THE TWENTIETH ANNUAL 

MONADNOCK PASTORAL POETS & WRITERS RETREAT XXI

 at the Barbara C. Harris Center, Greenfield, New Hampshire will be held on April 24-26, 2026

A Retreat to provide direction, community, and place  for artists
who aspire to create poetry and stories transcending time and space.

(CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP)

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Pam Bernard
  1944-2026

In Memorian:

An exerpt from Esther:

She was a few years older than Esther, and as tall.
Her dark hair swept up onto her head with a ribbon.
Wisps  had escaped and fallen in ringlets at the nape
of her neck and over her blue-white collar.

Her forehead and upper lip were moist.
She held a napkin, its four corners tied in a pouch.
There was a radiance about her that was unsettling
and as she moved closer Esther caught the loamy,
musky sweetness of her skin.

Here, she said, handing the napkin to Esther.  Take this.

As Esther rushed for the train she felt a round
heaviness through the cloth, and something
soft too.  An unfamiliar odor escaped as she
peeled back one corner, alarming yet savory.
There, tucked in with the apple was the strange
cheese, dark green lacing its creamy body.

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We also remember the life and poetry of one of our founders, Patricia Fargnoli, with two of her poems.

Click here to listen to “Fox” read by poet Kyle Potvin.

Clear here to listen to poet Meg Kearney reads “Request.”

Both videos created by Gabriel Parker at Stillwater Video.

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“Monadnock is always impressive, always majestic, always beautiful, with a beauty whose phrases are
 as manifold as those that are working their enchantments upon that valley yonder which stretches away
 and away, on a morning like this, until its hundred shades of green melt into blue, and the blue becomes
 a dream and melts and mingles with the base of heaven under the remote horizon.”

-Samuel Clemens,
Autobiography of Mark Twain
(UCAL PRESS, Berkley: 2013)