It Will Have Been So Beautiful by Amanda Shaw and Welcome to Keene, NH by Brian Polak

On Tuesday, July 30, two Keene natives, Amanda Shaw and Brian Polak, held a reading and discussion at the Toadstool Bookshop in Keene. Keene is a special place to Brian and Amanda, with both of their writings having a strong emphasis on what "home" means to them. Amanda and Brian's high school English teacher, Tim Dunn, also joined them for the reading; he has had a huge impact on their careers and what it means to them to be a writer. The authors attended Keene High School together and reconnected later in life over their love of art and writing, with many pieces of their work set in Keene and in New Hampshire. Amanda started her career teaching poetry as an English teacher in New York. At 35, she moved to Rome, where she found inspiration in art and culture, and wrote her first poems. A lot of her work is about place, and how childhood in New Hampshire stays with her wherever she goes. The first poem she wrote in Rome, "Nothing But Water," is one of her favorites and is in her new book, "It Will Have Been So Beautiful". "Yet what did I know of water but steam from kettles, frost on panes, snowflakes on the frozen lake? The melt that soaked the roads to mud, the taste of salt, the stinging cleanness of my skin - not spore-spotted drapes or contorted alleyways, but hard shutters and doorways of pine - hard as the flesh-swabbed decks from which Nantucket sailors must have beheld the expanse of time and the weight of Ahab's lone Atlantic, crashing gray and white on pebbled shores." As she was writing "Nothing But Water," Amanda had also been reading "Moby Dick," which had a profound effect on this poem. Throughout the reading and discussion at the Toadstool Bookshop, we also heard from Brian, a playwright, about his experience growing up in Keene. Brian did not always know he wanted to become a writer, but after graduating college, he started working in theater. This prompted him to write his own plays and to study playwriting at graduate school. Brian's writing reflects the place where he came from, not just Keene, but New Hampshire and New England. For years his writing, asked the question, "What does it mean to be from New Hampshire?" It is a question that you don't normally think about until you leave. His play, "Welcome to Keene, New Hampshire," speaks to this. Amanda and Brian are always listening, observing and thinking about the little things that can go unnoticed. Amanda shared how writing has inspired her, "We hear these things, and they seem to mean something, and then they are gone. Writing gives you the chance to live with it, and think about why it caught you, and think about what it was that gave some kind of meaning to your own life." Both Amanda and Brian have similar personal influences on their work, including their Keene High English teacher Tim Dunn, who inspired them to become writers. Signed copies of "It Will Have Been So Beautiful" are available at the Toadstool Bookshop in Keene. This book of poetry will make you laugh, cry, and encourage you to think about what "home" means to you. If you'd like to learn more about Amanda Shaw and Brian Polak, visit https://amandashawpoet.com/ and http://www.brianjamespolak.com/. Reviewed by Eliza Smith, Book Reviewer for the Keene Sentinel; Bookkeeper for Rust & Company CPAs