce a poetry reading by Patrice Pinette, on September 6 at 5:00. Patrice will share selections from her book HAPPINESS, A STRANGE BIRD, which explores our quest for happiness. While the poems explore such themes as intimacy and distance, the colorful threads that bind us to the world and each other, they also present happiness as an awakening, arising from within rather than circumstance.

Sourcing happiness in the inner life, with spacious attention and an affinity for nature and contemplation, links Patrice’s poetry to the gallery exhibit, “Born of Silence,” curated by Jaffrey artist Joan Hanley.

Hosting Patrice Pinette offers the community an opportunity to experience the engaged voice of the poet bringing poems to life and celebrating the power of art and language to transform our experience. The reading will include a Q&A session and book signing. The event is free and all are welcome.

On Happiness, a Strange Bird

by Patrice Pinette

“Patrice Pinette is a born poet, a 24/7 poet who is always seeing through the literal and obvious to underlying patterns and echoes. To this layered way of perceiving, she adds a rich appreciation for words, using them freshly because she appreciates how they work at many subtle levels at once.  Patrice adds a heart intelligence, a poet’s compassion, and a facility in evoking beauty. This collection of poems could teach you how to extend the range of your daily experience of life.”

Thomas Moore

Author of Care of the Soul

Elemental as rain, as magnolias, as love, the color blue, or happiness, these poems transport us as we watch them soar, line by line “dazzling the ordinary.”

Alice B Fogel, New Hampshire Poet Laureate Emerita

Author of Falsework

Patrice Pinette received her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. In the Connections Program of New Hampshire Humanities, she facilitates book discussions with adult learners of English from all over the world. She also leads poetry workshops in the Transdisciplinary Studies in Healing Education program at Antioch University New England. Patrice’s poems have appeared in literary journals and anthologies including Pensive: A Global Journal of Spirituality & the Arts, Touchstone Journal, Poetica Magazine, Poet Showcase: An Anthology of New Hampshire Poets, Writing the Land; Allegro Poetry Journal, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, and elsewhere. Her collection of poems, Happiness, a Strange bird, is published by Bee Monk Press, 2025.