N.C. Poetry Society member Shelby Stephenson will read at McIntyre's Fine Books in Fearrington Village, at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 26. Fearrington is located off U.S. 15-501, near Pittsboro.

McIntyre's is hosting monthly poetry readings featuring poets from the N.C. Poetry Society.

Stephenson will not only read and discuss his poetry, but, along with wife, Linda, will sing.

Stephenson grew up on a small farm near Benson and says that most of his poems come out of that background, where memory and imagination play on one another.

"My early teachers were the 35 foxhounds my father hunted," he says. "The trees and streams, fields, the world of my childhood -- all that folklore --those are my subjects."

After leaving the farm for college, Stephenson graduated from UNC Chapel Hill, where he also studied law. He received a master's degree from the University of Pittsburgh and a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has worked as a radio and television announcer, salesman, right-of-way agent, and farmer. He is now professor of English at UNC Pembroke, where he has edited Pembroke Magazine since 1979.

The state of North Carolina presented him with the 2001 North Carolina Award in Literature, and he has received the Zoe Kincaid Brockman Memorial Award and the Playwright's Fund of North Carolina Chapbook Prize.

In addition to a poetic documentary, "Plankhouse" (with photographs by Roger Manley), he has published "Middle Creek Poems," "Carolina Shout!," "Finch's Mash," "The Persimmon Tree Carol," "Poor People," "Greatest Hits," and "Fiddledeedee."

With his wife Linda he has also made the CD and cassette, "Hank Williams Tribute." They live on the farm where he was born. The Stephensons formerly lived in Southern Pines.

For further information, call McIntyre's Fine Books at (919) 542-3030.

Deadline for Limericks

The Pilot's current limerick contest has a deadline of March 31, with results appearing on April 26. This is the leading line: "My golf game is something to see..." Is it a sore sight or a sight for sore eyes? Pilot columnist Joe Piper provides an example:

My golf game is something to see;

It's best viewed from behind a large tree.

I hit thin, I hit fat,

Better wear a hardhat.

Those too close may be whacked on the knee!

E-mail your verses to joelimericks@embarqmail.com. Or mail them to Limericks, The Pilot, PO Box 58, Southern Pines, NC 28388.

'Poetry Everywhere' Returns

This April, "Poetry Everywhere" (pbs.org/poetry) returns to public television online and on air with new poems and new voices.

Through a collection of 24 short poetry films, the project introduces television viewers to a broad spectrum of great poets and poems.

Produced in association with The Poetry Foundation, the films are freely available to all local public television stations and are designed to air at unexpected moments during the regular broadcast schedule. The series employs a variety of dynamic production approaches, including poets reading their own work to camera, animated interpretations of much-loved poems, and celebrities reading favorite poems.