Calendar of Events

Poetry in the Garden - Sean Thomas Dougherty and Charles Rafferty

A Poetry Festival in the Heart of Ridgefield's Cultural District!

July 20, 2026 · 7 p.m.
Walled Garden
Free

Now in its sixth season, Poetry in the Garden welcomes poetry lovers and the culturally curious to a season of readings, music, and workshops. This year's theme is "Voices of the New Revolution": each Monday evening in July, nationally acclaimed poets will share works that stand defiant of oppression and injustice, opting instead for empowerment, creativity, and empathy. 

Poetry in the Garden readings are free for all to attend. Doors open at 6:30pm and readings begin at 7pm. Bring a lawn chair or blanket to enjoy the events, held in KTM&HC's historic walled garden. In the event of inclement weather, the readings move inside, to KTM&HC's Garden House.

July 20th features poets Sean Thomas Dougherty and Charles Rafferty.

Sean Thomas Dougherty's twenty-one books include Death Prefers the Minor Keys and the Second O of Sorrow from BOA Editions, the latter of which won the Housatonic Book Award and was co-winner of the Paterson Poetry Prize. His other awards include the James Hearst Poetry Prize, the Lydia McCain Established Artist Fellowship for Western PA, and a Fulbright Lectureship to the Balkans. Dougherty's diverse lineage stretches back to Dublin on one side and to the Carpathian Mountains of Eastern Europe on the other. He works as a Carer and Med Tech for those with traumatic brain injuries and teaches part-time for the MFA Program at Western CT State University.

Charles Rafferty is the author of 15 poetry books and chapbooks, most recently The Appendectomy Grin (2025) and A Cluster of Noisy Planets (2021), both from BOA Editions. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, O, Oprah Magazine, The Southern Review, Gettysburg Review, Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, Rhino, Prairie Schooner, and Ploughshares. He has also published two short-story collections and a novel, Moscodelphia (2021). Rafferty has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Connecticut Commission on the Arts. The director of a research and advisory firm, he is also a songwriter and naturalist.

Poetry in the Garden is generously supported by Books on the Common, Ridgefield Library, and The Fountain Inn.

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