Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Governor Dan Malloy is calling for houses of worship to ring their bells tomorrow morning 26 times, for the 20 children and 6 adults shot and killed by Adam Lanza.
In Newtown, no formal commemoration events are planned. Family members are asking people to mark the day by performing acts of kindness or volunteering with charities.
Meanwhile, archivists have been collecting as many items as they can to tell the story of Newtown and the response to it. From the Here & Now Contributors Network, Diane Orson of WNPR reports on that effort.
We also hear the poem “Solace” by Connecticut’s poet laureate Dick Allen. In the days following the mass shooting, Allen had no intention of writing a poem about what happened. He worried about exploiting an awful situation. But then the words “in the snow lightly falling” popped into his head, and the line became an obsession and an inspiration.
Allen’s poem was set to music by Pulitzer-Prize winning composer William Bolcom. Here is a performance of the song “Solace” by members of the St. Patrick/St. Anthony Church Gallery Choir in Hartford:
Reporter
- Diane Orson, reporter and producer for WNPR, part of the Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network. She tweets @dorson1.
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