Rice Pudding Poetry: Feat. Stuart Kestenbaum & Justin Carloni

The Rice Pudding Poetry Series welcomes former Maine Poet Laureate Stuart Kestenbaum and singer-songwriter Justin Carloni, together with Community Readers. Hosted by CTrees science and technology advisor (and poetry lover) Steve Hagen, the show will center the theme of Hope.

Stuart Kestenbaum is the author of six collections of poems, most recently Things Seemed to Be Breaking (Deerbrook Editions). He has written and spoken widely on craft making and creativity, and his poems and writing have appeared in small press publications and magazines including Tikkun, the Sun, the Beloit Poetry Journal, and the New York Times Magazine. He served as Maine’s poet laureate from 2016-2021 and hosted Poems from Here on Maine Public Radio/Maine Public Classical and was the host/creator of the podcasts Make/Time and Voices of the Future.

Justin Carloni is a founding member of The Water Section, a band that performed in New England in the early 2000s and received Spotlight nominations for their third and final album, And Then the Distant Hum of the American Diesel Engine. More recently, Justin has performed with The Eastern Sleds. Their debut EP was released by Burst and Bloom Records in 2017. Justin’s music has been used in the short film Dark Scribbles by Michael Venn, Hosed by Juston McKinney (2011), and the film Cold Brook (2018), directed by William Fichtner. He collaborated with the folk singer-songwriter  Huck Notari on his album, Strange and Beautifully (2021). Justin released an EP last fall called The Rains Picked Up, and his next solo project is titled Great Machines. 

A book sale and signing will follow the reading. Doors open at 6pm for refreshments and conversation.