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| Jennifer Militello (photo by Peter Biello) |
CONCORD, N.H., March 22, 2024 – New Hampshire’s
Executive Council has confirmed Governor Chris Sununu’s nomination of
Jennifer Militello of Goffstown, N.H., as the next New Hampshire Poet
Laureate.
Militello will serve a five-year term beginning April 2024. The
state’s Poet Laureate serves as an ambassador for all poets in New
Hampshire and works to heighten the visibility and value of poetry in
the state.
The New Hampshire Poet Laureate position includes an honorarium of
$1000 for each year of the five-year term to help the next Poet Laureate
achieve his/her/their stated mission. Funding comes from contributions
made to the Walter Butts’ New Hampshire Poet Laureate Fund, created in
memory of the recent New Hampshire Poet Laureate, and coordinated
through the Poetry Society of New Hampshire, which also contributes to
the honorarium.
Militello is an acclaimed and award-winning poet, author, and
teacher, celebrated across the United States and in the United Kingdom.
Militello has supported poetry in New Hampshire throughout her life,
including as a founding director of the New Hampshire Poetry Festival
and Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at New England
College. She is the author of five books of poetry and the memoir Knock Wood (Dzanc Books, 2019), winner of the Dzanc Nonfiction Prize. Her third book of poetry, Body Thesaurus
(Tupelo Press, 2013) was named one of the top books of 2013 by Best
American Poetry and was the runner-up for the Poetry Society of
America’s Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award. Her fourth book of poetry, A Camouflage of Specimens and Garments
(Tupelo Press, 2016) was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Award and
the Sheila Margaret Motion Prize. Militello’s poems have appeared in
numerous publications, including American Poetry Review, POETRY, The Poetry Review, and Tin House, as well as in Best American Poetry, Best New Poets.
She has been awarded the Barbara Bradley Award, and the Yeats Poetry
Prize, among others, and has had various grants and fellowships from the
New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, Writers at Work, and others.
“New Hampshire boasts one of the richest poetry traditions in the
nation, and it will be my deepest honor to celebrate and nurture that
statewide love of poetry as New Hampshire’s next Poet Laureate,” said
Militello. “A poem helps us consider our most complex emotions and
define what it means to be human. I encourage my Granite State neighbors
to reach out to me as, together, we unearth what poetry offers those of
us living in this magnificent state.”
Nominations were received from across the state and reviewed by a
committee comprised of representatives from the Poetry Society of New
Hampshire, the New Hampshire Writers’ Project, community poet laureate
programs, and other select members from the New Hampshire literary
community.
“Jennifer’s passion for poetry is evident in all she has accomplished
in both writing and teaching. Her vision for tapping into the revived
energy and enthusiasm for gathering and writing, supporting writing in
the K-12 grades, and building a network for youth and the
underrepresented, will continue to make poetry accessible, inclusive,
and relevant. We are excited for the opportunities we know Jennifer
will bring to the poetry community across New Hampshire and in the
surrounding communities,” said Melanie Chicoine, president of the Poetry
Society of New Hampshire, the organization charged with submitting a
recommendation to the Governor.
Established by the state legislature in 1967, New Hampshire’s Poet
Laureate is an honorary five-year position held by an individual who has
made outstanding contributions to the field of poetry. The impressive
list of former New Hampshire Poets Laureate includes Alexandria Peary,
Alice Fogel, Walter Butts, Patricia Fargnoli, Marie Harris, Donald Hall,
Cynthia Huntington, Jane Kenyon, and Maxine Kumin.
For more information about the New Hampshire Poet Laureate, visit the NH Poet Laureate page at psnh.org or the Art and Artists page at the NH State Council on the Arts website.
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