Poet Eve Rifkah Performs from her Collection “Outcasts: The Penikese Island Leper Hospital 1904-1921”
July 24, 2023 @ 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Outcasts: the Penikese Island Leper Hospital 1904-1921
A partnership program with the Falmouth Jewish Congregation and the Falmouth Museums on the Green
Monday, July 24 at 5pm
Free and Open to the Public. Space limited, reservations required. Visit the Museums on the Green website to register: https://museumsonthegreen.org/
The Falmouth Museums on the Green and Falmouth Jewish Congregation partner in inviting the public to hear acclaimed author and poet Eve Rifkah for a performance based on her book Outcasts: the Penikese Island Leper Hospital 1904-1921. This free event will take place at the Museums on the Green on Monday, July 24 at 5pm. Reservations are required and space is limited. Visit the Museums on the Green website to register.
Ms. Rifkah, the 2021 recipient of the Stanley Kunitz award, will read poetry from this moving collection based on the lives of inhabitants of leper hospital on Penikese Island, the smallest of the Elizabeth Islands off Cape Cod and one with special connections to Falmouth. All the persona poems are based on the directors of the hospital and patients, who came from around the world [China, Japan, The Azores, Russia, Turkey, Greece, Latvia, India, Cape Verde, Trinidad, Barbados, Syria, Italy and the US], but were living in the Boston area at the time they were diagnosed with leprosy. They were Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim. 36 patients were sent to the island, 14 are buried there and 13 were sent to the newly built national leprosarium in Carville, Louisiana when the Penikese leper hospital closed in 1921. Rifkah’s poetry captures these individuals and their plight with great sensitivity and presents a moving portrait these people considered by society to be outsiders and outcasts.
Eve Rifkah was co-founder of Poetry Oasis, Inc. (1998-2012), a non-profit poetry association dedicated to education and promoting local poets, as well as founder, and Editor of DINER, a literary magazine with a 7-year run. She has run an ongoing writing workshop for 15 years and teaches workshops and classes at WISE (Worcester Institute for Senior Education).