Each year in April, the Kellogg-Hubbard Library in Montpelier, Vt., publishes an anthology to celebrate the work of Vermont poets and holds several events for its “PoemCity” celebration of National Poetry Month. This year’s PoemCity events highlighted the poetic voices of farmers, members of the LGBTQIA+ community and Julie Pellissier-Lush, an Indigenous Mi’kmaq poet. The book, published on April 6, 2025, includes work from elementary and middle school students as well as adults.
Putney, Vt., poet Megan Buchanan, whose work is featured, emphasized the “creative community” the book fosters.
“I think of the PoemCity anthologies as a snapshot of what’s happening in poetry in Vermont year to year, like a poetry almanac,” Buchanan said. “Many significant connections happen through PoemCity itself — collaborations, new projects, friendship — so I am grateful for the organizers who do the hard work to bring this event to fruition each year. Maybe now more than ever we need creative community. These exponential ripples matter.”
PoemCity Anthology 2025 opens with an introduction by Bianca Stone, the Vermont Poet Laureate. She emphasizes community and connection during the current cultural and political moment in the United States.
“This is a time in our world when both introspection and communication are crucial to the survival of our democracy, our culture, our planet,” Stone writes in the book. “2025 is a year of great uncertainty, a precariousness unlike we’ve ever known, and poetry helps give voice to [us] in that instability.”
Stone praised PoemCity for making poetry more accessible for everyone.
“This anthology highlights collective conversation, which is not just for the few who study poetry professionally,” she wrote. “Every kind of person who engages with poetic form is displayed: all ages, backgrounds, experiences.”
By weaving together Vermonters’ personal stories and reflections, the anthology’s first section offers a window into each poet’s lived experience. Many of the poets draw on nature and Vermont’s landscape to tell their stories. Poet Dave Cavanagh, who lives in Burlington, said in an interview with The Dartmouth that he was inspired by the nature outside his house to write “Cardinal Love.”
“As the first lines of the poem suggest, a male and female cardinal were at the feeder outside my wife’s [and my] home,” Cavanagh said. “They seemed very comfortable with each other. My wife is from Kentucky. I’m from Montreal. We met more or less by chance at a college in Ontario many years ago. Thinking about that and the two birds, I started writing about our lives, about our love and about how lucky and natural our shared flight path has been.”
Buchanan told The Dartmouth that her train ride through Ireland inspired her poem “Ireland by Train (Dublin to Wexford).” She recalled how during the ride, she saw all sorts of living creatures and elements of nature: “dogs, birds, flowers, trees, hawks, waves, people living their lives, all of it so beautiful.”
“My poem ‘Ireland by Train’ shows the reader how my mind works,” Buchanan said. “I wrote it from the train, along a specific stretch heading south along the east coast. I can picture the route right now. The speed of trains has always been perfect for my poetry-brain. The poems just start rolling in me as soon as the train does, I’m not sure why.”
The second section of the collection features student poets from elementary and middle schools in Calais, Montpelier and Middlesex. They were also inspired by animals, the seasons and Vermont’s nature. In Montpelier, Chrissy Keegan’s sixth grade class found common ground with the theme “The Animal in Me,” inspiring them to reflect on their own personalities in relation to animals.
Samantha Jackson’s third and fourth grade classes in Calais wrote about animals and sports. A couple of students in Kiki Adams’ fifth grade class in Montpelier wrote about the sun and the moon. In the eponymous “Patches,” one student describes a relatable love for his pet cat.
Debbie Goodwin’s sixth grade class included many poems about the seasons and the sky at different points of the day. Two students wrote about some of their favorite foods, “Pizza” and “Wild strawberries.” In “Coronavirus,” another reflects on the pandemic.
Further celebrating artistic expression in Vermont, the cover of the anthology features visual art by a Vermonter. This year, the work features a black swirl with yellow flecks against a white background. Titled “Eclipse Ensō #2,” it was created by Monica DiGiovanni with ink and pigment on watercolor.
Cavanagh explained how the collection “brings together” voices that reveal poetry’s power to “connect and inspire.”
“Poets usually write in solitude,” he said. “The anthology shows that we are not alone. That’s especially important in our time.”
