MATTAPOISETT — Former Marion resident Ann E. Wallace will read from her latest poetry collection, "Days of Grace and Silence: A Chronicle of COVID’s Long Haul” at the Mattapoisett Free Public Library on Saturday, June 1, at 2 p.m.

Wallace is the 2023-24 Poet Laureate of Jersey City, New Jersey. As a long-time survivor of ovarian cancer, a woman with multiple sclerosis, and according to a press release one of the nation's first patients of longform COVID-19, she has lived and written through illness for thirty years.

Pain, disability, and disease — as well as hope and resilience — have inspired and informed her work as a poet, memoirist, patient advocate, and scholar.

Her new poetry collection was written over three years, beginning when Wallace was first sick with severe acute COVID-19.

Wallace is host and producer of The WildStory: A Podcast of Poetry and Plants by the Native Plant Society of New Jersey and Professor of English at New Jersey City University.

A reception and book signing will follow Wallace''s reading. The program is part of the Purrington Events Series, sponsored by the Mattapoisett Library Trust.

Everyone is invited to attend. The library is located at 7 Barstow St. in Mattapoisett.