Friends and neighbors in the Cashiers area will read their favorite poems and share their reasons for enjoying them at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 25, at the Albert Carlton-Cashiers Community Library. The Second Annual Cashiers Favorite Poem Readings, sponsored by Friends of the Library, will be followed by a reception in the library’s Friendship Garden.  

“I know the word ‘poetry’ makes some folks yawn,” said Marilyn Staats, coordinator of the event. “We were all born with a love of rhyme and rhythm, most of us were raised by parents who read us Mother Goose poems and, if we were lucky, we had teachers who introduced us to everything from Winnie the Pooh to Robert Frost to Shakespeare to nonsense verse.”

Starting off the evening will be a quartet of Cashiers Valley Rotarians acting out “Casey at the Bat.” Other familiar poems on the program include “The Highwayman,” Rudyard Kipling’s “If,” Gerald Manley Hopkin’s “Pied Beauty,” and the inspirational poem, “Invictus.”  

Poets whose works will be read include W. B. Yeats, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and one of the most popular poets writing today, Billy Collins.