Poetry is here at Brook Farm Inn, in Lenox Massachusetts.  We enjoy sharing the many poetry volumes in our library, and showcasing a poem every day for our guests to read.  Here’s a seasonal poem that we like, because it describes the Berkshires! It’s titled “September Hills.”

Have you seen the hills in September–

The aspens dripping their gold?

It’s a picture no artist has painted,

A beauty no poet has told.

You must see for yourself the splendor

The glory that fills and thrills–

THe gold of the sun on the aspens,

September high in the hills.

We’re delighted and proud to announce that Bob Jacob, former owner with his wife Betty of Brook Farm Inn, has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Now a resident of West Hartford, CT, Bob has touched the lives of countless persons with his poetry. His latest book of poetry, “Perspective,” was nominated recently for these two highly prestigious awards.  Bob was responsible for bringing the theme, “There is poetry here” to Brook Farm Inn in Lenox, Massachusetts, in the Berkshires.  A lover and writer of poetry for decades, Jacob, 76, said he started writing the book’s 62 poems, which he prefers to call “loving words” instead of poems, while doing volunteer work at the Connecticut Hospice in Branford. There, Jacob reads poetry to the dying and their loved ones every other week and says the work is draining, but rewarding. We’ve been inspired by Bob’s poems ever since we met him, and he’s been back to the inn for readings. Revenue from the book is donated to the hospice. 

Lenox Massachusetts: To follow up on yesterday’s blog comments about National Poetry Month, we’d like to quote a poem that was written about Brook Farm Inn by an appreciative guest of our bed and breakfast. It says more about the inn, and our Berkshires ambiance, than we could ever say.

BROOK FARM
There is poetry here.
Lovers of words
have pressed it into the wood floors
with their feet;
it has escaped their red, prolific tongues
and floated on the silence
hanging in the room’s air
during afternoon readings, settling
lightly into corners, stirred
and in motion again each time
a writer’s ghost swishes by,
or a young girl pauses, carefully
selecting a book from a nearby
shelf. There is
poetry here, there is no
escaping it or exorcising it
from this Inn, no matter whom
the keeper; little do they know
it went up with the beams,
was mixed and troweled
with the plaster, and flows freely
through the windows on warm summer
evenings. In winter, its heat
is in the fire
making the parlor walls glow, the books
on the shelves leaping
with the flames.

There is poetry here…that’s our theme at Brook Farm Inn in Lenox, Massachusetts. We’ve been doing readings and showcasing poems for years, so it’s a special pleasure to announce nearby Pittsfield’s Poetry Week. Events include Poetry As Art at the Ferrin Gallery and readings at Dottie’s Coffee Lounge among others. It’s all part of National Poetry Month, which happens every April, and you can read more at www.poets.org..