POTSDAM — SLC Arts will host the first event of its newest series, Poetry with Purpose, on Tuesday, July 25 at the Potsdam Public Library, 2 Park St.

Each event will highlight a local author and bring a monthly offering of literature that links to activism, advocacy, or our North County history, and will offer a reading and presentation, an open Q&A, and a book signing and opportunity to meet the author.

This event will feature local poet Jim Bourey and his recent projects centered around the Lyon Mountain and Standish areas.

Bourey’s poetry examines place and the human condition through storytelling.

His work explores the history of small places with the purpose of keeping them alive in our collective memory.

He is currently working on a project that describes the history of Lyon Mountain, a small mining town in the northeast Adirondacks.

The collection examines the many viewpoints of folks as they aged and their town aged with them.

As a native of Lyon Mountain, many of his poems focus on generations of his ancestral family. Most importantly, Bourey’s work is accessible; he believes poetry is an art that belongs to all people.

Bourey’s newest book, Out There and Back Again, was released in April 2023 by Cold River Press.

In 2022 Season of Harvest, a collection co-authored with noted poet Linda Blaskey, was published by Pond Road Press.

And in 2020 his first full collection, The Distance Between Us, was published by Cold River Press.

He is also the author of a chapbook, Silence, Interrupted, from Broadkill River Press in 2015.

His work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, in print and online.

Bourey is also a contributing editor for the Broadkill Review.

He was an adjudicator for the Poetry Out Loud program when he lived in Delaware. Bourey is active in the St. Lawrence Area Poets organization.

This event is free and open to the community.