Robert Dunn, Portsmouth’s second Poet Laureate, published five collections of poetry, not including the numbers of small, hand-sewn books that he distributed to people on the street. Purchase a complete collection of his work in the book One of Us is Lost from Hobblebush Books
As poet laureate, Robert instituted The Hoot, a poetry reading in Portsmouth now in its 23rd year being held at Book & Bar in Portsmouth Robert also created public displays of poetry around the city and in the parking garage.
Robert died in 2008 at the age of 65.
Purchase and read Katherine Towlers book about Robert Dunn.
“Katherine Towler’s The Penny of Portsmouth is a book about a New England town, and yes a book about the friendship of two writers in that wildly populated landscape of solitude, but it is also, in the end, a book that educates us on how to be human living in the world’s most awkward empire, how to love life, love it even in our strangest of centuries, love it even when one has no stomach for it, love it in our neighbors, our streets, our solitudes, our antagonists who are (often) ourselves.” —Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic
Obama letter arrived days after Portsmouth poet Robert Dunn died
Robert E. Dunn obituary, Sept. 3, Portsmouth Herald
“So long, brilliant Penny Poet,” Sept. 7, Seacoast Sunday