Landlocked and Offshore

She grew up in a lighthouse. Here are her songs. Celia Laighton Thaxter (1835–1894) was born offshore at White Island Light on the Isles of Shoals off Portsmouth, NH. Married at sixteen, she spent ten years landlocked in Newton, MA where her first poem was published in the Atlantic Monthly. Celia returned to Appledore Island to cultivate her island garden, painted by Childe Hassam and celebrated by poets and writers in her seaside salon. Her most famous poem is The Spaniards' Graves Off the Isles of Shoals, after the 1813 wreck of the Sagunto off Smuttynose Island. Celia was the inspiration for Set to the Music,  my album of maritime poetry from the Age of Sail in song.