Christmas in Maine

“Pulitzer Prize winning poet Robert P. Tristram Coffin’s 1941 depiction of the perfect Maine Christmas describes a farmhouse ‘banked with emerald jewels clustered on bayberry boughs,’ a house stuffed with aunts, uncles, and cousins by the cart load, with mince pies by the legion.

You will feel like one of the family as he brings you along to play with cousins in the hay chaff, take a bouncy afternoon sled ride, savor the goose during the three-hour meal, string popcorn for the tree, and listen to tales by firelight at the drowsy end of a long and perfect day.

Islandport Press is thrilled to be pairing Coffin’s classic ode with gorgeous and evocative original woodblock prints by Maine artist Blue Butterfield and a foreword by Maine writer Jaed Coffin. This special edition is sure to become a keepsake, a book to read aloud year after year to remind ourselves of the true meaning of holiday traditions.” From the publisher.

About the Author and the Illustrator

Robert P.T. Coffin (1892-1955) was born and educated in Brunswick. He graduated from Bowdoin in 1915 and returned to the College as Pierce Professor of English from 1934 until his death. The author of more than three dozen works of prose, poetry and history, he is remembered most as winner of the 1936 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his book, Strange Holiness.

Blue Butterfield ’92 is a woodblock print artist who grew up in Bar Harbor, Maine, and currently resides in Portland. She is known for her woodblock calendar “A Year in Maine,” which she has produced annually since 2006. She has works in permanent collections in institutions across Maine.