photo of Tamsen Turner reading by Vanessa Fournier, Hardwick Gazette
On Saturday, October 10, the Hardwick community gathered in the Daniels Building parking lot to celebrate the grand opening of Hardwick’s brand-new pedestrian bridge. The project marks the completion of a long-awaited rebuild—one that required the town to endure months of Main Street disruptions, detours, and construction, but ultimately restored a critical footpath connecting downtown.
Continue Reading Redemption Center
Q:What happens when you put 3 well-grounded artists in a library for an afternoon?
On October 19 during the afternoon, a packed room walked around the painted dirt exhibit on cotton to look at Frederick Rudi’s first public showing of his artwork in 13 years. Rudi spent his childhood in Iowa. Like his favorite poet, Ted Kooser, life in the Plains was direct and simple.
Continue Reading A Rudimental Hum
On October 18, 2026–the same day as NoKings4, when nationally, folks were reminding us all to vote–30 poets met for the PSOV’s 2026 Fall Workshop at the Catamount Arts Center in the Northeast Kingdom. They came to learn ways to improve their poetic voices through prompts and rewrites. Betsy Sholl, former Maine Poet Laureate, led the way. Poets shared their rough drafts with others outloud. We reveled in different and parallel themes that the prompts evoked.
Carol Johnson Collins stood at the podium to eulogize Ann Day, a fellow poet and friend spanning 51 years. Carol read Ann’s poem, “Shooting Stars.” (Read more about Ann in this week’s posting: Remembering Ann Day.)
We are excited to announce the results of the 2026 Fall Poetry Contest Members’ Choice Voting! Congratulations to PSOV members who placed in the top ten and will be published in the 2027 Mountain Troubadour. Thank you to all the members who took the time to read the 68 submitted contest poems and vote for your top ten. The PSOV Spring & Fall Poetry Contest top ten winners are selected through a Truncated Borda Count method*.
| Final Ranking | Poems | Poet |
| 1 | Cracked Corn | Patrick Bradshaw |
| 2 | in which I consider pulling a late summer dandelion | Liane St Laurent |
| 3 | Burying 600 Pounds of Potatoes | Eileen Dolbeare |
| 4 | We Were Promised Mansions | Darianna DiStefano |
| 5 | Shells | George Longenecker |
| 6 | I’ve Never Written About | Lily Hinrichsen |
| 7 | Aging in Place | Carla Schwartz |
| 8 | Psithurism | Elizabeth R. McCarthy |
| 9 | In the Key of Cat | David Kent Young |
| 10 | First Toy | David Mook |
*PSOV uses the Truncated Borda Count for the Spring & Fall Poetry Contests, it is considered one of the best voting methods for building consensus, especially in large fields.
We are deeply saddened to report the passing of our beloved, long-time member Ann Day. Ann was a vibrant force in our community for many years, remembered fondly for her lifelong dedication to nature, poetry, and local stewardship.
Our thoughts and sympathies are with her family and friends. We will share further details regarding services and a full remembrance as they become available.
Link to Valley Reporter announcement: https://www.valleyreporter.com/index.php/news/obit/21573-ann-day
Read more about Ann in the links below including a tribute by Buffy Aakaash, Editor of the 2026 Mountain Troubadour, a poem by Ann in a posting from the Archives and a Profile of Ann Day by Mary Rose Dougherty, Editor and Ben Nardin, Intern published in The Mountain Troubadour, 2022.
From the PSOV Archives:
PSOV member N.G. Haiduck’s new poetry collection, Moon Over the Cross Bronx Expressway is now available on Finishing Line Press’s bookstore.
“N.G. Haiduck shows a keen eye for the less than obvious, a discreet empathy for people that takes the form of observation, listening, and a sense of place as significant and specific… the strata of decades lived there as a young and less young woman, lover, mother, jazz buff, distiller of stories and memories, embodied in pain as in joy. Like another jazz-loving poet, Hayden Carruth, Haiduck is equally comfortable with a supple, short-lined free verse, with ballad stanzas, with the sonnet as a narrative vehicle. Like him too, she is aware, and makes her readers aware, that each recorded observation, each lyric transformation, is our collective and cultural history…”
–Marilyn Hacker
Date: December 16
Time:7:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Audience: PSOV Members new to submitting. (Free to members (join to attend!); registration required.)
Description: Nobody will publish that poem if you don’t submit it. This workshop will provide tips for organizing your submissions and finding suitable places to submit. It is not a revision session; for that try our monthly online poetry group in addition to this one.
The online workshop will be on Google Meet (a link will be emailed to all registered members prior to the workshop.)
