Plunkett Maine Poetry Festival will be at UMA April 6

AUGUSTA — The 16th annual Plunkett Maine Poetry Festival at the University of Maine at Augusta will feature Sharon Olds as its keynote poet, Friday, April 6.
In addition to the keynote address, the free daylong event includes a workshop, discussions, a community dinner, and culminates with an evening program of poetry readings by Olds and student poet presentations.

Olds’ mark on American poetry began in the 1970s, and she continues to impress readers and audiences, organizers said. She is
considered to be one of America’s greatest living poets and has has spent decades writing about love and sex, childbirth and death, social consciousness and the limits of self-knowledge.
Winner of the 2016 Academy of American Poets’ Wallace Stevens Award, she was praised as an “American Mater, and a national treasure.”
The Plunkett Maine Poetry Festival traditionally offers a poetry workshop for high school teachers, UMS students and the community.
This year’s workshop leader is Betsy Sholl, who served as the second poet laureate of Maine. Sholl has written eight published books of poetry and has won numerous awards, including a fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts.
The festival will also include a panel discussion on poetry and truth, readings by winners of student poetry contests, and more.
Held in April each year, Plunkett Poetry Festival was established in 2002 to honor the memory and accomplishments of Terry Plunkett, an English professor at the University of Maine at Augusta for nearly 30 years. An outstanding teacher and mentor to many students, Plunkett was co-editor of “Kennebec: A Portfolio of Maine Writing”– an annual magazine published by the university from 1977-1992 and distributed free throughout the state. Many Maine writers first saw their work in print in Kennebec, thanks to Plunkett’s encouragement and guidance. A poet and fiction writer as well as a teacher and editor, Plunkett helped organize and direct the Maine Poets Festival, a hugely popular celebration of poets and poetry, which ran from 1976-1983 at UMA, the College of the Atlantic, and the Maine College of Art.<