To honor the Sargentvile Library theme of “Legacy & Lore” poet Bea Gates will read new work & poems from The Burning Key, New & Selected Poems, 1973-2023. A meditation on hope as resistance and a testament to the communities and legacies that sustain intimate relationships, queer histories and intergenerational social movements.

California Poet Laureate, Lee Herrick has said: “The Burning Key feels like a life or several lives or a museum of language. Expansive, captivating, stellar.”

A MacDowell & Monson Arts fellow, Maine Arts Commission Poetry Awardee and Finalist for MWPA Nonfiction chapbook, Gates has had significant time in San Francisco & NYC with roots in Down East Maine. She is working on hybrid collection about lgbtq life in Maine (1975 on). beatrixgates.org.