Portsmouth Poet Laureate Program
Building Community Through Poetry
The Portsmouth Poet Laureate Program is dedicated to building community through poetry by appointing and supporting an outstanding local poet as Poet Laureate for the city, sponsoring events that feature area poets and authors from outside the New Hampshire Seacoast, and encouraging a love of poetry among people of all ages.
Established in 1997 by local arts organizers and writers, the program brings people together to celebrate the written word and the talents of local and visiting artists.
Current Poet Laureate
Tammi J. Truax is the 12th Poet Laureate of Portsmouth.
Tammi, a graduate of the University of New Hampshire, works with fourth-grade writers at an elementary school and as a Connections program facilitator for the NH Humanities Council teaching new adult readers. She has lived and worked in New Hampshire, Maine, and Germany, and has taught in a variety of nontraditional settings from preschool to prison.
In 2008, with NH poet Kyle Potvin, Tammi founded the non-profit The Prickly Pear Poetry Project: Processing the Cancer Experience Through Poetry. Children’s literature is a lifelong passion for her and she has several picture books ready for a publisher.
She was editor of a new release of Lady Wentworth; A Poet’s Tale by Henry Longfellow (illustrated) (Bookbaby, 2013), and released her debut novel Broken Buckets, as an eBook the same year.
Her Portsmouth Poet Laureate Project is called “Poetry as a Bridge”.
Poem from the Hoot
Each month a Poem from the Hoot is featured here, as well as in the Portmouth Herald.
Peace at the Beach
Put the board on
top. Hit the tar.
Ten minutes later,
get out of the
car. It’s a sunny
day. It is what
a surfer craves.
I’m at peace with
myself, I’m
at peace with the waves.
I paddle out
to the sea.
It’s a beautiful
day for the
board peace and
me.
— Judah D’Antonio
2019-2020 Hoot Schedule
Other Upcoming Events
Esther Buffler Residency
In 2002, friends and family of Esther Buffler, our first Poet Laureate, set up a memorial fund that will enable the Poet Laureate Program to arrange an annual residency for a poet-in-residence in the Portsmouth School Department.
Following her death, a residency was endowed to allow a selected to poet to spend part of a week (compensated) in the Portsmouth Public School system.
