SOUTHWEST HARBOR—Join us on Tuesday, August 25th from 5:30-6:30 p.m. for a Poetry Reading with Rebecca Weiner Tompkins from King of the Fireflies. Please register for this in-person program. Rebecca Weiner Tompkins, a poet, musician, professor, and former Maine resident, will read poems from her book King of the Fireflies (Sensitive Skin Press, 2018), along with a selection of new work, on August 25th, 2026 at 5:30 pm. Signed copies will be available for sale with proceeds to benefit the library.
Registration appreciated for this in person program.
The poems in Rebecca Weiner Tompkins’s King of the Fireflies lead the reader on a journey through a world of landscapes: urban; rural; mythological; emotional; erotic; cultural; political; and spiritual, and the borders between them. The voice throughout is of a figure in those landscapes, struggling to navigate love, loss, and mortality while juxtaposing natural and human-made environments. Her language is both visual and musical (as well as a writer, she is also a lifelong working musician), and the poems range from lyric to narrative, but always with a strong sense of location and a precision of detail, even when the speaker is conveying questions or doubt. These poems explore the edges and the depths of dark places-but possibility, anticipation, and even humor are present. The exploration leads forward, and the promise of renewal rings true.
In addition to writing, Rebecca performed and recorded violin with Patti Smith, Scott McClatchy, Emily Duff, Life in a Blender, Conrad y Skordalia, Maynard and The Musties, Sergio Webb, Mark Huff, Brent Moyer and others, in NYC and Nashville.
Register at https://tinyurl.com/a3s2wdw3. For questions and details, email programs@swhplibrary.org or call 207-244-7065.
The last name is Weiner Tompkins ( with a p) please!
RWT