Author: Christina Strong

Our 10th Anniversary!

Saturday April 1, 7 pm    Farmer Poets’ Night 

Silloway Sugarhouse, Randolph Center
Readings by poets Taylor Mardis Katz and Corey D. Cook
Silloway maple desserts available!

TAYLOR  MARDIS KATZ

Taylor Mardis Katz is a poet, farmer, and shopkeeper living in Chelsea, Vermont. With her partner, she runs Free Verse Farm & Apothecary and the Free Verse Farm Shop, and parents one small and fantastic human. Taylor’s poems have appeared in a variety of traditional and non-traditional publications, including a farmer’s almanac, the podcast “Brave Little State,” and The Connecticut Review, Barnstorm, and the Adirondack Review

COREY D. COOK

Corey D. Cook’s sixth collection of poems, Junk Drawer, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2022. His poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Black Poppy Review, Boston Literary Magazine, Duck Head Journal, Freshwater Literary Journal, Muddy River Poetry Review, Naugatuck River Review, Nixes Mate Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, and Spare Change News. Corey edits Red Eft Review. He lives in East Thetford, Vermont.

Thursday, April 6, 7pm   Two Local Poets 

Kimball Library, Randolph
Readings by Marjorie Ryerson and Laura Foley

LAURA FOLEY  has published several poetry collections, the most recent being Everything We Need: Poems from El Camino. A new collection, It’s This, is due out in May 2023.  Laura’s poems have won numerous awards, and national recognition, read frequently on The Writers Almanac, and appearing in Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry. Her work has been published in journals such as Alaska Quarterly Review, Valparaiso, Poetry Society London, and in anthologies such as Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems, Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection, and How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope.  Laura lives with her wife, Clara Gimenez, and their romping canines, among the hills of Pomfret,Vermont. 

MARJORIE RYERSON has a graduate degree in poetry from the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa.  She served for many years as a professor of writing and photography at Castleton State College. She also taught poetry for Middlebury College at its New England Young Writers Conference, and most recently for Dartmouth College in a class where poetry focused on climate change.  She served as a First Wednesdays’ lecturer for the Vermont Humanities Council, with a focus on her book Companions for the Passage: Stories of the Intimate Privilege of Accompanying the Dying.   Marjorie’s 2003 art photography book Water Music won national and international recognition.  Her Water Music Project (www.water-music.org)  donated substantial funds to the United Nations, used to protect the health of water and the availability of safe drinking water around the world. Most recently, Marjorie served as a Vermont State Representative.. She lives in Randolph, Vermont.

Tuesday, April 11, 7pm     Vermont Poet Carol Potter

Esther Mesh Room at Chandler Center for the Arts, Randolph
Listen to Carol Potter read her poems while enjoying scrumptious desserts!

CAROL POTTER  was the winner of the 2021 Pacific Coast Series of Poetry from Beyond Baroque Books for her sixth book of poems, What Happens Next is Anyone’s Guess. Her awards include the 2014 Field Poetry Prize from Oberlin College Press for Some Slow Bees, a Creation Grant from the Vermont Arts Council, 2019, the 1998 Cleveland State Poetry Center award, and the Balcones Award for her book, The Short History of Pets.  She won a Pushcart Award and residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell, The Fundacion Valparaiso and Millay Colony of the Arts. Her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Poetry, The Green Mountains Review, Hotel Amerika, Sinister Wisdom, The Kenyon Review, Hayden’s Ferry, The Massachusetts Review,  The Los Angeles Review, Poet Lore,  River Styx, Plume, and the anthology of contemporary Vermont poetry, Roads Taken.  She teaches for CCV and the Antioch University MFA program in Los Angeles, and is a freelance poetry editor and consultant.

Wednesday, April 19, 7pm    Poetry Open Mic

White River Craft Center, 50 Randolph Ave, Randolph
Come share your poems!  Sign up at the door!
Or just come and enjoy listening.

Saturday, April 29, 7pm      Los Lorcas

The Underground, 24 Pleasant St., Randolph

Celebrating their new release Last Night in America, poets Partridge Boswell and Peter Money, along with guitarist Nat Williams, fuse poetry and music in a passionate and surprising mash-up. Los Lorcas blur boundaries between spoken word and song, weaving poetry with Andalusian ballads, blues, rock, folk, reggae, hip hop, Americana and jazz in pursuit of the cante jondo (deep song) Federico Garcia Lorca so ardently championed.

Troubadouring widely in the US and abroad (Ireland, Canada and Slovenia), Los Lorcas have performed everywhere from farmhouse kitchens to pubs, coffeehouses, schools, theaters and 1,000+ book festival crowds [e.g. Poetry Center San Jose, Massachusetts Poetry Festival, New Orleans Poetry Festival, Burlington Book Festival, Tucson Book Festival, Bookstock Literary Festival (w/ Robert Pinsky’s PoemJazz), Chandler Music Hall, Fingal and Kinsale Literary Festivals (Ireland), Vermont College of Fine Arts, KGB Reading Series, Bowery Poetry Club, Nuyorican Poetry Café and Caffe Lena], attesting to the broad appeal of their lyrical tapestries and innovative vision of how poetry and music are two sides of the same spinning coin and together can attain a mesmerizing symbiosis.  https://loslorcas.com/

“Los Lorcas in unity is a marvel that would silence any creative individual to awe, inspiring the quietest observer to reach for each word as if they were Federico Lorca himself, meditating on song and poetry mid-stage, arms outstretched.”—Bianca Viñas

All events are free of charge.

Due to the severity of the Covid-19 pandemic, things are a bit different this year. With statewide and national closures of schools, arts organizations, businesses and public places, and warnings to be mindful of social distancing, we have made the prudent decision to cancel all PoemTown events for this year.

However, like the geese and robins, poetry will return to Randolph! The original poems of 76 poets from 46 Vermont towns are on display in the main windows and doors of local businesses and organizations as a walking anthology for residents and visitors to enjoy as they walk through town, hike a short nature trail along the White River, or do errands in town. New this year is the pairing of some of Randolph’s notable outdoor sculptures with poetry that was submitted. Poets were encouraged to submit poems that consider our climate emergency.

We hope that these poems help offset the difficulty of these uncertain times and remind us of the many ways we are connected through common experience. The daily pressures and hectic pace of our lives, and the onslaught of technology all threaten to isolate and overwhelm us. Poetry is a vehicle for articulating our common human experience and the many threads that bind us together as human beings. Who among us has not been shaken by love and loss, has not been moved by beauty in the natural world, yearned for change, or been challenged by a situation beyond his or her control? Through poetry we celebrate our unity through our individual stories and insight. May the days ahead be filled with poetry to sustain us all.

Thank you to our supporters! 

We’re grateful for generous sponsorship support that makes possible our ability to print the poems and programs and design and print this year’s anthology.

PoemTown 2020 is underwritten by the the Jack and Dorothy Byrne Foundation and has additional support from DuBois & King, EyeCare for You, Northfield Savings Bank, Sanel/NAPA Auto Parts, Bar Harbor Bank & Trust, andthe Ada Brandon Foundation. PoemTown is grateful for partnerships with the Town of Randolph, RACDC, Chandler Center for the Arts, Kimball Library, and the White River Craft Center that helped make possible the planning of this year’s events. 

We’re grateful for generous sponsorship support that makes possible our ability to offer the poetry portions of all events at no cost to the public.

PoemTown 2020 is underwritten by the the Jack and Dorothy Byrne Foundation and has additional support from DuBois & King, EyeCare for You, Northfield Savings Bank, Sanel/NAPA Auto Parts, Bar Harbor Bank & Trust, and the Ada Brandon Foundation. PoemTown is grateful for partnerships with the Town of Randolph, RACDC, Chandler Center for the Arts, Kimball Library, and the White River Craft Center that help make possible these events.

Find the Poems

More than 100 poems are placed throughout Randolph Village. Here’s a complete listing of their locations. This year many of Randolph’s sculptures are included in the Poetry Walk.

Sculptures

“The Gift” by Karen Petersen in front of Chandler Music Hall

Gathering — Louis Megyesi

Paul Calter sculptures at Vermont Technical College, Randolph Center

“Focus One” — from Simultaneous — Jim Schley

“Armillary VII” — Ode to the Tree Across the Road — Genevieve Bronk

“Sun Disc, Moon Disc” — Sun, O Glorious Sun — Neill Callahan

“Big Frog, Small Pond” by Jim Sardonis, VT Agricultural and Environmental Lab at VTC

Charles’s Pond — Louis Megyesi

“Whale Dance” by Jim Sardonis at Exit 4, I-89

Eternal Dance — Peggy Brightman

River Walk

Still Leaf — Jonathan Root

Winter — Michael Fitzgerald

Source: Haiku — M. Underwood

Milkweed — James Crews

Questions — Ann Cooper

Waiting on the Ice Jam — Daniel Chadwick

Metamorphose — Deb Delmore

Ladybugs — George Longenecker

Randolph Village Laundromat – 75 North Main Street

Flowerless — Ann Brandon

The Church of Laundromat — Stephen Morris

Chandler Music Hall – 71-73 North Main Street

Ukulele Lesson — Judith Crocker

No Oxygen Left — Trish Alley

Bach Hears Music — Gus Speth

Kimball Public Library – 67 North Main Street

The Writer in His Element — Gus Speth

Logophile — Judith Crocker

Randolph House – 65 North Main Street

The Moon Dances Down Pug Lake — Sydney Lea

Anticipation — M. Underwood

Super Suds Laundromat – 10 Pleasant Street

Colored Glass — Steve Augustus

Act as if …. — Phoenix

Seeds of Despair — Carl Garguilo

The Gear House — 16 Pleasant Street

Afterlife — Jack Mayer

Huggable Mug Café – 22 Pleasant Street

Carbon Footprint Cafe — Donna Bramley

Feeding Time — Timothy Eberhardt

Kids Play — 22 Pleasant Street

Little Zephyrs — Deb Franzoni

about a boy — Nancy Hewitt

Trillium — 24 Pleasant Street

Mother’s Day — Wilma Ann Johnson

What the Birder Said — Veer Frost

The Herald – 30 Pleasant Street

Poetry in an Eggshell — Audrey Boerum

The Lost Poem — Jeff Bernstein

Ode to Ocean — Cynthia Liepmann

Red Lion Inn  — 9 Pleasant Street

At 89 — Audrey Boerum

Morning at the Drop-in Center — Barbara Stearns

Red Door Jewelers — 20 Merchants Row

Love and Imagination — Kimberly Madura

Soft Light Appearing — Janet Burnham

Fisher Auto Parts – 10 Merchants Row

The Wind from the Next World — Gina Logan

Car Wash — Annie Bower

Cassandra — Ann Cooper

Pollination — Geza Tatrallyay

After the Flood — Rebecca Starks

Willamina Willy — Tom Martin

Ice — Veer Frost

Ode to ‘e’— Barney Beard

One Blood Paragraph — Nancy Hewitt 

Self-Medication — Sandy Edmunds 

a broken heart has no home — Mary Collins 

Earth Mother — Peggy Brightman 

The Singin’ Rage — Sydney Lea 

Vermont Computing – 23 Merchants Row

Dead End — Julie Cadwallader Staub

Bluer Seas — Annie Bower

The Black Krim Tavern – 21 Merchants Row

Our Notions of Love — Christina Strong

Sidewalk Florist – 19 Merchants Row

Dahlias — Andrea Rogers

The Peony Admiration Club — Letitia Rydjeski

One Main Tap & Grill – 2 Merchants Row

August 27, 2019 — Julie Cadwallader Staub

Boppin’ at Lunacy — Pam Ahlen

There and Here — Judith Crocker

Belmain’s Building — 15 North Main Street

The Open Field — James Crews

False Labor — Jack Mayer

Clouds — Ina Anderson

Bee-ing Indoors — Gina Logan

Twenty Years — Charleigh Robillard

November 8, 2017 — Ann Cooper

Scorched Earth — Janet Watton

Nativity Scene — Peggy Whiteneck

Bar Harbor Bank & Trust – 21 North Main Street

Out of Control — Janet Watton

So You Think — Michael J. Farrand

Saecula saeculorum — Timothy Eberhardt

First Chill — Deb Delmore

To My Great Granddaughter Not Yet Born — Ina Anderson

On Seeing Satellite Images After Hurricane Dorian — Rebecca Starks

From Stone Road — George Murphy

Ken’s Barbershop – 33 North Main Street

Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, 2005 — Jamie Gage

The Frankenburg Agency – 35 North Main Street

Orbweaver — James Crews

Bethany Church Office – 32 North Main Street

The Book of Job — Peggy Whiteneck

Migration — Wilma Ann Johnson

Noah and the Climate Skeptics — Brigitte Lent

DuBois & King – 28 North Main Street

Teach Me To Whisper — Deb Chadwick

I’m gonna write my dream — David Wrong

Lamentation — Rebecca McMeekin

Rain Change — James Wyman

Blue Moon – 6 North Main Street

There are Words in this Wind — Julie Longstreth

Assumptions and Cullings — Sydney Lea

Northfield Savings Bank – 2 North Main Street

Giant Sequoia — Rebecca McMeekin

Boogaloo to Beck — Jamie Gage

A Tiny Patch of Blue — Trish Alley

The Olde Hollows Transfer Station — Steve Augustus

November — Anne Bakeman

Coffin — Danny Dover

East Garden – 3 Salisbury Street

Bahn Mi in Vermont — Christina Strong

Wilson Tire – 5 Salisbury Street

Poem for the Leavers — Jillian Getman

Randolph Municipal Building – 7 Summer Street

Town Meeting — Rebecca McMeekin

America. America — Audrey Boerum

Tranquility — Mickie Richardson

Of Revolution — David Celone

Randolph Coal & Oil – 8 Salisbury Street

There are too many of us on this earth … — Geza Tatrallyay

The New Normal — Charlie Farrell

Randolph Police Station – 6 Salisbury Street

Airborne — Corinne Davis

Bob’s M&M Beverage – 4 Salisbury Street

Polar Cap — Melanie Adams

Chef’s Market — 2 Salisbury Street 

Should — Deb Delmore

Until, that is, I Become Vinegar — Stephen Morris

Stagecoach – Depot Square

Thomas Edison Lands in the 21st Century — Jeff Bernstein

True Center Yoga — 2 South Main Street

A Place Beyond — Gus Speth

TEKHENU — Janet Watton

lotus — Mary Collins

The Split Is Clear — Cynthia Liepmann

Sanel / NAPA – 3 South Main Street 

Willing — Nancy Hewitt

No Restraint — Deb Franzoni

after reading how the wollemi pines were saved by firefighters in Australia — Anne Bergeron

Climate Changes, Writ Small — Jeff Bernstein

World Atlas — Christina Strong

Heritage Real Estate — 10 South Main Street

Indecision Equals Inaction — Sandy Edmonds

The Playhouse – 11 South Main Street

The Souks of Aleppo — Brigitte Lent

To The Horse’s Return — Steven Yaskell

Beacon Printing – 18 South Main Street

Three of Us — Peter Dregallo

Any flip of the hand …. — Annie Bower

Al’s Pizza – 12 South Main Street

The Universe is — Peggy Brightman

Heron Dancer — Karen Richardson

Hummingbird — Hatsy McGraw

It was Hidden in the Statue — Daniel Chadwick

Randolph Regional Veterinary Hospital – 86 Dylan Drive

Flagler, our Weatherman — Bonnie Watters

Ode to Leofred L’Orange — Ina Anderson

My Indoor Cat — Jack MayerBuckie — Lynn Powers