West End
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Shut Up & Write

Friday, February 15, 2019, 10:00 am

Come by for an hour of morning writing with fellow creative folks. Everyone works on their own thing. No obligation to share. Just show up and write! What to expect?

Little Builders

Saturday, February 16, 2019, 10:00 am

Build, construct, and explore with blocks, DUPLOS, and LEGOs

These 20-to-30-minute story times are full of books, songs, rhymes and fingerplays for children birth to 2 years old. Our Baby and Toddler Story Time is a great way to introduce your child to language skills in a positive and fun environment. With slightly more activity and movement than our lap times, children and their grownups are encouraged engage with the books and songs and to actively participate in the program.

Baby and Toddler Story Time

Tuesday, February 19, 2019, 10:00 am

These 20-to-30-minute story times are full of books, songs, rhymes and finger plays for children birth to 2 years old. Our Baby and Toddler Story Time is a great way to introduce your child to language skills in a positive and fun environment. With slightly more activity and movement than our lap times, children and their grownups are encouraged engage with the books and songs and to actively participate in the program.

Preschool Story Time

Tuesday, February 19, 2019, 11:00 am

Share the fun of reading with your children ages 3-5 years old. Children and their grownups, will explore stories and activities to encourage children to develop a lifelong love of reading and learning. These 30-to-40-minute programs are designed to promote language and listening skills, expand children’s imaginations and arouse their curiosity about the world around them.

All Levels Knitting

Tuesday, February 19, 2019, 5:00 pm

For beginner, intermediate and advanced knitters. Any knitting question or issue will be resolved! For more information, please contact my.nguyen@dc.gov.

Shakespeare Society: Hamlet

Tuesday, February 19, 2019, 6:30 pm

Please join us for a discussion of Shakespeare's Hamlet. The discussion will end at 8:30 p.m. The Shakespeare Society is West End Neighborhood Library's monthly Shakespeare reading and discussion group. We meet on the third Tuesday of every month. Series 1 will focus on Shakespeare's tragedies; the full reading list for Series 1 is as follows: Dec. 18 | Antony and Cleopatra Jan. 15 | Coriolanus

Mindful Art and Drawing with Meg Artley

Wednesday, February 20, 2019, 10:00 am

Using Betty Edward's seminal text Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and mindfulness techniques, participants will try their hand at drawing what they really, truly see. Other projects will focus on the beauty of the world around us as seen and interpreted by artists through the ages, the ways in which colors impact our art and our lives, the visualization of a favorite poem -- all fun, all playful, all designed to turn your attention to your creative side.

Family Craft

Wednesday, February 20, 2019, 4:00 pm

Join us for arts & crafts in the children's room. We will provide supplies. Recommended for ages 5-10.

Baby and Toddler Story Time

Thursday, February 21, 2019, 10:00 am

These 20-to-30-minute story times are full of books, songs, rhymes and finger plays for children birth to 2 years old. Our Baby and Toddler Story Time is a great way to introduce your child to language skills in a positive and fun environment. With slightly more activity and movement than our lap times, children and their grownups are encouraged engage with the books and songs and to actively participate in the program.

Pages

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty

New Adult Grab Bag

All About That... Angst

Though there seem to be clear markers of the sub-genre, "New Adult Fiction" is a slightly contentious label. The term was coined to individuate books about people navigating an entry into the "real world" that follows high school and/or college.

Walt Whitman on Abraham Lincoln and Civil War Washington

A talk by a local expert

To commemorate the 150th anniversary of President Lincoln's assassination, Martin G. Murray, Founder, Washington Friends of Walt Whitman, will speak on the poet's reflections on the slain leader and on life in the wartime Capital, accompanied by slide illustations, on Tuesday, April 14, at 7 p.m., and in celebration of April as National Poetry Month.

West End Fiction Book Club Presents . . .

A tribute to America's best-loved poet

The West End Fiction Book Club will meet Tuesday, April 21 at 12:30 p.m. to read/discuss "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," "The Road Not Taken," "Tuft of Flowers," "Birches," "Mending Wall," "Out, Out--," "Death of the Hired Man" and other poems by Robert Frost (1874-1963), in celebration of April as National Poetry Month.

Head shot of recently deceased poet Claudia Emerson

'Lament for the Makers'

A tribute to recently deceased poet Claudia Emerson and others

Please join us for a reading of poems in memory of Claudia Emerson (1957-2014), winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in poetry and former Poet Laureate of Virginia, as well as anecdotes and tributes to this remarkable and beloved poet, and with apologies to Scottish poet William Dunbar (c.1460-c.1513),

Weekly Online Trivia Contest!

Women's History Month

Join us in celebrating Women's History Month, and win fantastic prizes! Every Monday in March, a new trivia question will be posted on Twitter (@dcpl) and Facebook. Respond by Friday with the correct answer using #herstoryDCPL, and get entered to win a different prize each week! We'll reveal the correct answer at the end of the week.

Image of book cover for Kate Chopin's "The Awakening"

Book Club Pick of the Month

'The Awakening' by Kate Chopin

The West End Book Club will meet to discuss The Awakening by Kate Chopin, in celebration of March as Women's History Month. Copies are available a the library. Please pick one up and join us!

CANCELED: Abraham Lincoln and the Cosmos

A talk on the 16th president as an amateur astronomer

This event has been canceled due to a change in the speaker's travel plans. Commander Kirk R. Benson, Precise Time and Astometry Technical Lead, Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, will speak on President Lincoln's interest in the heavens on Wednesday, March 11, at 7 p.m. in the library's meeting room.

Library Closed February 17

DC Public Library is closed Tuesday, Feb. 17 due to inclement weather.

Sonnet Reading

Celebrating the versatility, longevity, and flexibility of the sonnet form

Sonneteers, unite . . . and join us for a reading from the new Sonnet issue of Beltway Poetry Quarterly on Thursday, Jan. 22 at 7 p.m., featuring Washington, D.C.-based poets Holly Bass, Holly Karapetkova and Melanie Henderson. Editor Michael Gushue and Kim Roberts also will read selected poems from the issue, and Deborah Ager will host. Shakespeare, Spenser, and Petrarch as masters of the sonnet will attend in spirit :>)

Image of book cover for Stephen A. Hansen's "History of Dupont Circle"

'A History of Dupont Circle: Center of High Society in the Capital'

A talk by author Stephen A. Hansen

Please join us Tuesday, Jan. 20, at 7 p.m. in the meeting room for a talk by Stephen A. Hansen, longtime D.C. resident, architectural historian, historic preservation specialist, and author of A History of Dupont Circle: Center of High Society in the Capital (History Press, 2014).

West End Neighborhood Library