Strange Relation, by Rachel Hadas

In 2004 Rachel Hadas’s husband George Edwards, a composer and professor of music at Columbia University, was diagnosed with early-onset dementia. Strange Relation is her account of “losing” George. The narrative begins when his illness could no longer be ignored and ends in 2008 soon after his move to a dementia facility. Rachel Hadas will speak on Thursday, March 1 at 7:30 pm. A book signing will follow with books provided by New England Mobile Book Fair.

Most of Strange Relation was written during the years when Hadas was living in a zone of deepening silence; a time when literature was often her most faithful companion. Of this book Robert Pinsky said, “Like an elegy, Strange Relation is about loss and grief. Like all elegies, it also memorializes and celebrates.” Join Ms. Hadas for a compelling talk about love, loss and one woman's journey through and beyond the silence.

Rachel Hadas is Board of Governors Professor of English at Rutgers University in Newark. She is the author of many books including The River of Forgetfulness, Laws, Indelible and Halfway Down the Hall: New and Selected Poems.

Free Tax Help

The AARP® Tax-Aide™ Foundation will have trained volunteers on hand on Saturdays from 1:00 to 3:30 pm through April 14. All of the volunteers are IRS certified and will be ready to answer questions, regardless of income level, related to regular (non-business) taxes. Patrons will be asked to register at the table by the parking lot entrance near the café on arrival and will be assisted on a first come-first served basis.

Volunteers will prepare tax returns for people with moderate or low income (less than $45,000 if single and less than $60,000 if filing a joint return.) Please bring your copy of last year's (2010) federal and state tax returns plus all relevant 2011 tax documents you received such as W-2 wage statement,1099 interest statement, health insurance coverage etc. The new 2011 tax returns will be e-filed for free.

Blue Revolution: Unmaking America’s Water Crisis

Americans see water as abundant and cheap. We use more water than any other culture in the world. Yet most Americans don’t realize that their freshwater sources are in trouble. In her book, Blue Revolution: Unmaking America’s Water Crisis, award-winning journalist Cynthia Barnett describes how the illusion of water abundance has encouraged everyone to tap more and more. She proposes a solution that is simple and inexpensive by suggesting that we create a shared water ethic among citizens, government and major water users. Cynthia Barnett will speak on Monday, March 5 at 7:00 pm. New England Mobile Book Fair will supply the books for a book signing which will follow the program. The program is cosponsored by Green Decade/Newton, Newton Conservators, Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) and the Waterworks Museum.

Cynthia Barnett is a long-time journalist who has reported on freshwater issues from the Suwannee River to Singapore. Blue Revolution was recently named by The Boston Globe one of the best science books of 2011.

Celebrate International Women’s Day With Filmmaker Liane Brandon

By: Boyd Estus

Celebrate International Women’s Day with award-winning filmmaker Liane Brandon at a screening of two of her classic short films, Anything You Want To Be and Betty Tells Her Story. Recently featured at the Museum of Modern Art and the Tribeca Film Festival, these films were among the earliest and most popular in the modern Women’s Movement. Both helped spread the word about women’s quest for equality across the country in the 1970s and are enjoying renewed interest by today’s audiences. The program will take place on Thursday, March 8 at 7:00 pm. Ms. Brandon will introduce and discuss the films, answer questions about them, filmmaking in general and the early Women's Movement.

Anything You Want To Be, a ground-breaking film about a teenager’s humorous collision with sex-role stereotypes, was one of the first to explore the external pressures and the more subtle, internal pressures a girl faces in finding her identity. Made in 1971, and screened in schools, libraries and art museums in the U.S. and abroad, it was one of the most widely used consciousness-raising films of the modern Women's Movement. Betty Tells Her Story is a poignant tale of beauty, identity and a dress, and is considered a classic of documentary filmmaking. The film was featured at the Library of Congress and is being shown at film festivals across the country.

University of Massachusetts/Amherst Professor Emeritus Liane Brandon was one of the first independent women filmmakers to emerge from the early Women's Movement in this area. She is a co-founder of New Day Films. Her classic films have been featured on HBO, The Learning Channel, USA Cable and Cinemax, and have won numerous national and international awards.

Architectural Photography

By: Sarah Musumeci

When creating architectural photographs, great care must be taken to find the best perspective and lighting of the space. Join Sarah Musumeci on Monday, March 12 at 7:00 pm for a program titled Confessions of an Architectural Photographer. The program is cosponsored by the Newton Camera Club. Ms. Musumeci will show over 100 of her architectural photographs and talk about her techniques. Filled with humor and stories, and presented in a format that is easy to understand and useful for most any photograph, the program will include:

• Segments on how to avoid keystoning and parallax problems
• HDR
• Traditional lighting
• Simple Photoshop procedures

Sarah Musumeci is an interior and architectural photographer. She is a member of several professional organizations including the America Society of Media Photographers and the National Association of Photoshop Professionals.

Poetry Series

The Poetry Series continues on Tuesday, March 13 at 7:00 pm with readings by Jade Sylvan, Margaret Young and Julia Story. An open mic will follow with a limit of one poem per person. Come early to sign up for the open mic; limited slots are available, time permitting. For more information visit www.newtonfreelibrarypoetryseries.blogspot.com/. The series is facilitated by Doug Holder of Ibbetson Street Press.

Jade Sylvan is a poet, songwriter and blogger who recently completed two independent tours of the country following the release of her first collection of poetry, The Spark Singer.

Margaret Young is a poet and a professor at Endicott College in Beverly, MA. Her latest book of poetry is titled Almond Town. Ms. Young co-founded the Open Door Theatre Company.

Julia Story’s first collection, Post Moxie, was the recipient of Sarabande Books’ 2009 Kathryn A. Morton Prize and Ploughshares’ John C. Zacharis First Book Award.

Newton’s Horticultural Revolution: Sowing the Seeds of Change

The Newton History Series continues on Thursday, March 15 at 7:00 pm. The series is cosponsored by Historic Newton and explores the cultural, social and civic landscape of pre-Revolutionary Newton.

From settlement to the dawn of a new Republic, Newton’s landscape was dramatically transformed from an economy dependent on small family agriculture to one of Boston’s most prominent horticultural communities. As field crops gave way to the introduction of the latest hybrid fruits and flowers, Newton’s citizens were transformed from farmers to gardeners. In a talk titled Newton’s Horticultural Revolution: Sowing the Seeds of Change, landscape historian Lucinda Brockway will explore this transformation as she describes how Newton’s horticultural revolution was born.

Lucinda A. Brockway is Program Director for Cultural Resources at The Trustees of Reservations. She is responsible for the stewardship of more than 100 of Massachusetts’ most significant cultural landscapes. Before coming to The Trustees she worked for almost 25 years as a landscape preservationist and designer, rejuvenating historic landscapes from Maine to Texas.

The Warmth of Other Suns: the Epic Story of America’s Great Migration

By: Joe Henson

Join Isabel Wilkerson on Monday, March 19 at 7:30 pm when she will speak about her book The Warmth of Other Suns: the Epic Story of America’s Great Migration. The book covers the epic journey of three African-Americans fleeing from the Jim Crow South to U.S. cities in the North and West in search of a better life in the early half of the 20th century. Wilkerson interviewed more than 1,000 people and gained access to new data and official records in the process of writing this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded. A book signing will follow with books provided by New England Mobile Book Fair.

Isabel Wilkerson won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for her reporting as Chicago bureau chief of The New York Times. The award made her the first black woman in the history of American journalism to win a Pulitzer Prize and the first African American to win for individual reporting. She is currently Professor of Journalism and Director of Narrative Nonfiction at Boston University. During the Great Migration, her parents journeyed from Georgia and southern Virginia to Washington, D.C., where she was born and reared.

The program is cosponsored by Myrtle Baptist Church, Historic Newton, Afro- American Historical and Genealogical Society, New England Chapter, Newton Human Rights Commission and the Boston Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

Women’s Education in 17th Century New England

Shortly after Boston was settled in 1630, the Massachusetts Bay Colony passed the first laws requiring universal literacy and the establishment of schools. The Colony was justly famous for the founding of Harvard, the first American university. But girls of the 17th century were only expected to be able to read and few could write their names. If seventeenth-century boys went to school and learned to read and write, who taught the girls and what did they learn? In honor of Women’s History Month author Anne Ipsen will give a talk titled Women’s Education in 17th Century New England in which she will outline the early history of women’s education in the New England colonies. Garnered from the research for her latest historical novel, At the Concord of the Rivers, Ipsen will discuss how unusual, albeit controversial women, such as Anne Bradstreet, Mary Dyer and Anne Hutchinson were educated. The talk will take place on Tuesday, March 20 at 7:30 pm and will be followed by a discussion.

Anne Ipsen is a graduate of Radcliffe College and received her doctorate from Harvard University. Currently a writer, speaker and storyteller, previously she held a position as a professor at the University of Minnesota. She is the author of two memoirs and three historical novels and facilitates the Newton Free Library’s monthly Fiction writing group.

Financial Literacy at the Library, FINRA, Rental Housing

Join us on Wednesday, March 21 at 7:00 pm for a presentation on rental housing. Barbara Chandler, Fair Housing Manager for the Metropolitan Boston Housing Partnership, Inc., will provide a general overview of rental housing including:

• How to conduct a property search
• Security deposit terms and conditions
• Lease negotiation strategies

Barbara Chandler serves as the lead staff person for policy, technical assistance and training on fair housing. This program is made possible by a grant from the FINRA Investor Education Foundation through Smart investing @ your library®, a partnership with the American Library Association.

Growing Green: Ask the Experts about Organic Gardening and Landscaping

The Greening Our Community series continues on Monday, March 26 at 7:00 pm with a program titled Growing Green: Ask the Experts about Organic Gardening and Landscaping. Risa Edelstein, Jessica Banhazi and Sarah Little will share secrets for creating ecological, edible and extraordinarily beautiful yards and gardens. Attendees will learn how to:

• Promote soil fertility
• Conserve water and energy
• Prevent and correct pest problems
• Deal with invasive plants
• Avoid the use of poisons and synthetic chemicals

Risa Edelstein studied landscape design at the Landscape Institute of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. She is an accredited Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) organic land care professional.

Jessica Banhazl is the co-founder, managing director and owner of Green City Growers, a Somerville based company that installs and maintains organic vegetable gardens for homeowners, businesses, restaurants and schools.

Sarah Little, Ph.D., is a Toxics Use Reduction Consultant and former Pesticide Awareness Coordinator for the Town of Wellesley. She has worked with NOFA’s organic landscaping training program for over 10 years.

The program is cosponsored by Green Decade/Newton and will be moderated by Ellie Goldberg who is a Green Decade/Newton Advisory Board member and former co-chair of GreenCAP, the Committee for Alternatives to Pesticides.

What’s Next: Focusing on Your Strengths

Join Danila Székely for an interactive program titled What’s Next: Focusing on Your Strengths on Tuesday, March 27 at 7:00 pm. The program is a part of the Job Seekers Career, and Professional Development Series and is designed for people who are considering new professions or post-retirement encore careers. The session will include suggestions and exercises to help participants manage their dominant personal strengths, as well as avoid common mistakes and will focus on:

• Creating success in your professional and personal life
• Identifying and managing strengths for workplace effectiveness
• Creating a strong life in order to make the most of the roles we play

Danila Székely is a certified executive coach, facilitator and trainer with more than 25 years in a variety of business roles. She received coaching certifications and advanced training from The Coaches Training Institute, Center for Right Relationship and the Co-Active Leadership program. Danila holds a M.B.A. from Babson.

Computer Classes

Stop by the library and sign up for a free one-session computer class in Internet, PC Basics or other topics. For more information call 617-796-1380 or see class schedule.