Ina Anderson grew up in Cumbria, in the north of England. She worked as a technical editor for professional journals in London and in the U.S., including Icarus: International Journal of Solar System Science, with Carl Sagan. She then turned to teaching communication, writing, and literature, spending over 20 years at the Community College of Vermont as a faculty member and student advisor. Ina’s poems have appeared in several publications, including Mountain Troubadour, Red Fox Poets, and a recent anthology, Perhaps It Was the Pie. Her first poetry collection, Journey Into Space, was published in 2016. Ina has lived in Sharon, Vermont, for many years.

Megan Buchanan – Megan Buchanan’s poems have appeared in such as journals as The Sun Magazine, make/shift, A Woman’s Thing, and multiple anthologies. Her first full-length collection, Clothesline Religion, is just out from Green Writers Press and is widely available. Born in California, Megan’s lived for long stretches in Ireland, the mountains of the southwest, and New England. Her work has been supported by the Arizona Commission on the Arts, the Vermont Arts Council, and the Vermont Studio Center. Megan is also a collaborative performer and dancemaker, a teacher, and an activist.  She currently lives in southern Vermont with her two children. meganbuchanan.net.

Chard deNiord – The VT Poet Laureate was born in New Haven, CT and raised in Lynchburg, VA. After graduating from Lynchburg College, deNiord earned his MDiv from Yale Divinity School. Before pursuing ordination, he worked as an inpatient psychiatric aide at the CT Mental Health Center. Five years later, he left to pursue poetry, attending the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he received his MFA in 1985.  Returning to New England, deNiord taught at private schools for over a decade while publishing his poems. In 1990, he published his first collection, Asleep in the Fire (University of Alabama Press), while teaching comparative religions and philosophy at the Putney School. In 1998, deNiord began teaching at Providence College, where he was eventually named the tenth recipient of the Joseph R. Accinno Faculty Teaching Award. That same year, he founded the Spirit and Letter Workshop, a ten-day program of workshops and lectures in Patzquaro, Mexico. In 2002, deNiord cofounded the New England College MFA program in poetry, which he directed until 2007. In addition to several collections of poetry, he has authored a book of essays and interviews with renowned poets. He is currently a professor of English at Providence College. He lives in Westminster West with his wife, Liz.

Laura Foley won first place in the Common Goods Poetry Contest, judged by Garrison Keillor; the 2016 National Outermost Poetry Prize, judged by Marge Piercy; Harpur Palate’s Milton Kessler Memorial Poetry Award; and the Grand Prize for the Atlanta Review’s International Poetry Contest. She is the author of five poetry collections, her most recent being Night Ringing. The Glass Tree won the Foreword Book of the Year Award, Silver, and was a Finalist for the NH Writer’s Project, Outstanding Book of Poetry. Joy Street won the Bisexual-Writer’s Award. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and magazines. Laura holds graduate degrees in English Literature from Columbia University. Trained in chaplaincy through the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care, she volunteers in hospitals and prisons, and is a certified Shri Yoga Instructor. She lives in Pomfret, with her partner Clara Giménez, and three big dogs.

Navah Fried – Navah Fried loves writing poems. She feels that creative writing it is the most meaningful way to communicate. Besides writing, Navah usually finds herself listening to music, playing guitar and singing, going for walks, and thinking. She hopes to be a published poet in the future, on the side of an unknown career. Navah has been studying creative writing at Montpelier High School for the past two years and is excited to go on to college to help make the world better. Her work has been featured in Montpelier’s PoemCity for the past two years, but this is her first public reading.

Nancy Hewitt‘s chapbook Heard was published in 2013 by Finishing Line Press.  Her poetry has appeared in Mid-American Review, Prism Review, Phoebe, The Comstock Review, Off the Coast and other journals.  Her awards include the Nancy Hargrove Editors’ Prize for Poetry from Jabberwock Review and a Pushcart Prize nomination.  She is a clinical social worker with a private psychotherapy practice in Salem, MA.  She is the first Poet Laureate of Swampscott, MA, and divides her time between Swampscott and East Randolph, VT.

Reuben Jackson – In a 2012 Seven Days story introducing the new host of Vermont Public Radio’s “Friday Night Jazz”,  retiring jazz-show host George Thomas said of Jackson, “He thinks like a poet.”. Reuben Jackson’s poetry reflects his love of jazz, and as regular VPR listeners know, his baritone voice is as compelling as the music he presents. The Goddard College grad is an accomplished critic who has written for the Washington City Paper and the Washington Post in his hometown of Washington, D.C., as well as for the magazines Jazziz, JazzTimes and All About Jazz. His reviews have been featured on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.” Before joining VPR, Jackson served for 20 years as the curator of the Duke Ellington Collection at the Smithsonian Institution. Jackson’s poetic forte is haiku.

Madeleine Kunin – Madeleine May Kunin was the fourth woman to be elected Governor in the U.S. and the first woman to serve as Governor of Vermont. She was born in Zurich, Switzerland and immigrated to the U.S. with her mother and brother during World War II. She served as Deputy Secretary of Education and Ambassador to Switzerland in the Clinton Administration, and is the founder of the Institute for Sustainable Communities, a non-government organization which focuses on climate change and civic society. At present she is a Marsh Professor at the University of Vermont, a commentator on Vermont Public Radio, and a blogger on the Huffington Post. She is the author of The New Feminist Agenda, Defining the Next Revolution for Women, Work and Family, selected as an Editor’s Choice by The New York Times. She is also the author of  Pearls, Politics and Power, how women can win and lead, Living a Political Life, and The Big Green Book. She is a fellow at the Academy of Arts and Sciences and a recipient of the Eleanor Roosevelt award. She is married to John W. Hennessey and the mother of four children and six grandchildren.

Sydney Lea is a poet, novelist, essayist, editor, and professor. He served as Vermont’s Poet Laureate from 2011-2015. Lea has received fellowships from the Rockefeller, Fulbright and Guggenheim Foundations, and has taught at Dartmouth, Yale, Wesleyan, Vermont and Middlebury Colleges, as well as at Franklin College in Switzerland and the Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest. His stories, poems, essays and criticism have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New Republic, The New York Times, Sports Illustrated and many other periodicals, as well as in more than fifty anthologies. He founded New England Review in 1977 and edited it until 1989. Lea has been described as “a man in the woods with his head full of books, and a man in books with his head full of woods.” His affection for story, moreover, an affection derived in no small measure from men and women elders in New England, colors his poetry, just as a relish for the musical properties of the word colors his prose. His lifelong passion for the natural world informs almost his every utterance.  He lives in Newbury, Vermont, and is active both in literacy efforts and in conservation.

Verandah Porche works as a poet-in-residence, performer and writing partner. Based in rural Vermont since 1968, she has published Sudden Eden (Verdant Books), The Body’s Symmetry (Harper and Row) and Glancing Off (See Through Books), and has pursued an alternative literary career, creating collaborative writing projects in nontraditional settings: literacy and crisis centers, hospitals, factories, nursing homes, senior centers, a 200 year-old Vermont tavern and an urban working class neighborhood. Broad Brook Anthology, a play for voices, honors the lives of elders in Guilford, Vermont.  Listening Out Loud documents her residency with Real Art Ways in Hartford, CT. Verandah initiated—and for almost 30 years taught—the poetry program at Vermont’s Governor’s Institute on the Arts. “Come Over,” is a cd of songs written with Patty Carpenter, performed by the Dysfunctional Family Jazz band. She has read her work on NPR stations, in the Vermont State House and at the John Simon Guggenheim Museum. The Vermont Arts Council presented her with its Award of Merit in 1998, and its first Ellen McCulloch-Lovell Award in Arts Education in 2015, and Marlboro College, an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters in 2012. Verandah was featured in “Freedom and Unity: The Vermont Movie.” “Shedding Light on the Working Forest,” a collaboration with visual artist Kathleen Kolb is currently showing around New England.

Marjorie Ryerson is the author of numerous books, including an internationally award-winning photography book and several non-fiction books. She is a well-published poet and photo-journalist. A writing professor for many years, Marjorie has taught poetry for Middlebury College at its Bread Loaf writing campus since 1990. She holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Marjorie was the driving force behind Randolph’s first PoemTown celebration in 2014.

Geza Tatrallyay – Born in Budapest, Hungary, Geza escaped with his family in 1956 during the Hungarian Revolution, immigrating to Canada the same year. He grew up in Toronto, attending the University of Toronto Schools, and graduated from Harvard University with a BA in Human Ecology. Geza was selected as a Rhodes Scholar from Ontario, attending Oxford University and graduating with a BA / MA in Human Sciences; he completed his studies with a MSc in Economics from London School of Economics and Politics. Geza represented Canada as an épée fencer in the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal. He is a prolific author of thrillers, memoirs, and poetry. Geza’s professional experience has included stints in government, international organizations, finance ,and environmental entrepreneurship. Since 2004, he has been managing a few investments and devoting himself to his family and his writing.

Diana Whitney – Diana Whitney’s first book, Wanting It (Harbor Mountain Press, 2014), became an indie bestseller and won the Rubery Book Award in poetry. She’s the poetry critic for the San Francisco Chronicle and her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Glamour, Salon, Ms. Magazine, and many more. She has been awarded writing grants and fellowships from the Sustainable Arts Foundation, the Vermont Arts Endowment Fund, and the Vermont Studio Center, among others, and was the 2015 winner of the Women’s National Book Association poetry prize. A yoga teacher by trade, Diana runs a small studio attached to her farmhouse in Brattleboro, where she lives with her husband, two daughters, and three puzzling cats. She’s currently finishing a memoir about motherhood and sexuality. www.diana-whitney.com

Baron Wormser – Baron Wormser is the author/co-author of fourteen books and a poetry chapbook. His books include Scattered Chapters: New and Selected Poems (Sarabande Books), The Road Washes Out in Spring: a Poet’s Memoir of Living Off the Grid (University Press of New England), and The Poetry Life: Ten Stories (CavanKerry Press). His novel Tom o’ Vietnam, about a Vietnam veteran who is obsessed with King Lear, will be published by New Rivers Press in the fall of 2017. Wormser has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Bread Loaf, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. From 2000 to 2006 he served as poet laureate of the state of Maine. He has taught many dozens of workshops across the United States and continues to offer generative workshops along with workshops focusing on the works of a particular poet.

I wouldn’t choose to be sitting inside
this Sunday afternoon either, on the first day

of real spring. Thinking a few poems would do me
more good than shoveling the last mounds of snow

next to the opera house into a wheelbarrow. A scene
I saw walking around Randolph before the reading.

This place the arts committee named PoemTown
for April’s national poetry month. Inviting citizens

from around our state to submit a poem that could fit
into a window, a driver filling her tank could read.

A teenager trying to buy cigarettes could hesitate,
before going into the convenience store, pondering

what that last line meant. Forgetting the law he was
trying to break. I wish I had more time to read all one

hundred and eight of them. So many windows,
so little time is the title of the poem taped in Aubuchon’s

tinted window. Inside, the shovels and rakes selling faster
than pancakes. I’d be amiss to call anything else.

Here where the sap is flowing and driving over Bethel
Mountain I saw the beginning of flowers splitting

rocks without hesitating, that wouldn’t be caught dead
inside, to adorn a poetry reading.

Pamela Ahlen is currently program coordinator for Bookstock (Woodstock, Vermont), the Green Mountain Literary Festival.  She organizes literary readings for Osher (Lifelong Education at Dartmouth).  Pam received an MFA in creative writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts.  She is the author of the chapbook “Gather Every Little Thing” (Finishing Line Press).

Ina Anderson grew up in England, but has lived in Sharon, VT for many years. She spent her professional life as a technical editor and as a community college educator. Now retired, she has time for her life-long love of poetry and fiber arts. Ina has led poetry groups at the Writers’ Center in White River Junction and at Baxter Library in Sharon. Some of her poems were published in the poetry group anthology, “Perhaps it was the Pie.” Her first collection, Before I Left, will be published by this fall.

Danny Dover lives with his wife Mary in a remodeled schoolhouse in Bethel. He received his B.A. from Antioch College in 1971 and also holds Associate Degrees in Surveying Technology and Keyboard Technology. Danny was the piano technician at Dartmouth College for seventeen years and continues servicing pianos part-time. Previously he worked as a folksinger, contradance musician, dulcimer maker, foundry patternmaker, and surveyor. Danny serves on the Board of Hands in Outreach, Inc., a small non-profit coordinating educational sponsorships for very poor children in Nepal. His poems have appeared in Blueline and numerous issues of Bloodroot Literary Magazine. He has published one chapbook, Kindness Soup, Thankful Tea (Dhotarap Press, 2006). Danny was a 2013 Pushcart nominee. His first full-length book of poetry, “Tasting Precious Metal,” was recently published by Antrim House Books.

Chard deNiord is Vermont’s newly-appointed Poet Laureate. Born in New Haven, CT and raised in Lynchburg, VA, he anticipated going into the medical profession until college professors introduced him to religious studies. After graduating from Lynchburg College, deNiord earned his MDiv from Yale Divinity School. Before pursuing ordination, he working as an inpatient psychiatric aide at the Connecticut Mental Health Center. Five years later, he left to pursue poetry, attending the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he received his MFA in 1985. Returning to New England, deNiord taught at private schools for over a decade while publishing his poems. In 1990, he published his first collection, “Asleep in the Fire” (University of Alabama Press), while teaching comparative religions and philosophy at the Putney School.

In 1998, deNiord began teaching at Providence College, where he was eventually named the tenth recipient of the Joseph R. Accinno Faculty Teaching Award. That same year, he founded the Spirit and Letter Workshop, a ten-day program of workshops and lectures in Patzquaro, Mexico, featuring faculty poets such as Thomas Lux, Gerald Stern, Jean Valentine and Ellen Bryant Voigt. In 2002, deNiord cofounded the New England College MFA program in poetry, which he directed until 2007.

In addition to several collections of poetry, he has authored a book of essays and interviews with renowned poets. He is currently a professor of English at Providence College. He lives in Westminster West with his wife, Liz.

Dick Drysdale grew up in Randolph and succeeded his father as editor and publisher of Randolph’s weekly newspaper, then the White River Valley Herald, in 1971, when he was 26. He sold the paper in June 2015, when he was rather older. Dick’s written output has mostly been newspaper stories and editorials, some of which have received statewide attention and he was inducted into the New England Press Association’s Hall of Fame a year ago. He has enjoyed writing poetry but hasn’t written much of it. He insists that he experienced a Fertile Period for about 15 months some 20 years ago and has been mired in a Fallow Period ever since. A few of his poems have been published in literary journals and 15 in his own book “Vermont Moments” published late last year.

Jamie Gage is a Vermonter, father and husband, poet and writer who has won fellowships to the Vermont Studio Center and Vermont Arts Council. His work has been published in dozens of periodicals and literary journals including Main Street Rag, Inkwell, Out of Line, Mountain Gazette, Powhatan Review, and others. His first book of poems “True If Destroyed” is now available from Finishing Line Press or by contacting him at jgagenow@gmail.com.

Aaron Marcus (piano, concertina, banjo, foot percussion, vocals) draws on a rich background of musical traditions including New England contra, classical piano, English country dance, West African, and old time. Aaron is well known throughout the Northeast for his performances with Giant Robot Dance, Gift of the Marcii, Frost and Fire, and The Turning Stile. In his non-musical life, he works as an endangered-species biologist.

Gary Margolis is the author of four books of poems. His poems speak from the heart of New England and our nation and speak across cultures. They’re characterized by thoughtful emotion, humor, curiosity and surprise. He is the Executive Director Emeritus of College Mental Health Services at Middlebury College where he was also a part-time Associate Professor of English and American Literatures. He is a recipient of Vermont Arts Council and Millay Colony Awards and a Robert Frost Fellow at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. His poems and essays have appeared in Poetry, American Scholar, Poetry Northwest, and the Journal of the American College Health Association.

Lizzy Mandell is a Vermont singer/songwriter. Her album debut, Made for Flying, showcases eleven original songs. Lizzy’s soulful voice and compelling lyrics and melodies take the listener on a ride through the American landscape – through mountain farms, desert towns, to ocean shores, and home again.

Dorothy Robson is a founder of the White River Valley Players. The Hancock musician has composed and performed music for a number of WRVP Productions, including The Cherry Orchard, Second Chance, and most recently, Ransom, which was performed at Chandler in November 2014.

Gwyneth Walker’s music has been widely performed throughout the country and is beloved by performers and audiences alike for its energy, beauty, reverence, drama, and humor. Dr. Gwyneth Walker is a graduate of Brown University and the Hartt School of Music. She holds B.A., M.M. and D.M.A. degrees in Music Composition. A former faculty member of the Oberlin College Conservatory, she resigned from academic employment in 1982 in order to pursue a career as a full-time composer. For nearly 30 years, she lived on a dairy farm in Braintree. She now divides her time between her childhood hometown of New Canaan, Connecticut and the musical communities of Sarasota, Florida and Randolph, Vermont. Walker’s catalogue includes over 300 commissioned works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, chorus, and solo voice. A special interest has been dramatic works that combine music with readings, acting, and movement.

Chloe Viner has been writing poetry for fifteen years. Her first book of poetry “Naked Under an Umbrella” was published by Finishing Line press in 2011. Her second book of poetry, “What the Rain Said Last Night” was published in 2015 by Future Cycle Press. Her third book of poetry, “27 Apples” is forthcoming this July. Chloe lives in a large farmhouse in rural Vermont with her husband, cat, dog and a flock of hens. Chloe works as the Panel Manager at Franklin Grand Isle Restorative Justice Center and spends her spare time reading and hiking.