Julia Bouwsma

Julia Bouwsma is the sixth poet laureate of Maine. She follows Stuart Kestenbaum, Wesley McNair, Betsy Sholl, Baron Wormser, and Kate Barnes in the role.

Bouwsma lives off-the-grid in the mountains of western Maine, where she is a poet, farmer, and small-town librarian. She is the author of two poetry collections: Midden (Fordham University Press, 2018) and Work by Bloodlight (Cider Press Review, 2017). She is the Library Director for Webster Library in Kingfield, Maine. She is the recipient of the 2019 and 2018 Maine Literary Awards for Poetry Book, the 2016-17 Poets Out Loud Prize, the 2015 Cider Press Review Book Award. She has received writing residencies from the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Vermont Studio Center, Monson Arts, and Annex Arts in Castine. She contributes poems and book reviews to Cutthroat, Poetry Daily, Poetry Northwest, RHINO, River Styx, and other journals. Bouwsma, a former Managing Editor for Alice James Books, currently serves as an instructor at University of Maine at Farmington and on the Community Advisory Board for Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance.

Write ME: An Epistolary Poetry Project

When was the last time you wrote someone a letter? Or received one? When was the last time you truly communicated with someone you didn’t already know?

Letters are a vital ritual of connection, a communication that extends beyond the words or message themselves to encompass an entire range of sensory experiences: the anticipation we feel as we open the mailbox and find an envelope, the sound of tearing paper as we slide a finger under the seal, the work of deciphering the familiar or unfamiliar handwriting, the color of the ink, the texture of the paper held in our hands as we read. The one who has written to us is absent and yet we can hold evidence of them in our hands. They are, in some way, here in the room with us by virtue of their letter.

An epistolary poem is a poem that is also a letter. The epistolary poem remains a powerful and captivating poetic form—and one that seems particularly crucial to our present moment, in which the intimacy, community-building, and grounding, physical aspects of letter writing can provide us with much-needed antidotes for social polarization and isolation.

With support from the MWPA and the Maine Arts Commission, Julia Bouwsma is creating a Maine-wide epistolary poetry project that 1) introduces the form through a series of free public workshops across the state and then 2) pairs up participating individuals as “poetry pen pals” to communicate with one another through a series of epistolary poems. Simply put, this project will pair together people in different parts of Maine to exchange letter poems. This project is open to anyone who lives in Maine (or is connected to the state) and is ages 14 and up.  

A celebration of the Write ME Pilot Project will happen on Thursday September 14 at 6 PM on Zoom with Julia Bouwsma and other people who participated in this project.

Saturday, April 22 from 1 to 2:30 PM: Annaliese Jakimides at the Eastport Arts Center

Annaliese Jakimides is a writer and mixed media artist who grew up in inner-city Boston and raised a family on 40+ acres on a dirt road in northern Maine, growing almost all the family’s food and pumping water by hand. She now lives beside a library in a small city. In addition to working with inner-city environmental justice organizations and international arts groups, she cofounded the Belfast Poetry Festival and has created/implemented arts and humanities programs in rural schools, prisons, recovery programs, and libraries, among others. Cited in national competitions, her poetry and prose have been published in many journals, anthologies, and magazines, and broadcast on Maine Public and NPR. Recent work appears in Maintenant 16: A Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art, The Ekphrastic Review, and Breaking Bread: Essays from New England on Food, Hunger, and Family.

Saturday, April 22 from 1 to 2:30 PM: Richard Blanco on Zoom

Richard Blanco is the fifth presidential inaugural poet in U.S. history—the youngest, first Latino, immigrant, and gay person to serve in such a role. He is the author of the poetry collections Looking for the Gulf Motel, Directions to the Beach of the Dead, and City of a Hundred Fires; the poetry chapbooks Matters of the Sea, One Today, and Boston Strong; a children’s book of his inaugural poem, “One Today,” illustrated by Dav Pilkey; and Boundaries, a collaboration with photographer Jacob Hessler. His latest book of poems, How to Love a Country (Beacon Press, 2019), both interrogates the American narrative, past and present, and celebrates the still unkept promise of its ideals. He has also authored the memoirs The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood and For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet’s Journey. His many honors include the National Humanites Medal, recently awarded by President Joe Biden.

Saturday, April 29 from 11 AM to 12:30 PM: Maya Williams at the Portland Public Library

Maya Williams (ey/they/she) is a religious Black multiracial nonbinary suicide survivor who is currently the seventh poet laureate of Portland, ME from July 2021 to July 2024. Ey has published poems in venues such as The Portland Press Herald, The Cortland Review, FreezeRay, Indianapolis Review, Occulum, glitterMOB, Littoral Books, Black Table Arts, and more. Their debut poetry collection Judas & Suicide will be published May 2023, and their second collection Refused a Second Date will be published October 2023. She has received residencies from organizations such as Sundress Academy for the Arts (SAFTA), Voices of Our Nation Arts (VONA) Foundation, The For Us by Us Fund’s Words of Fire Retreat, Hewnoaks Artist Colony, and The Watering Hole. Maya was one of three artists of color selected to represent Maine in The Kennedy Center’s Arts Across America series in 2020, and was listed as one of The Advocate’s Champions of Pride in 2022.

Saturday, April 29 from 1 to 2:30 PM: Dawn Potter on Zoom

To watch a replay of the epistolary poem workshop led by Richard Blanco, click the play button on the right.

Dawn Potter is the author or editor of nine books of prose and poetry—most recently the poetry collection Accidental Hymn. A finalist for the National Poetry Series, she has also won a Maine Literary Award for nonfiction and has received grants and fellowships from the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Writer's Center, and the Maine Arts Commission. Her poems and essays have appeared in the Beloit Poetry Journal, the Sewanee Review, the Threepenny Review, the Times Literary Supplement, and many other journals in the United States and abroad. Dawn directs poetry and teaching programs at the Frost Place as well as the high school studio writing program at Monson Arts. She lives in Portland.

Saturday, April 29 from 3 to 4:30 PM: meg willing at Twice Told Tales in Farmington

meg willing is a poet, editor, artist, and book designer. Her creative work has appeared in DIAGRAM, Hayden's Ferry Review, Colorado Review, The Collagist, Be Wilder: A Word Portland Anthology, and elsewhere. The former Managing Editor of Alice James Books, she currently serves as Art and Design Editor for Gigantic Sequins; Assistant Manager at Devaney, Doak, and Garrett Booksellers; shop assistant at Independent Auto Classic Volvo Repair; and, with Alana Dao, is Co-Founder / Co-Director of A CLEARING: A Maine Arts Community. She resides in the foothills of Maine with her partner, Thomas Broome, and their curly dogs, Mousse and Walter.

Thanks to Maine Public and the MWPA, Poems from Here returns in 2022 with four new hosts, Maine State Poet Laureate Julia Bouwsma and fellow poets Samaa Abdurraqib, Mihku Paul, and Arisa White. Submissions are now closed.

Each week from 2017 to 2020, former MaineState poet laureate Stuart Kestenbaum selected a poem by a Maine or regional poet and shared with us how language has the power to move and surprise us. Poems from Here creates a momentary community of speaker and listeners, where vibrant language slows time down and helps us to pay attention to our world.

A new episode was broadcast several times a day, every Friday. Please click below for a full list of episodes that aired.

Edited by former Maine Poet Laureate Wesley McNair, Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry was a weekly newspaper column that featured previously published poems by a Maine poet. More than two dozen newspapers throughout Maine published Take Heart and reached hundreds of thousands of readers each week from May 2011 to December 2015.

McNair selected each poem and wrote a brief introduction about the poet’s background and connection to Maine, or the history, context, and themes of the poem. Working in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance, this service was offered free to any interested newspapers or publications. 

Take Heart was administered by the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance, and funded in part by a grant from the Maine Arts Commission, an independent state agency supported by the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Maine State Poet Laureate is an honorary position established on June 2, 1995 (Maine Public Law 1995, Chapter 264) and codified in Title 27, Chapter 15, Subchapter 2 of the Maine Revised Statutes. The law requires that the Poet Laureate reside in Maine and have published “distinguished poetry.” The nominee is selected by the governor from a list of candidates recommended by the Maine Arts Commission. The Maine State Poet Laureate is appointed for a five-year term and may be reappointed for a second term. Poet Laureates may serve for no more than two consecutive terms, but they may be reappointed after a break in service.

You can find a full history of the people who have served as Maine State Poet Laureate here.

With the inauguration of Wesley McNair as Maine State Poet Laureate on March 11, 2011, the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance created the state’s first-ever Office of the Maine Poet Laureate to provide support, promotion, and funding for the poet laureate’s many initiatives. Since that time, the Office of the Maine Poet Laureate and the poet laureate’s initiatives have been supported by generous contributions from the Betterment Fund, Maine Arts Commission, Maine Humanities Council, and Quimby Family Foundation.

If you are interested in donating to the ongoing initiatives of the Maine Poet Laureate, please contact Gibson Fay-LeBlanc at director@mainewriters.org.