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02/23/2022 07:30 AMWhile Gabriella Brand has been a poet since she could talk and her fiction and poetry have now appeared in more than 50 literary magazines, she has not always been comfortable sharing her work. The inspiration to share came about 15 years ago. Gabriella was working in a school teaching language and some members of the faculty decided to host a poetry reading.
“I was too afraid for a long time to share my poetry publicly or submit it anywhere, but when I saw these young teachers reading work they had done in front of their peers and students, I was bowled over by their courage,” says Gabriella. “I thought, ‘What am I afraid of? What’s holding me back? I have all this work so why am I not trying to share it?’”
The reading inspired Gabriella to set poetry and writing as a priority in her life. At the time, Gabriella was busy working in a school, running summer camps, and raising four children—Jeffrey, Thomas, Brett, and Brita—with her husband, Douglas Peary.
Gabriella submitted her work to a magazine called Echoes, based out of Peary’s home state of Maine, and the Christian Science Monitor. She was very excited when she received “wonderful feedback” from the editors and her works were included in the publications.
The couple first came to Connecticut when Peary was attending graduate school at Yale University. After living in student housing in New Haven, they decided to rent a house in Hamden before deciding to settle in North Haven, where they have now lived for many years.
“We didn’t know anything about the area when we came and thought we’d only be here for a few years, but we’re still here,” says Gabriella. “I love my neighborhood and my neighbors. North Haven is a great place to live with a small-town feel but still so close to cultural things.”
While she retired from her full-time work, Gabriella continues to teach languages and writing in the OLLI program at UConn. She also works with private students and has led a French group out of her home for 35 years. Though Gabriella speaks many languages, French is closest to her heart as it is the language she used to speak to her mother and keep her journals.
In addition to her French group, Gabriella is a member of six other groups as she likes to connect with people who have similar interests. Gabriella also enjoys kayaking, hiking, and cross-country skiing.
While Gabriella’s career has been in language education—she taught Latin, Spanish, and French for many years at The Foote School, New Haven, and Cheshire Academy—she has continued to foster her passion for poetry. When her retirement from schools and the loss of “a dear, dear friend” coincided, Gabriella decided to create a bucket list, which included more writing.
Gabriella then heard that the North Haven Memorial Library was beginning a search for the town’s first-ever poet laureate. Knowing that about 30 towns in Connecticut have a poet laureate and that the state has a poet laureate, Margaret Gibson, Gabriella was eager to start the application.
“The town wants to have somebody who will show up at town events and give a poem and promote poetry in the community and in schools,” says Gabriella. “There’s an interest in poetry that’s come up in the last couple years in this country so it’s part of that movement.”
Gabriella enjoyed the application process, which consisted of questions about her interests, her experience, examples of her work, and meeting with the search committee. Fortunately the final meeting was held via Zoom as Gabriella, who works as a lay minister, was serving an annual fellowship in the Caribbean.
“I was nervous because the Internet down there is terrible and the frogs outside the window were making a tremendous racket,” says Gabriella. “I had to recite a famous poem and something by myself. I also wrote a sonnet to thank the committee for doing this because it was an under-appreciated area and it was wonderful that the people on the committee were giving their time to do this.”
Gabriella returned from her annual fellowship in the Caribbean as North Haven’s first-ever poet laureate. She is already thinking about ways to bring more poetry into the community. With April being National Poetry Month, she is looking forward to being part of events at the library. She will also read a poem at the town’s Memorial Day ceremony.
In addition to town readings, Gabriella is looking forward to hosting other events, including a Zoom Poetry Café on Saturday, Feb. 26 at 3:30 p.m. through the library. She is also working on the details for a workshop for writers and poets that will begin in May.
“I’m looking forward to being part of town events, sometimes they may be solemn, but they may also be joyous—anywhere a poem, like music, can enhance the program,” says Gabriella. “I hope people contact me and come to these events. I already know some people who are interested and I want to know more. Poetry really can be for anybody and we all have access to it. I want to emphasize that.”
As North Haven’s poet laureate, Gabriella is looking forward to collaborating with her son, Thomas Brand, the founder of the Elm City Girls’ Choir and United Choir School, which are choral groups that have performed with the New Haven symphony, the Boston Pops, and the American Boychoir and at Yankee Stadium. The pair plan to bring a concert of poetry and music to North Haven.
Gabriella remembers that music was “very important” in the house she grew up in and while she admits she was not musical, she found her rhythm in poetry from an early age. She remembers finding one of her father’s poetry books from college and trying to read each page.
“I started to read it and fell in love with the words and something not being a song, but like a song,” says Gabriella. “Most people listen to vocal music and that’s really poetry—it’s just not called poetry. Whether rap, rock, country, or pop, people will often look at lyrics of a song to get them out of a mood, give them energy, or relax them. There’s this bridge that needs to be built between poetry as poetry and the poetry that’s already in people’s lives.”