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.
May 1st Hoot featuring Incoming and Outgoing Poets Laureate
Join us in saying goodbye to Mike Nelson and welcoming our 12th Poet Laureate, Tammi Truax!
April 3rd Hoot featuring David Surette and Mercy Carbonell
David R. Surette’s new book of poetry is Malden, selected and new poems that feature his hometown Malden, Massachusetts. He is the author of five other collections includng Stable which was named an Honor Book at the 2016 Massachusetts Book Awards. His poems are...
Lunation Book Release
Celebrate International Women's Day with the Book Release of Lunation: A Good Fat Anthology of 114 Women Poets. Lunation is an epic gathering of women poets from the seacoast and beyond in one fierce and fiery publication six months in the making and culminating with...
March 6th Hoot featuring Cassandra de Alba and Alice Radin
Cassandra de Alba is a poet living in Massachusetts. Her work has appeared in The Shallow Ends, Underblong, Big Lucks, and Smoking Glue Gun, among other publications. Her chapbooks habitats(Horse Less Press, 2016) and ORB (Reality Hands, 2018) are about deer and the...
Accepting Nominations!
The PPLP Board is now accepting nominations for our next Poet Laureate for 2019-2021! • Nominees for 2019 – 20 21 should live in Portsmouth, Dover, Durham, Eliot, Greenland, Kittery, Madbury, New Castle, Newfields, Newington, Newmarket, North Hampton, Rye, or Stratham...
February 6th Hoot featuring Maggie Dietz and Joel Carpenter
Maggie Dietz is the author of That Kind of Happy (2016), and Perennial Fall (2006), which won a Jane Kenyon Award and a Wisconsin Library Association Literary Award. She previously taught creative writing at Boston University and served as assistant poetry editor...
6th Annual Youth Hoot January 2nd
Students from several area schools will join us as our January Featured Readers. One of the PPLP’s Board’s long term goals is to encourage poetry writing and performance by young people. They’re our poetic future. What better way than to provide a venue? If you’ve...
December 5th Hoot featuring Mark DeCarteret and Kathleen Clancy
Mark DeCarteret has appeared next to Charles Bukowski in a lo-fi fold out, Pope John Paul II in a hi-test collection of Catholic poetry, Billy Collins in an Italian fashion coffee table book, and Mary Oliver in a 3785 page pirated anthology. He has been published in...
November 7th Hoot featuring Morgan Plessner and Sam DeFlitch
November's Hoot features two young and phenomenal poets: UNH MFA Poets Morgan Plessner and Sam DeFlitch! Morgan Plessner is a second year MFA student studying poetry at the University of New Hampshire. She has been published in Ink & Voices and Foliate Oak. She's...
Rice Pudding Poetry Series featuring Christopher Seid
Poet Christopher Seid will be featured in the upcoming Rice Pudding Poetry Series on Thursday evening, November 1. Together with a group of community readers who will read published work from a variety of poets, Seid will read from his second collection of poems, Age...
