Portland Poet Laureate Project
Established in 2007, every three years the Portland Poet Laureate Project is charged with selecting a poet laureate to represent the city of Portland and her surrounding communities. In May of 2015 our Nominating Committee selected Gibson Fay-LeBlanc to be the official bard of Portland( the district also includes South Portland, Westbrook, Falmouth, Gorham, Cape Elizabeth, and the islands off of Portland). Gibson will serve unti June of 2018! Guidelines for nominating the next poet laureate will be posted in 2017. http://gibsonfayleblanc.com/poetry/
The most recent Portland Poet Laureate Nomination Committee was comprised of the following:
Betsy Sholl, Jay Davis, Linda Aldrich, Mike Bove, Anna Wrobel, and Jim Donnelly.
Past poet laureates include Marcia Brown, Martin Steingesser, Steve Luttrell, and Bruce Spang.
Marcia F. Brown
2013-2015
​
Marcia F. Brown is the current Poet Laureate for the City of Portland, Maine (2013-2015). She the author of four poetry collections, When We Invented Water (Moon Pie Press 2014); What on Earth (Moon Pie Press 2010); Home to Roost, Paintings and Poems of Belfast, Maine with artist Archie Barnes (Custom Museum Publishing 2007); and The Way Women Walk (Sheltering Pines Press 2006); and the Editor of Port City Poems, Contemporary Poets Celebrate Portland, Maine (Maine Poetry Central 2013).
Marcia Brown
Bruce Spang
2011-2013
​
Bruce Spang, third Poet Laureate of Portland 2011-2013, former English teacher at Scarborough High School, edited a recent anthology, Passion and Pride: Poets in Support of Equality. He lives in Falmouth with his husband Myles and son Matthew. He is working on a new book about teachers to incorporate creative writing in the new standards based curriculum, Putting the Art Back in Language Arts.
Portland has long been a city of poets, from the rhyming improvisations of the colonial-era sea chanties in the rumhouses of The Old Port, to the dignity and precision of Longfellow, and on into the present day with our pastiche of versifiers. While poetry has always stitched itself into the fabric of life in Portland, before the founding of the Portland Poet Laureate program in 2005 there lacked formal integration of our art into the City’s hierarchy. Portland was (and still is) considered to be covered by the Maine State Poet Laureate program. But much as Portland lacks a city history museum—with that function covered by the Maine State Historical Society, not coincidentally the keepers of The Longfellow House—Portland also lacked a local formal institution. No longer!
Portland’s City Council has now four times unanimously accepted the proposed candidate forwarded up by the Portland Poet Laureate Nominating Committee. With that local imprimatur, the position continues to grow in stature and gravitas. Further, the many organizations supporting poetry in Greater Portland have rallied around the Portland Poet Laureate program as an inclusive, nurturing endeavour.
Portland poets unite! We each bring a fresh morsel to this tasty cake baking here now for centuries, more generous and richer than ever!
Duff Plunkett
Steve Lutrell
2009-2011
​
The founder and editor of The Café Review, Steve has over a dozen books to his name and has been a force in the Portland poetry scene for over four decades. To visit the Café Review see the following link www.thecafereview.com
"
"
Bruce Spang
Steve Luttrell
Martin Steingesser
2007-2009
​
Martin Steingesser's poems whisper, shout and occasionally slam. He's author of two books of poems, Brothers of Morning and The Thinking Heart: the Life & Loves of Etty Hillesum, the latter versions based on Hillesum's journal and letters, composed and arranged for performance in two voices with cello.
Martin Steingesser