Summer Festival: Gathering Voices

Saturday August 8, 2026

~ a day of festive celebration for poets, poetry lovers, friends and family

at the Highland Center for the Arts, Greensboro, Vermont

Schedule:

All Day: Paper Making and Print Station using a roller-press and letterpress with Revolutionary Press; engage in a community poem and poetry games with The Paper Poet; mingle with poets from all over Vermont; shop the onsite poetry book table and take home fair-trade essentials from JustFood. 

Morning Program:

10:00 Opening

10:15-11:00 Voices from the Concrete Jungle: Free Verse Behind Bars

Poetry from incarcerated Vermonters.

11:10-11:40 Voices of New England: Uplifting Poets Across the Region

Dave Miller of the NEPC and readings by regional poets.

11:45-12:30 Voices of Vermont Open Mic

Poets from around Vermont share their work. [ link to reading list]

Lunch:

12:30-1:20 Voices in Song: Poetry in Music by O’hAnleigh

O’hAnleigh presents poetry in music to liven your lunch hour. 

*Register here: https://highlandartsvt.ludus.com/select.php?time_id=333321  for your lunch ticket in advance; a limited number of meals will be available for on-site purchase. The Kitchen at HCA will be open serving a truly fabulous lunch, including vegan and GF items. Please note that there are few other food options in Greensboro. Willey’s Store is a mile from the Highland Center for the Arts, they have some premade sandwiches and grocery items, but no cafe.

Afternoon Program:

1:30-2:00 Emerging Voices: Youth Poets Laureate

Readings by Vermont Youth Poet Laureates Marcus Burns (2026) and Emma Paris (2025) and the 2025-2026 Connecticut Youth Poet Laureate Anna Capelle

2:00-3:15 FEATURED PRESENTERS: Ndakiitôgwzinna: The Voice of Our Land

Joseph Bruchac and Jesse Bruchac share indigenous music with drum and flutes, storytelling and their own poetry in Abenaki and English.

3:15-4:15 Voices of Vermont Open Mic

Poets from around Vermont share their work. [link to reading list]

Summer Festival Partners:

Voices at Play: The Paper Poet ~ Bianca Amira Zanella (she/they) is a queer Rutland-based performance poet, multidisciplinary artist, and poetic medicine healer. Zanella serves the community using poetry as a path to wholeness as The Paper Poet, designing experiences to decrease hardship while increasing heartship. Her poems have appeared in Love is for All of Us, PoemCity Anthology, Writing by Heart, The Artful Mind, The Mountain Troubadour, and others. She received the Corrine Eastman Davis Memorial Award and Arthur Wallace Peach Memorial Award, and is a PSOV President emeritus. Zanella’s experimental poem-films, interactive sculptural poems, and poem-paintings have been on exhibit at SPACE Gallery, Merwin Gallery, Stone Valley Arts, and more.Join The Paper Poet at the PSOV 2026 Summer Festival to gather our voices in a community poem and engage in poetry prompts and games.

Voice in Print: Revolutionary Press ~ Try your hand at a roller-press and a small letterpress to make your own souvenir from the PSOV 2026 Summer Poetry Festival: Gathering Voices! Using handmade paper that includes bits of poems from past editions of the Mountain Troubadour, experience how  art and poetry moves from voice to print. John Vincent founded the nonprofit Revolutionary Press, a 501c3 nonprofit and volunteer-run collective of artists in service to the Common Good in New Haven, Vermont,“to print & disseminate Radical & Revolutionary ideals to impel the People to Creatively Act on their Right and their Duty to alter or abolish the Present Form of Government and institute a New and more Humane Form of Self Governance.

Under the guidance of Revolutionary Press’s John Vincent, we will set up a paper making station with a vat of pulped PSOV ephemera for people to hand screen a sheet of wet pulp that when dried will become paper with random letters and words embedded within and on the surface! This several thousand year old method uses only water, recycled paper, cotton rag, a mould and deckle. With minimum instruction and effort a beautiful sheet of wet pulp will be placed on felts to be pressed and dried. The resulting paper will be available for PSOV to use for future poetry, writing, and art-making projects.

https://www.artonmainvt.com/john-vincent

JustFoodHub ~ Our partner JustFoodHub works to support food justice while raising funds for community organizations. Your purchase of their offerings of organic and authentically fairly-traded food from EqualExchange grown by Black and Brown small farmer worker cooperatives in the Global South and Palestine, and small organic farms in the United States, not only helps small organic farmers around the world, but all profits of sales at the Summer Festival will support the Poetry Society of Vermont, helping us bring you more engaging poetry events! https://justfoodhub.us/

Summer Festival Presenters:

Voices from the Concrete Jungle: Free Verse Behind Bars ~

Anna Jennings, Heather Newcomb and John Vincent support incarcerated Vermonters to find their own voices through art and poetry. Joined by poet Kalanni Gagne, they’ll read poems written in weekly poetry workshops in Vermont prisons and share how poetry can carry the light of hope into the darkest times and places.  Anna N. Jennings is a poet, book artist and lavender grower in southern Vermont, where she volunteers leading a weekly poetry group at a state correctional facility. Her poetry has been published in literary journals including the Mountain Troubadour and Circle of Salt. https://www.annanjennings.com/

John Vincent is a retired police officer, poet, letterpress printer, and director of  A Revolutionary Press and co-curator of Finding Hope Within: Healing and Transformation Through the Making of Art Within the Carceral System, a travelling art exhibition in Vermont for 2023-2027.  

Heather Newcomb is a longtime champion for systems change. Through her work with local nonprofits, Heather has worked with at risk youth, economically challenged families, and incarcerated women. She’s passionate about community activism and prison abolition. As a co-curator of Finding Hope Within, she is driven to share the humanity of the incarcerated population and expand awareness in the community about the systemic barriers that challenge our returning citizens being successful after release.

Kalanni Gagne (she/her) is a brave advocate and poet who shares her journey of transformation from fighting addiction and incarceration to using her lived experience to speak out, uplift others, and fight for dignity, equality, and systemic change for all people. Kalanni has testified before Committees of the Vermont House and Senate, and she recently presented her “Giving Others a Voice” project at the Fletcher Free Library. Writing poetry is her way of expressing and processing her traumas.

Voices of New England: Uplifting Poets Across the Region ~

David Miller, a Vermont transplant to the Boston area, will reveal how the venerable New England Poetry Club is transforming to support and showcase the beautifully diverse blossoming of poetic voices across our region. [NOTE: readers TBD]

David P. Miller’s Bend in the Stair was published by Lily Poetry Review Books in 2021. Sprawled Asleep was published by Nixes Mate Books in 2019. He is a member of the New England Poetry Club’s Board of Directors, and co-directs the Jamaica Pond Poets’ Chapter and Verse reading series.

Voices in Song: O’hAnleigh Presents Poetry in Music ~

Drawing from the rich Irish literary well, O’hAnleigh presents songs of poems from Ireland, England, America, and their original works. O’hAnleigh has been playing the music of Irish-America for over 20 years. Touring in New England and Old England, Tom Hanley, Becca Hanley and Cindy Hill have produced 5 full-length CDs, released many singles, won a number of songwriting awards, and are featured on folk music radio programs all over the world.  https://ohanleigh.com/

Emerging Voices: Youth Poet Laureates ~

In our youth lies the future of poetry – and the future of our humanity and our planet. With optimism and lyrical artistry, poets Marcus Burns, Emma Paris and Anna Capelle give us a glowing glimpse of what that future might hold. 

Marcus Burns is the 2026 Vermont Youth Poet Laureate, a recent St. Johnsbury Academy graduate, he will be attending Brown University in the fall where he hopes to study linguistics.

Anna Capelle is the 2025-2026 Connecticut Youth Poet Laureate and a UVM Student majoring in English and minoring in Writing and Community and International Development. She has a poetry book in the works. Instagram: @aecapelle

Emma Paris is the 2025 Vermont Youth Poet Laureate and a student at Bennington College. Instagram: @vt_youth_poet_laureate_2025

Ndakiitôgwzinna: The Voice of Our Land ~

Joseph Bruchac and his son Jesse Bruchac share indigenous music with drum and flutes, language, and storytelling mixed in with their own poetry. 

An enrolled member of the Nulhegan Abenaki nation, Joseph Bruchac has authored more than 180 books. Over the past 60 years, his poems have appeared in more than 1,000 magazines and anthologies and been translated into 20 languages. His experiences include teaching in Ghana, directing a college program in a maximum security prison and serving as Poet-in-Residence at the Little Rock Zoo.  In 2023 he was named the first Poet Laureate of his hometown of Saratoga Springs, NY. and awarded a Poet Laureate Fellowship by the Academy of American Poets. His recent books of poetry include REZ DOGS, a middle grade novel in verse, and VOICES OF THE PEOPLE, biographical poems about notable indigenous figures paired with illustrations by contemporary Native artists. Website: joebruchac.com

Jesse Bowman Bruchac is a writer, language teacher, and cultural educator based in the Adirondack region of New York. He serves as Director of the Middlebury School of Abenaki. His work focuses on Abenaki language revitalization and the ongoing reconstruction of Powhatan Algonquian, drawing on archival materials, historical linguistics, and oral tradition in collaboration with scholars and community partners. He has worked in film as a dialogue coach and language consultant for productions with PBS, National Geographic, the Discovery Channel, and AMC, and is also a musician and storyteller whose performances bridge traditional and contemporary forms. Across his work, he explores how language, story, and the arts sustain knowledge within living communities. Website: jbruchac.com

Summer Festival Sponsors:

Highland Center for the Arts

Highland Center for the Arts is a community arts center based on the belief that the arts inspire joy, contemplation and conversation. Through distinctive performances, exhibitions, and events, the Highland Center for the Arts offers a home for artistic expression, shared experience, and a sense of belonging. The Poetry Society of Vermont expresses its deepest gratitude for our partnership with Highland Center for the Arts and the opportunity to hear the voices of poetry in this extraordinary venue.

Vermont Humanities 

This program is supported in part by the Vermont Humanities, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. 

Friends of the Poetry Society of Vermont

Our heartfelt gratitude to Friends of PSOV, our donors, and volunteers who make the 2026 Summer Poetry Festival: Gathering Voices, and all our programs and workshops, possible.  

Media Release Notice.