Celebrated Playwright and Poet Richard Cary to Speak Nov. 12 at Moss Memorial Library

by Joan M. Howard
Guest Writer

Coffee With Poets and Writers is delighted to welcome again distinguished writer Richard Montfort Cary, local playwright, poet and actor, and relative of Dame Olive Campbell. He will speak Wednesday, Nov. 12, at 10:30 a.m. at Moss Memorial Library. Richard is a prolific poet, who has also written plays, including one about the founding of John C. Campbell Folk School. He is also a popular actor at the Peacock Playhouse.

Coffee With Poets And Writers meets monthly at Hayesville’s Moss Memorial Library.

Richard will be reading from his recently published book of autobiographical poems "I Once Was a Man From Nantucket," a collection of autobiographical poems.

Richard Montfort Cary Photo by Lily Ponitz

The 750-page book is arranged in a chronological order covering poems he wrote on his 65-year journey from age 16 in 1959 to age 81 in the spring of 2024.  His wife, artist Cheryl Cary, designed the cover, incorporating a painting dated 1929 by his mother June Coolidge Cary.  The book is his dream come true.

Richard received his BFA in Theater Arts from Carnegie Mellon University in 1964, and spent six years in professional theaters before moving his young family to Nantucket Island, MA, where he became a sought-after designer/carpenter of custom homes.

In 1980, the local community theater asked him to step in as artistic director, which he did for four years.  Then in 1985 he founded Actors Theatre of Nantucket, the island’s own professional theater company, serving as producing artistic director for 20 years until retiring in 2004.

During those years, he was the harmonica-playing tenor of a popular blue grass band, The Fish Handlers, and also spent 12 years on stage in his one-man show "And Now, Mark Twain!"  After 34 magical years on Nantucket, he moved to Asheville, NC, then to West Asheville, and finally in 2017 to a new old home in Hayesville.

Richard’s claim to fame is that Olive Dame Campbell, founder of the John C. Campbell Folk School back in 1925, is his great aunt.  Honoring the Folk School’s 100th anniversary, Richard and his wife Cheryl composed a one-act narrative for four voices "The Birth of the John C. Campbell Folk School," which was recently performed to glowing reviews at the Folk School’s Fall Festival.  It’s slated to be presented again, Dec. 10 at 4:45 p.m.

His first collection of poems will be followed by a companion book "Sonnets & We Are... " sometime in 2026.

Coffee With Poets and Writers is sponsored by North Carolina Writers' Network West and meets every second Wednesday from March to December at 10:30 a.m. at Moss Memorial Library in Hayesville, N.C. The event is free and open to the public.  An open mike will follow the presentation.  If you would like to read, please bring a poem or prose work of about three minutes to participate.  There is no critique.

Photo by Lily Ponitz