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President
Bianca Amira Zanella (she/they), PSOV president, is a cis queer Vermont-based performance poet, artist, and advocate living on traditionally Abenaki land (Rutland, VT). She is the Poet-in-Residence at Phoenix Books Rutland, hosting an international monthly open mic. Her poems have most recently appeared in The Artful Mind, The Rutland Herald, The Mountain Troubadour, and The Reverie. Their poem films, sculptural poems, and poem paintings have also been on exhibit with PoemCity Montpelier, Merwin Gallery, Stone Valley Arts, SPACE: a Pop Up Art Gallery, and Surdam Gallery. Collaborating with visual artists to write ekphrastic pieces brings her much joy and playing with the visual interpretations of poetry is always an act of revelation.
They received the 2018 Corrine Eastman Davis Memorial Award for their poem, "A prayer –before the soup– for the suicidal son". In 2019, Bianca acted as Wellness Coordinator for the Feminine Empowerment Movement Slam (FEMS) tournament based in Cambridge, MA, and founded "Infinite Lit: a night of spoken word poetry," co-producing the series alongside Moth storyteller Michael Kingsbury.
In 2020, Bianca founded The Paper Poet, offering healing poetic experiences to anyone experiencing suffering and continues to perform around the United States and globally, including reading for the American Club of Brussels and competing at the Women of the World Poetry Slam in Dallas, TX. She attended the inaugural Ruth Stone House 2021 Next Galaxy Poetry Retreat, and as of 2022, Bianca will serve as the President of the Poetry Society of Vermont. Having grown up in southern New Hampshire and moving to Vermont in 2011 to attend Green Mountain College where she first learned about and joined PSOV as a student, Bianca wishes to uplift her community via poetry and is excited to connect with established and new poets across her now-home state.
They received the 2018 Corrine Eastman Davis Memorial Award for their poem, "A prayer –before the soup– for the suicidal son". In 2019, Bianca acted as Wellness Coordinator for the Feminine Empowerment Movement Slam (FEMS) tournament based in Cambridge, MA, and founded "Infinite Lit: a night of spoken word poetry," co-producing the series alongside Moth storyteller Michael Kingsbury.
In 2020, Bianca founded The Paper Poet, offering healing poetic experiences to anyone experiencing suffering and continues to perform around the United States and globally, including reading for the American Club of Brussels and competing at the Women of the World Poetry Slam in Dallas, TX. She attended the inaugural Ruth Stone House 2021 Next Galaxy Poetry Retreat, and as of 2022, Bianca will serve as the President of the Poetry Society of Vermont. Having grown up in southern New Hampshire and moving to Vermont in 2011 to attend Green Mountain College where she first learned about and joined PSOV as a student, Bianca wishes to uplift her community via poetry and is excited to connect with established and new poets across her now-home state.