The North Carolina Poetry Society holds its annual Sam Ragan Day meeting Saturday, March 12, at the Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities in Southern Pines.

Registration begins at 9:15 a.m., and activities begin at 10 a.m. The program for the day will include a play by Marsha Warren about Sam Ragan and music by Shelby and Linda Stephenson.

"We plan to adjourn by 3 p.m.," says a spokesman.

Box lunches will be available for sale ($10 in cash or checks payable to 195) until 10:15 a.m.

For more information, visit http://www.ncpoetrysociety.org.

Gathering at Given

Given Memorial Library will host its monthly Gathering at Given at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, March 3.

Don Sweeting, executive vice president of golf and club operations, will discuss upcoming plans for Pinehurst Resort.

Part of his discussion will be centered on Course No. 2 and the upcoming U.S. Opens.

This event is free and open to the public.

Poetry Readings

A McIntyre's Poetry Society readings will take place at 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 27, at McIntyre's Fine Books in Fearrington Village, halfway between Chapel Hill and Pittsboro on U.S. 15-501 South.

This month's readers are Ruth Moose, Joanna Catherine Scott and David Manning.

Moose has taught creative writing at UNC-Chapel Hill since 1996. Author of two books of short stories as well as five poetry collections, her poems and stories have appeared in many magazines and literary journals around the world. Her newest book is "Tea and Other Assorted Poems."

Joanna Catherine Scott is the author of the novels "The Road from Chapel Hill," "Cassandra, Lost," "The Lucky Gourd Shop" and "Charlie," the nonfiction "Indochina's Refugees: Oral Histories from Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam" and three poetry collections. Currently, she has a poetry collection in progress, "An Innocent in the House of the Dead." A graduate of the University of Adelaide and Duke University, she was born in England, raised in Australia, and now lives in Chapel Hill.

David Manning, a California native, was winner of the North Carolina Poetry Society's Poet Laureate Award in 1996, 1998 and 2006. A Pushcart nominee, his poems have appeared many literary journals.

He has five chapbooks, and his full-length collection, "The Flower Sermon," was published by Main Street Rag in 2007. His most recent collection is titled "Yodeling Fungus," a book designed for comic relief.

Manning is the current host of the Friday Noon Poets of Chapel Hill and co-editor of that group's poetry anthology, "Always on Friday."