December 22 is the shortest, darkest day of the year, but 40 years ago, the day was celebrated as the centerpiece to one of the longest and most well-regarded poems in recent years. Bernadette Mayer’s experimental poem Midwinter Day is an artful recounting of a single day’s cycle. It is a book-length epic that moves from fluid dream states, to mundane child-rearing tasks, back to the opaque relaxation as one settles into sleep at the end of the day. Alternating between rhyming couplets, literary-style prose and poetic imagery, Mayer’s poem was created in a single day—Dec. 22, 1978—in Lennox, Mass., and continues to reveal a relevant portrait of an individual’s most ordinary of daily routines, deepest of inner dreams and most powerful of observations.
This narrative poem has been touted by fans since its release four decades ago, and this year Woodland Pattern Book Center will commemorate the poem’s (and the day’s) anniversary alongside other poetry aficionados across the country by holding a community reading of Midwinter Day beginning at 3 p.m. Fifteen different readers will recite the six-part poem in its entirety to pay tribute to the darkest, shortest day of the year. Cider and snacks will be available, and attendees are encouraged to contribute what they can.
