Plunkett Maine Poetry Festival
Join us for the 24th annual Plunkett Poetry Festival on Saturday, April 25, 2026
Featuring keynote speaker Claudia Rankine
New York Times Bestselling Poet
MacArthur “Genius” Award Recipient
NBCCA Winner for Criticism
This page will be updated with 2026 Plunkett Poetry Festival info as it becomes available.
Plunkett 2026 Festival Workshops
We will have three workshops from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on April 25, 2026. If you are interested in attending any of these workshops, please sign up below. Spots are limited!
Joseph Jackson
Joseph Jackson is a poet and spoken word artist, and an advocate for prisoners’ rights and community empowerment in Maine. As the director of the Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition and co-director of Maine Inside Out, he works with marginalized communities to address the effects of social inequities.
Jackson resided nineteen years in the Maine Department of Corrections. During that time, he committed himself to education and personal growth, earning a bachelor’s degree summa cum laude. He also became the first person in Maine to be selected for the Stonecoast graduate program while still incarcerated, later completing his master’s degree.
His work in the arts is an important part of his advocacy. His poetry has appeared in several journals and has been featured at community events across the state. His master’s thesis, Black In Maine, was released in 2016 and reflects his ongoing commitment to social justice and creative expression.
Samaa Abdurraqib (she/her)
Samaa Abdurraqib is an auntie and a birder based in Wabanaki Territory. Recently, her poetry can be found in Cider Press Review, december magazine, and Obsidian: Literature and Arts in the African Diaspora. She’s the editor of From Root to Seed: Black, Brown, and Indigenous Poets Write the Northeast (2023). Her chapbook, Towards a Retreat was published by Diode Editions in August 2025. Samaa is a certified Maine Master Naturalist and is the Executive Director of Maine Humanities Council.
Jeffrey Thomson
Jeffrey Thomson is a poet, memoirist, translator, and editor, and the author of ten books, including Museum of Objects Burned by the Souls in Purgatory, Half/Life: New and Selected Poems, The Belfast Notebooks, The Complete Poems of Catullus, and Birdwatching in Wartime. He has been an NEA Fellow, the Fulbright Distinguished Scholar in Creative Writing at the Seamus Heaney Poetry Centre at Queen’s University Belfast, and the Hodson Trust-John Carter Brown Fellow at Brown University. He is currently professor of creative writing at the University of Maine Farmington.
2026 Student Poetry Contest – Deadline Extended
Submit your work to the student poetry contest! The contest is for Maine high school students and Maine college and university undergraduate students.
When you submit, please be sure to follow these guidelines:
- Contestants may submit up to 3 pieces of original work.
- Please submit a SEPARATE entry for each piece of work.
- Each poem may have a maximum of 52 lines.
- Submissions must be blind (please make sure your name is not present in the submitted poem document).
- Prior Plunkett Poetry Contest winners are not eligible to participate.
- Poems of all themes and styles are welcome.
The deadline for submission has been extended to March 15, 2026.
Plunkett 2026 Festival Program
Refreshments provided throughout the day
Poetry Workshops | 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM
Jewett Hall Classrooms
Bag Lunch Provided
Joe Jackson | Jeffrey Thomson | Samaa Abdurraquib
Free and open to all until filled
Two Poets / One Poem | 1:15 – 2:30 PM
Farber Forum, Jewett Hall
A conversation about poetry and writing with Danez Smith and Ian-Khara Ellasante
Introduced by Arisa White
Open Mic | 2:45 – 3:45 PM
Danforth Gallery, Jewett Hall
Evening Program | 4:00 PM
Farber Forum, Jewett Hall
This event will also be livestreamed for those who cannot attend in-person. The livestream link will be posted here closer to the event date.
Welcome | Dr. Ellen Taylor, Professor of English
Opening Remarks | Dr. Jen Cushman, UMA President
Plunkett Poetry Contest Winners
Maine High School Poets | TBA
Maine University and College Poets | TBA
Keynote Introduction | Maine Poet Laureate, Julia Bouwsma
Keynote Reading | Claudia Rankine
Reception | Following Keynote Address
Danforth Gallery
Reception with music, refreshments and book signing.
Music by Duane Edwards Duo.
Thank you to hello, hello books of Rockland, ME, and our UMA sponsors, the CEC.
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.
Discover past Keynote Poets
Our Keynote Speaker was Natalie Diaz
Diaz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning Mojave poet, language activist, and educator.
2025 Poetry Contest Winners and Keynote Speaker
2025 Two Poets / One Poem
Our Keynote Speaker was 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.
Student Poetry Contest Winners
High School Division
- 1st Place: “The Literacy Test in the Eyes of a Black Citizen” by Amaya Moore
- 2nd Place: “A Blue and Gray Genesis” by Nolan Buck
- 3rd Place: “Being a Five-Year-Old” by Miles Sims
University of Maine System Division
- 1st Place: “Forest Fire” by Finlee Lebouef
- 2nd Place: “Packing Day” by Natalie Hanagan
- 3rd Place: “Observations of an Out-Of-Stater” by Dani Faltraco
Our keynote speaker was Molly McCully Brown.
Brown is the author of the essay collection Places I’ve Taken my Body— which was published in the United States in June 2020 by Persea Books, and released in the United Kingdom in March of 2021 by Faber & Faber— and the poetry collection The Virginia State Colony For Epileptics and Feebleminded (Persea Books, 2017), which won the 2016 Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize and was named a New York Times Critics’ Top Book of 2017. With Susannah Nevison, she is also the coauthor of the poetry collection In The Field Between Us (Persea Books, 2020).
Brown’s poems and essays have appeared in The Paris Review, Tin House, The Guardian, Vogue, The New York Times, The Yale Review, and elsewhere. She currently teaches at Old Dominion University. Visit Brown’s website for more information.
Student Poetry Contest Winners
HS 1: Coach on My Left Sleeve, by Clara Eve Landry
HS 2: Hit, by Ali McArdle
HS 3: No Lox, by Daniel Buswell
UMS 1: Southern Ohio, Specifically, by Vincent Herrington
UMS 2: Magnetic Resonance, by Chantelle Flores
UMS 3: Genesis, by Paige McHatten
Keynote Speaker Reginald Dwayne Betts
The 20th Annual Plunkett Maine Poetry Festival featured Reginald Dwayne Betts, poet, essayist, and activist as its keynote poet in person at the Fireside Lounge in the Randall Student Center. The participation of Betts, as well as other festival programming, connected the Plunkett Poetry Festival to UMA’s 2021-22 academic theme: Race and Social Justice.
Betts’ most recent work is largely concerned with effects of incarceration, including homelessness, drug abuse, domestic violence, as well as fatherhood and the possibilities of grace and love. As a man who experienced the criminal justice system as a teenager and transformed his life upon his release, Betts does more than write exemplary verse, he has lived a life that speaks to redemption, attending law school and working in public defense and advocacy.
Providing the keynote for the event was Maine’s former poet laureate (2000 – 2006), Baron Wormser. Wormser is the author of nine collections of poetry, as well as two texts on pedagogy, a memoir, and two collections of essays. He is an avid defender of poetry, peace, and the power of language to make collective change. Wormser will speak on UMA’s academic theme of Outbreak, as well as read some of his work.
2021 Plunkett Poetry Festival
While we were saddened to have canceled the 2020 Plunkett Maine Poetry Festival due to the COVID-19 pandemic response, we are pleased to highlight the work of emergent poets from Maine’s high schools and universities. Below are the winning poets from the 18th annual poetry contest. Thank you to all who participated, and congratulations to the winners. Keep writing, all!
Poetry Contest
Undergraduate Contest Winners
- 1st Place – “Helen’s Garden” by Alyson Peabody University of Southern Maine
- 2nd Place – “Mood Indigo: Homage to Duke Ellington”
- 3rd Place – “A Childhood, Pre Solstice” by Grace Sleeman University of Southern Maine
High School Contest Winners
- 1st Place – “David, the statue” by Myah Garrison Maine Coast Waldorf High School
- 2nd Place – “Arpilleras ~The Quilters of Chile~” By Aniela Holtrop Maine Coast Waldorf High School
- 3rd Place – “Arcane Arcade” by Miles Winslow Maine Coast Waldorf High School
Our keynote poet was Martin Espada.
Martin Espada has published almost twenty books as a poet, editor, essayist and translator. His latest collection of poems from Norton is called Vivas to Those Who Have Failed (2016). Other books of poems include The Trouble Ball (2011), The Republic of Poetry (2006), Alabanza (2003), A Mayan Astronomer in Hell’s Kitchen (2000), Imagine the Angels of Bread (1996), City of Coughing and Dead Radiators (1993) and Rebellion is the Circle of a Lover’s Hands (1990).
His many honors include the 2018 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Shelley Memorial Award, the Robert Creeley Award, the National Hispanic Cultural Center Literary Award, an American Book Award, the PEN/Revson Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. The Republic of Poetry was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. The title poem of his collection Alabanza, about 9/11, has been widely anthologized and performed. His book of essays, Zapata’s Disciple (1998), was banned in Tucson as part of the Mexican-American Studies Program outlawed by the state of Arizona, and has been issued in a new edition by Northwestern University Press. A former tenant lawyer in Greater Boston’s Latino community, Espada is a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
Our keynote poet was Sharon Olds.
Ms. Olds’ indelible mark on American poetry began in the 1970s, and she continues to impress readers and audiences. Considered to be on of America’s greatest living poets, Olds has spent decades writing her truth: about love and sex, childbirth and death, social consciousness and the limits of self-knowledge. Winner of the 2016 Academy of American Poets’ Wallace Stevens Award, she was praised as an “American Mater, and a national treasure.”
Sharon Olds at UMA
Photos
Plunkett Maine Poetry Festival 2018
On April 21st, 2017 poet Naomi Shihab Nye was our keynote poet for our 15th annual Plunket Maine Poetry Festival. An internationally renowned writer, Naomi has over thirty publications that blend her life experiences and heritage as a Palestinian American, in poetry, fiction, and children’s literature. Poet Ibtisam Barakat has written, “Naomi’s incandescent humanity and voice can change the world, or someone’s world.”
Naomi Shihab Nye describes herself as a “wandering poet.” She has spent 40 years traveling the country and the world to lead writing workshops and inspiring students of all ages. Her experiences traveling in Asia, Europe, Canada, Mexico, and the Middle East, inform her work and her life, and she uses her writing to attest to our shared humanity.
Ms. Nye read from her work, answered audience questions, and signed hundreds of books.
Naomi Shihab Nye at UMA Part 1
Naomi Shihab Nye at UMA Part 2 »
Naomi Shihab Nye at UMA Part 3 »
Naomi Shihab Nye at UMA Part 4 »
- Plunkett Maine Poetry Festival 2017
The Plunkett Maine Poetry Festival hosted Richard Blanco, on Saturday, April 9, 2016, at UMA. Blanco rose to fame after his inaugural poem for President Obama, “One Today,” went viral. He has since published two volumes of poetry and a memoir, The Prince of Los Cocuyos. As a Cuban-American, Blanco has become a spokesperson for immigration, as well as LGBT rights. Blanco read from his poetry and shared family photos to accompany his verse.
Richard Blanco at UMA Part 1
Richard Blanco at UMA Part 2 »
Richard Blanco at UMA Part 3 »
- Plunkett Maine Poetry Festival 2016
