About MPS

History
The Waterville Poets Club and the Dover-Foxcroft Poetry Circle joined in 1936 to form the Poetry Fellowship of Maine. In 1993, the name was changed to Maine Poets Society to reflect the organization's changing emphasis on a statewide network of writers sharing their work.

Affiliation

The society is affiliated with the National Federation of State Poetry Societies (NFSPS). Maine Poets Society membership fee includes NFSPS membership and allows our members the opportunity to participate in a variety of contests and events each year. For more information, visit NFSPS online at www.nfsps.com.



Who's Who at MPS

Board Members


President’s Message

I am writing this in mid-February, about to take off to the UK for a month. My UK friends are telling me about crocuses and spring flowers, and I am telling them about the snow still on my lawn. However, I am reminded how lucky I am that we will be having crocuses of our own when I return in mid-March, and that I am exceedingly lucky in having two springs in one year.

So many images revolve around spring, and they are different from place to place. In the UK, my image of spring involves bluebells, which I have never seen here in Maine, and also lambs, which I rarely see. Spring is a different creature here in Maine, and the image I have of it here involves Maine Maple Sunday, drinking hot chocolate and wading through mud on our way to cram into a farm shop and buy a gallon of maple syrup (that would be far too expensive to buy in the UK). But crocuses are something both countries have in common, albeit with that time lag. Perhaps you can think of your own images and send them to our members-only contest for imagistic poems?

We are lucky to have the wonderful Cynthia Brackett-Vincent as not only our judge for the contest but also willing to run a workshop about haiku for us. As treasurer of the National Haiku Society, I’m sure she has plenty of interesting thoughts to share with us and I am looking forward to being there.

As a reminder, this will be our first attempt at a hybrid meeting – both in person and on Zoom at the same time. Durham Friends Meeting House has the OWL system we would like to buy already installed, so we are trying theirs out before we invest your membership money in our own. We have had a very positive response to all our Zoom meetings, and it is clear that the availability of Zoom enables people to attend who live at too much of a distance to make the journey for a day. However, many of us also like the camaraderie and interaction of meeting in person, so we live in hopes that this will be a successful experiment, and I hope as many of you as possible will feel able to attend.

As will be mentioned elsewhere in this newsletter, we will need to know how many people are likely to attend in order to manage catering (and we welcome Diane Hunt to the board as our new hospitality chair now that Darlene Glover has moved to warmer climes nearer her daughter). Please give some thought to what you would like to do and email me or Gus Peterson to let us know nearer the time.

Warm spring wishes to all Maine poets.

Jenny
 © Maine Poets Society.