Author David Surette with his book "Malden". Photo by Jett-le Tran Le.
The Malden Public Library had held a poetry reading on Monday, April 9th 2018. The poetry reading was being performed by David R. Surette.
Jean Slavkovsky was the adviser and the person who helped with the poetry reading.
Slavkovsky said that “the poet [that is reading] tonight is David Surette and he is originally from Malden.” She said “he has published a new collection of poetry entitled Malden.” She said “he approached [the Malden Public Library] and asked if he could do a [poetry reading] here at the Malden Public Library.” She said that “he has done a couple of readings here already and [they were] happy to welcome him back to do a reading here again.”
Slavkovsky said that “[the type of poetry that the poetry reading will have] is his new book called Malden.” She said “The book is focuses poetry about Malden and are set in places in Malden like Pine Banks Park.”
Slavkovsky said that “David Surette has done at least two readings or more at the library before [this event].” She said that “[they] have done other author talks, [they] might not have other poets but had a couple.” She said that “[they] also have people [that] written books of short stories, novels, or nonfiction books readings at the Library.”
The reason why Slavkovsky had helped with the poetry reading is because she had helped him organize one of David’s previous author talks. Since she was on his contacts, he contacted her by email and asked if he could do the poetry reading. She was happy to help him organize the event.
Slavkovsky said that a person might want to come to this poetry reading because “David is from Malden [and] he knows a lot of people that are still here and they are coming to help support him.” She said that “other people who love poetry should come or if they are interested in poetry.”
Slavkovsky said that “if they are interested in hearing more about Malden even if they don’t know David Surette personally, from either growing up in Malden, or [moving] to Malden,” they can still “hear a little more about the history of it and personal experiences.”
Slavkovsky said that anytime they have events like these they invite the Malden High community to come and join them. They really enjoy students coming over there and being apart of their community as well by coming to one of their events.
David Surette said that the reason why he wrote poetry is because “[he] has good memory and he did not know what to do with it and when he wrote longer pieces he knew that they should be a poem instead.”
Surette wanted to reach out to the Malden Public Library because he grew up in Malden and lived in Malden for 37 years. This is his fifth book and it is called Malden and it is the third time he has read here and he felt that it should be read at the Malden Public Library.
Surette has multiple inspirations like Malden but it starts with his family, then neighborhoods, then his friend, then church, then school, and all of his memories since he was eighteen until he went into college.
Surette said that “[he] does almost 30 readings for every book that he puts out and [he] does all [his] readings in New England.” He said that “people should know that poetry comes from everywhere, from Malden, and nobody owns it, so if [he] can write a poetry book about Malden everyone can.”
The poetry reading event at the Malden Public Library is there for everyone in the community to come as see. So if you want to get more involved in the community you should come to one of the Malden Public Libraries events or at least one of them.
