The Portsmouth Poet Laureate Program is a twenty five year tradition of building community with poetry.

The Portsmouth Poet Laureate Program was founded in 1997 by Nancy Moore Hill, aided by Paula Rais, Mimi White and others.  From that day to this all the work of the Program has been done by volunteers – who contribute both time and money. They are entirely funded by individual donations and grants from the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation

The mission of the PPLP is to “build community through poetry”.  They do that in two ways: first through the monthly poetry Hoot, the first Wednesday of each month September through June which was started by our second poet laureate Robert Dunn and is now in its 23rdth year!  Secondly, we select a Poet Laureate every two years with the help of a separate and independent selection committee made up of a diverse group of artists and public servants from this community. The Poet Laureate then works with the board and volunteers to create engaging community-building projects with poetry always at the heart. 

I had the pleasure of being the 11th poet laureate of Portsmouth from 2017 to 2019, and now I’m excited to be chair of the board to support the current laureate and further the PPLP’s ongoing endeavor.