Plunkett Maine Poetry Festival
The 2024 Plunkett Poetry Festival will be held on Saturday, April 27th. Event details are in the works – check this page often for details as they are finalized.
Our keynote speaker will be Brian Turner.
Turner is best known for his poems about serving in the Iraqi war, and these poems resonate today given current global conflicts. His poems are empathic and intersectional, often showing multiple points of view and the ripple effects of violence on a community.
The festival is free and open to all, but reservations are encouraged for the keynote address to ensure adequate seating. Please RSVP if attending in-person. Thank you!
Student Poetry Contest
Submit your work to our Student Poetry Contest! The contest is for Maine high school students and University of Maine system undergraduate students only.
The deadline for submission was March 1, 2024.
Plunkett 2024 Festival Program
This is a tentative schedule. Check this page often for details as they are finalized.
Book Fair
Details TBD
Concurrent Workshops
1:00 – 2:30 pm
Jewett Hall, UMA Augusta Campus
Registration required. Each session is limited to 16 participants.
Panel Discussion on Publishing
2:45 – 3:45 pm
Farber Forum, Jewett Hall, UMA Augusta Campus
Live Stream TBD
- Steve Luttrell of Café Review: International Journal of Art and Poetry
Café Review is a quarterly publication, dedicated to bringing the art and poetry of the world to Maine and the art and Poetry of Maine to the world for the past 35 years. The journal rose from the cafes of Portland, where some of the poets organized to put local open readings into print. Overtime, the monthly edition became quarterly, and visual art became an integral part of the review. Submissions from around the country and beyond. The journal continues to be created by an all-volunteer staff committed to the muse. - Maya Stein of Kerning Journal and Toad Hall Edition
Toad Hall Editions is a small press located in mid-coast Maine and launched in March 2021. We are a small team: Amy Tingle (Creative Director), Liz Kalloch (Design Director), and Maya Stein (Editorial Director). We offer an alternative publishing platform to those whose work lives in the liminal spaces and who struggle to find themselves represented in the more traditional publishing arenas. We publish the work of women and gender-diverse writers—progressive, LGBTQIA+, minority, or otherwise still-too-often unheard voices. We look for authentic and inspiring writers, poets, and artists, both new and established, whose work we will help to refine, publish, and promote. kerning | a space for words is our biannual journal, featuring poems, short fiction, personal essays, and creative nonfiction centered on a new theme for each issue. For more information about our work and upcoming calls for submission, visit www.toadhalleditions.ink - Agnes Bushell of Littoral Books
Littoral Books is an independent literary press based in Portland, Maine, dedicated to publishing beautiful books by writers and artists from Maine and New England. Originally founded in 1975, it was one of the founding presses of the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. Since 2018, the press has published four or five books a year, including novels and works of non-fiction, books of short stories and poetry, and nine volumes in our Contemporary Maine Poetry Series, one of which, Enough! Poems of Resistance and Protest was the recipient of the 2021 Maine Literary Award for Anthologies.
Littoral Books is proud to be a Maine press, and to play an active role in Maine’s literary community through their monthly virtual program, Littorally Alive! and by holding live readings and other events, such as the Portland Poetry Festival which we initiated in 2023. Their goal as publishers is to create books which reflect the richness and diversity of our state and offer readers the dual pleasures of insightful writing and beautiful design. - Alice Persons of Moon Pie Press
Moon Pie Press is a small, independent poetry press based in Westbrook, Maine that started in 2003 publishing quality chapbooks and then moved to bound full collections in 2008. We have published 127 books by poets from Maine and all over the country. These books include ten anthologies, such as Agreeable Friends, Contemporary Animal Poetry (2008, to support the SPCA in Windham, ME), Passion and Pride: Poets in Support of Equality (2012). Several of our books and anthologies have been used as textbooks for high school and college courses.
Our mission is to publish a variety of quality poetry books with attractive designs, and to keep prices reasonable. The press and its poets have participated in many literary events and won many awards over the past twenty years. The press has a monthly blog and is active on Facebook and Instagram.
Readings and Open Mic
4:00 – 4:30 pm
Danforth Gallery, Jewett Hall, UMA Augusta Campus
Light refreshments will be provided.
Keynote Event
4:30 – 6:00 pm
Farber Forum, Jewett Hall, UMA Augusta Campus
Live Stream TBD
- UMA Jazz Students
- Welcome by President Cushman
- Student Poets Introduced by John McLaughlin
- Keynote Presentation
- Q & A
Reception
6:00 – 7:00 pm
Danforth Gallery, Jewett Hall, UMA Augusta Campus
Hors D’oeuvres will be provided.
About the Plunkett Poetry Festival
The Plunkett Maine Poetry Festival, held in April each year, 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 thirty years. An outstanding teacher and mentor to many students, Terry was also 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 Terry’s encouragement and guidance.
A poet and fiction writer as well as a teacher and editor, Terry 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.
His son, Duff Plunkett, also a poet, was a champion of the arts in general and the Plunkett Festival in particular. He sat on the organizing committee for 17 years, where he brought his signature wit, creativity, and ingenuity to the festival program. In Portland, Duff was a mainstay at readings and a supporter of both developing and celebrated poets. He worked as an international economist, traveling extensively around the globe, especially in Africa. Fluent in at least eight different languages, Duff’s cultural breadth was extensive.
To honor the memory of both Terry and Duff, the festival has been renamed the Plunkett Poetry Festival.