The PSOV Archives are housed in a collection at the Vermont History Center in Barre, Vermont. The collection contains the complete records of the Poetry Society of Vermont, a statewide organization that promotes public awareness of poetry. The collection was given to the Vermont Historical Society in December 2005 by the creating organization (ms. acc. no. 2005.10). For more information, contact the Vermont History Center at www.vermonthistory.org and reference the following identifying information:
Poetry Society of Vermont
Records, 1947 –
Doc 548-549, 582-583, 817, MSA 405-406, 842, 864-867
History – NewsPosts
Candace Thurber Stevenson
A South Shaftsbury Poet Confronting Progress by Cindy Ellen Hill Candace Thurber was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1883, in a household of modest means; according to the Smith College library archives, which houses most of her papers, Candace’s mother supported the family by taking in boarders. Candace graduated from the Packard Collegiate Institute,…
from the Archives
How Still These Fields by Mary Newton Baldwin, First Harvest 1954 How still these fields. How quiet they lie.Beneath December’s snow. No stir at all,Immobile as a hyphen between FallAnd Spring they lie in fixed tranquility.Thus Winter links these seasons to eachIn meaning that was never theirs alone;And wintry fields give what they do not…
Sally Anne Reisner, 1947-2025
A lover of poetry and a longtime member of the Poetry Society of Vermont (PSOV), Sally Reisner passed away on August 13, 2025. Over the years Sally contributed much to our organization, attending workshops, submitting her writing to The Troubadour, and participating in poetry readings.
Of the PSOV, High School Poetry Contests, and WCAX-TV
by Carol Milkuhn As you read this article, imagine a Vermont with half its present population, a state without computers, mobile phones, internet connections, a state held together by winding roads, radio stations, and TV antenna. This was Vermont in 1957, the year that the PSOV sponsored the first of its annual poetry contests for…
Frances Frost- Vermont Poet
by George Longenecker Frances Mary Frost (1905-1959) was one of Vermont’s most talented and prolific authors, yet she is little-known today. Frost, who was not related to Robert Frost, authored six books of poetry, 17 children’s books and two novels. Born in Saint Albans, she graduated from Middlebury College and later taught at the University…
Arthur Wallace Peach
by George Longenecker Arthur Wallace Peach (1886-1956), a native of Pawlet, VT, helped found The Poetry Society of Vermont and was its first president in 1947-1948. Our oldest poetry PSOV award is named for him. While Peach never achieved the literary acclaim of Robert Frost or Dorothy Canfield Fisher, he was instrumental not only as…