Communing With Culture, Memory and Family Lore Poetry & Art at the Pardee-Morris House

Given the chance, what would you say to family members loved and lost, whose stories begin to feel distant? For Ugandan-American poet, teacher, and New Haven Museum (NHM) Educator Rohanna (Ssanyu) Delossantos, the answer is to create verse giving voice to a universal longing: to commune with the culture and people of memory and family lore. Delossantos will present a free, all-ages program merging poetry and still-life drawing in, “The Marabou Who Crossed the Sea,” at the Pardee-Morris House on Sunday, August 9, 2026, at 2 p.m. For weather updates check our Facebook/Instagram pages or visit https://www.newhavenmuseum.org.

Delossantos’s superpower is making complex histories accessible through art. At NHM, she has developed and led a variety of family programs since 2019. Basing the “The Marabou Who Crossed the Sea,” program on her chapbook of the same title, Delossantos will give a reading and then offer still-life scenes based on the objects and birds mentioned in her book for adults and kids to color in their own way. The event will include a Q&A and a book signing. Register here: https://qrco.de/bgugUh