Wednesday, July 16th, 10a.m. Location to be announced
Book Discussion. The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon
This historical novel is centered around Martha Ballard, an 18th century midwife and healer who investigates a murder linked to a local scandal.
It explores themes of women’s rights and societal expectations in postrevolutionary America while intertwining elements of mystery and personal struggle. Set in Hallowell, Maine around 1790.

Tuesday, July 22nd, 10a.m. Poetry Salon. Location to be announced
Bring poetry — either your own or ones you love to share.

Wednesday, August 13th, 10a.m. Location to be announced.
Book Discussion: How to Read a Book by Monica Wood
This story, set in a prison, a bookshop, and a laboratory, all in Portland, Maine, is interestingly told from three points of view–a young female ex-con, a widower who was collateral damage, and a woman who runs the prison book club. A reminder that goodness, and books can still win in this world.

Happy Reading!

The Literary Committee

IN MEMORIAM SANDY TAFT

I first came to know Sandy when he was about six, when he would sit on my shoulders while I waterskied him around Sheepscot Bay. Later, after he had returned from his service in the Coast Guard, I got to know him much as did everyone else on the island – as a loyal and generous friend who would do anything he could for anyone. And then came the many GEMINI years, when we sailed and often raced her, becoming more skilled at adjusting the complex rigging every time we went out.  In 2022, we won the MacMahan ‘Round the Island Race – which turned out to be our final race. As we crossed the finish line, I turned to Sandy and said “We just sailed a perfect race.”. A proud moment for both of us.

For Sandy’s seventieth birthday, in 2013, I wrote a poem trying to acknowledge everything he did for the MacMahan community. The family is familiar with it but some here may not be. Here it is:

MANY PROBLEMS, ONE SOLUTION

Island life can be a challenge, – things you meant to buy at Rogers

But forgot to in your hurry, how to start a cranky motor, 

How to fix your leaky plumbing, how to catch those pesky squirrels

Scampering ‘round inside your ceilings, or your pump needs a new rotor.

Or your boat is badly leaking, and quick rescue’s what your needing, 

Or you cut that tree and somehow, on that power line it’s sitting,

Once that’s fixed, the logs need splitting.

All those questions, all those problems, all those odds and ends you’re missing.

Should you move back to the mainland, give up all this island living?

Wouldn’t that be so much easier, free you from these endless bothers?

NO, because there’s just one answer, here it is, all will be fine, 

All you have to do is this – dial five-five-three, six-seven-eight-nine.

Who will answer?  Are you kidding?  Sandy Taft, our local hero,

Always ready, always able, – and he just reached seven zero.

9/27/13

We are very pleased to report that Fran has returned and is well. Thank you for your concern.

Wednesday, July 17th — 10a.m. at the Yacht Club. We will discuss Northeaster : A Story of Courage and Survival in the Blizzard of 1952 by Cathie Pelletier. Available in hardcover, paperback, audiobook, and on Kindle and as an e-book in many Maine public libraries.  Much of the action takes place in Bath and off-shore locations Down East familiar to most of us.  

Author Steward O’Nan has written about this book: “With its rich cast of fishermen, woodsmen, millworkers and plain old small-town Mainers, Pelletier’s dramatic recreation of the great blizzard of 1952 isn’t simply a fast-paced disaster narrative about the workings of fate, but a paean to a long-lost way of life.”

Wednesday, August 14th — 10a.m. at the Yacht Club. We will discuss two books:  Tom Lake by Ann Patchett and Our Town by Thorton. Wilder. Tom Lake is available in hardback, audiobook and large print in most area public libraries.  Our Town is available in paperback, as a PBS Home Video DVD, and in most area public libraries.  

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before children were born.  Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart.  It features a summer theatre troupe putting on a production of Our Town by Thornton Wilder. Our Town, which according to Edward Albee is “the greatest American play ever written”  presents the fictional town of Grover’s Corners between 1901 and 1913 through the everyday lives of its citizens.  Katy Waldman of the “New Yorker” has written that a big portion of the book’s (Tom Lake) soul resides in Our Town.  Hence, the decision to combine the two in our discussion.  

Happy Reading
The Literary Committee

Coming this September will be a Paul Brown art show of recent works at the Osprey in Robinhood. 
The Opening will take place on Thursday, August 31st, from 4-5:30. Pizza night. 
Hope to see many of you there!

MacMahan readers will gather tomorrow at 10 am on Tina Krause’s porch (indoors in case of rain). We will be discussing The Other Eden by Paul Harding. 

I will be introducing A Distant Shore, my new book of poetry, on Tuesday, August 22, at the Big House from 4:30 to 6:00 p.m. 

Any and all will be welcome to read a poem from the book.

I hope to see you there.

Nick Stone

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August 16, 2023, 10 a.m. – The Other Eden by Paul Harding.

Tina Krause’s porch.  

The Other Eden by Paul Harding is the August book discussion choice.  It is inspired by the real-life consequences of eugenics on Malaga Island, Maine, which, from roughly the Civil War era to 1912, was home to an interracial fishing community. 

For anyone wishing to visit Malaga Island, Maine Coast Heritage Trust has teamed up with Seaspray Kayaking and Paddleboarding to plan a trip to Malaga Island, Wednesday, August 23, 2023, from 10 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.  Cost is $65.00.  You can book on seaspraykayaking.com

The Literary Committee

The Boats of MacMahan historical exhibit will open in the Coal Shed Museum on Saturday, July 1, 2023, at 5 p.m.

Here you will see photographs of islander-owned, visiting, and commercial boats from fourteen decades of the history of MacMahan Island.  There are also a few Fantasy Boats, and some documents and objects.

The exhibit will continue through August.

Poetry Salon. July 6th. 10 am at the Yacht Club. 

Bring poems to share. Either your own or favorites written by others. Or just come to enjoy listening. 

The Literary Committee

Before Arrival

For nobody
the Song Sparrow
chortles for joy
in extra octaves,
and the seasonal brooks sing
which will go mute all summer
after the people get here
and drown out that rare music
with all their gregarious comings and goings.

Is it me, the sudden unfamiliar presence
of a single human being,
that startles the Red Squirrel
and starts him twanging
like the plucking on a single banjo string?

Now they all join in with his chattering,
the Ovenbird crescendoing
the mysterious Perula hissing
from somewhere on high,
innumerable warblers warbling
and the sudden startling
heralding of the Red-eyed Vireo —
all signaling the same thing.
A chorus of welcome.
Or is it warning?

The humans are coming!

Today the island is present
only to itself,
as if it had eyes and ears.

The pebbly roads sparkle
where the rattling carts
will soon be raising dust.
The Little Sheepscot like a single glittering crystal today
will soon be shredded into roars and wakes and spray.
There will be sounds of clinking glasses
and laughter issuing from the old caretaker’s cottage
now engulfed and muffled in lilacs
emitting only a hushed, meditative fragrance.

Soon Wilder’s Field will be a commotion
of shouted greetings and dogs and children at play
where this evening only the shadows of the pines
exercise their limbs in the dark, not yet mown, first grass.

Jbb
5.24.23