Meet the Current Poet Laureate
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Margaret Gibson from Preston, Connecticut is Connecticut’s 7th State Poet Laureate.
“To write poetry, to read poetry, is to deepen and clarify one’s own nature and to open outward to a community of listeners and participants. Poets are truth-tellers, and we need to hear their voices now more than ever. I have been given to generously in my life; it is time now to give back,” says Gibson. “I look forward to offering solo and group poetry readings, panels, and workshops, and using these to build a more clear and vocal sense of community that is engaged and caring.”
A longtime Connecticut resident, Margaret Gibson is the author of 12 books of poems, most recently, Not Hearing the Wood Thrush (Finalist, 2019 Poets’ Prize), as well as a memoir, The Prodigal Daughter: Reclaiming an Unfinished Childhood. Her debut poetry volume, Long Walks in the Afternoon, was awarded the Lamont Selection from the Academy of American Poets.
Additional honors include a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, the James Boatright III Prize, the Melville Kane Award from the Poetry Society of America (co-winner), the Connecticut Center for the Book Award in Poetry, and three Pushcart Prizes. The Vigil was a Finalist for the National Book award in Poetry in 1993. Her work has been published in such magazines as Connecticut Review, Kenyon Review, The Georgia Review, and Prairie Schooner ; and in numerous anthologies, includingBest American Poetry, 2009 and 2017 ; Beneath a Single Moon: Buddhism in Contemporary Poetry ; andAtomic Ghost: Poets Respond to the Nuclear Age .
Professor Emerita at the University of Connecticut, Gibson was Poetry Editor of New Virginia Review, 1992-98; and has taught or served as writer-in-residence at the University of Massachusetts (MFA Program), Reed College, Virginia Commonwealth University (MFA Program), and several other institutions nationally.
Contact
Learn more about Margaret on her website.
https://margaretgibsonpoetry.com/