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Former Poets Laureate

Esther Buffler Robert Dunn Maren Tirabassi John Perrault Mimi White Elizabeth Knies

 

John-Michael Albert  

What a Poet Laureate does:
Essay in The Wire.

John-Michael Albert's website

 


Ambushed by Poetry
: Brick Project  
Project Overview
Read Article

Project's Facebook page
YouTube videos

 

Mark DeCarteret

Mark DeCarteret, Portsmouth's seventh poet laureate, has had work in such reviews as AGNI, Boston Review, Chicago Review, Conduit, Cream City Review, failbetter, Hotel Amerika, Phoebe, Poetry East, Salamander, Sonora Review, and Third Coast, as well as the anthologies American Poetry: The Next Generation (Carnegie Mellon Press), Places of Passage: Contemporary Catholic Poetry (Story Line Press), Thus Spake the Corpse: An Exquisite Corpse Reader 1988-1998 (Black Sparrow Press) and Under the Legislature of Stars: 62 New Hampshire Poets  (Oyster River Press) which he also co-edited. His latest chapbook Flap will be published by Finishing Line Press in spring 2011.

Mark's acceptance remarks
Read The Museum of Childhood, poem by Mark DeCarteret
Read about Mark's project: Wish You Were Where - The Postcard Project

   

Elizabeth Knies Strong

Elizabeth Knies, sixth poet laureate, is the author of The New Year and Other Poems; Streets After Rain; From the Window; and White Peonies. She taught ESL, writing, critical thinking and literature in New Hampshire, Maine, Japan, Missouri, Colorado and Massachusetts, and has worked as a reviewer and an editor. Her most enduring literary connection is with the Skimmilk Farm poets, commemorated in Ken Browne’s documentary, “Mondays at Skimmilk: 30 Years of Writers at Work.”

Read one of Elizabeth's poems
Read about her "Surprised by Joy" project

   

Mimi White

Mimi White, poet and teacher, was poet laureate from 2005-2007. She has been working for over twenty-five years with students of all ages to help them create original and authentic work, be it poetry, memoir or non fiction writing.  Mimi White has worked in a variety of settings including schools, libraries, prisons, residencies for the elderly, and universities. She has been a member of the faculty at the University of New  Hampshire, Northern Essex Community College, and Lesley University. Her poems have been published in dozens of journals. They include Poetry, Harvard Review, West Branch, The Seattle Review, Yankee and Rivendell. Her book of poems, "The Last Island" was published in 2008.

 

Read some of Mimi White's poetry
Read about her What is Home project
Read more about Mimi
.
 

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John Perrault

 

 

 

 

 

John's project as poet laureate was to pair artists and poets to create a combined work, displayed in various public locations in Portsmouth. Find out where here.

John Perrault practices law, teaches literature, and writes. His The Ballad of Louis Wagner and other New England Stories in Verse, published by Peter Randall, is being distributed by University Press of John’s poetry has appeared in The Café Review, The Christian Science Monitor, Commonweal, Poet Lore and elsewhere. His new collection of poems, Here Comes the Old Man Now, is published by River Press. He was poet laureate of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 2003-2005.

John is available for readings, concerts, and writing workshops. He also presents a ballad program for libraries, historical societies, schools and other non-profit organizations through the New Hampshire Humanities Council entitled "The Ballad Lives." For information, please go to www.nhhc.org -type in "John Perrault" and follow the links. He is also on the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts Touring Roster. Go to www.nh.gov/nharts -click on "arts & artists" and follow links. John's website is at www.johnperrault.com  He may be contacted directly at rockweed@comcast.net


Third Shift

 

Hunching over
his overtime work

he watches words
rattle down the line

minding the verbs
how they vibrate

minding the sound
of the nouns

scooping out duds
for the bin--


 
by John Perrualt

 

all night he labors
under the overhead lamp

making little black widgets
according to type

stacks them in stanzas
labels the tops

wraps them up ready
to ship out

invoices
tucked inside.

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Maren Tirabassi

Maren C. Tirabassi is  author or editor of eleven books. New this year are Daybook For New Voices with her daughter Maria I. Tirabassi, Transgendering Faith - Identity, Sexuality and Spirituality with Leanne McCall Tigert and The Artist's Hand a book and CD collaboration with singer/songwriter Bryan Sirchio. Celebrating its “first anniversary” is the holiday spoken word CD -- Sticky Mittens and Angel Feet with Yankee humorists Neil English and Rebecca Rule.
    Portsmouth Poet Laureate from 2001-2003 her first project was the book Portsmouth Unabridged - New Poems for an Old City which boasted more than ninety local poets from age nine to one hundred. Her second year she ran a “Humor in Poetry”’ festival. Maren teaches poetry in a wide range of settings and travels as a facilitator for United Church of Christ (Congregational) workshops and conferences.
 
Bang and Spangle in Portsmouth

This fourth of July
I am little proud to be american,
as we pursue our unjust war
against people starved by our embargo,
whose tyrants we created,
eat our grotesque carb-less meals,
drive our belugas, choose for president
the madman with the
stuffed god in his pocket.

Circling the tattered remains of parade
are boys on decorated bicycles
while girls with glow circles in their hair
sit on blankets.
One old man with a slice of blueberry pie
held like a blue-mouthed duck’s bill
is entertaining a toddler
wearing chocolate ice cream.

 by Maren C. Tirabassi

I find my place on the hill
above this little New Hampshire town
and pray that it is not willingness
to be deceived
that makes us stare into the night
at shooting stars,
but something deeper
a waiting to be surprised by beauty,
by hope for tomorrow.

I will start by believing in fireworks,
and just maybe I can fumble
my way
back to the country.
 

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Robert Dunn

 

 

 

 

 


 

© Photo
Nancy G.
Horton


Robert is a "recovering poet laureate" and longtime resident of Portsmouth who has, on occasion, distributed copies of his poems to people he met on his walks around town.

One of Robert's undertakings as poet laureate was to bring poems out into the street and we can now enjoy various works around the city and in the parking garage. In 1997, during his tenure, the Poetry Hoot was born.  He is a graduate of the University of New Hampshire. Robert says he is "an apple picker, currently celebrating his salad days."  

He recently published I Hear America Singing.

Rumors

I hear you can tell the trees apart
by the sound of the wind in their branches:
The sighing of the pines is nothing
at all like the wind in the willows.
Elms in full foliage gently
rustle, aspen are easily rattled.
All under the leaves of life they tend:
Oaks to creak at a higher pitch
and maples more apt to tap
imperiously at your window.
And I have heard the news and so have you,
so let us talk of things indifferent.
And the wind will tell the trees apart
by the rumors passing through.

Robert Dunn Links

"Our Friend," in honor of Robert Dunn

Obama letter arrived days after Portsmouth
poet Robert Dunn died

 

Robert E. Dunn obituary, Sept. 3, Portsmouth Herald

 

"Portsmouth loses one of its voices," Sept.
4, Portsmouth Herald

 

"So long, brilliant Penny Poet," Sept. 7, Seacoast Sunday

 

"Remembering Robert Dunn," Sept. 10, The Wire

 

"Gossip: Celebrating Robert Dunn," Sept. 11, Spotlight

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Esther Buffler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No Skirmish
by Esther Buffler
Published in ONLY NOW, 1999

 

at 80
A great pile of things;
coming up at 90
can be even more;
who cares?
Amazingly memory does.


Esther came to poetry later in life from a long career in story telling and professional theater. She devoted the last 25 years of her life to writing, teaching and sharing her talents in New Hampshire.
    She staged a touring production about American women poets, was poet in residence at star island and promoted poetry in local schools. She published five collections  of poetry including Only Now.
    She produced the audio CD compilation "High on Poetry with Esther Buffler and Friends" highlighting the best of the Portsmouth Poet Laureate Program of 1998. Her last book, It's All Ahead, is published by Phineas Press and is available at RiverRun book store. Esther died in August, 2002 at the age of 93. Currently a fund in her memory supports an annual  poetry residence in the Portsmouth schools.

 

Buy "High on Poetry - With Esther Buffler and Friends"
 

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