PoemTown St. Johnsbury 2026
PoemTown St. Johnsbury, now in its 11th year, is an annual celebration of National Poetry Month in April. The program is a collaboration between Catamount Arts, Discover St. Johnsbury, and the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum.
Featured All Month Long:
- PoemTown Downtown: PoemTown St. Johnsbury poems are posted in business windows throughout downtown St. Johnsbury.
- Voices of the Earth Poetry Station: Stop by the Athenaeum all month long to craft original poems using climate change news as your creative source material. Explore blackout poetry, erasure, cut-up methods, and other found-text techniques to transform journalism into art.
Scheduled Events
Stonechat: Poetry Reading with Mary Jacobsen
Saturday, April 3, 3:00pm–4:00pm (Athenaeum Art Gallery)
Join us in the Athenaeum Art Gallery for an afternoon poetry reading by Mary Elder Jacobsen, who will be sharing selections from her debut collection of poetry, Stonechat (Rootstock 2024), along with, aptly!, a few new art-inspired poems. Mary Elder Jacobsen lives, writes, and plays in Calais, Vermont. Her work has appeared widely in print, online, and on the air.
Poetry Potluck featuring Jessie Rothwell
Wednesday, April 8, 7:00pm–9:00pm (Wandering Vine, 378 Railroad Street)
Join local poets and poetry enthusiasts for a special National Poetry Month edition of Poetry Potluck! Writers and readers of all ages and levels of experience are invited to bring a poem or two they have written or that they love that were written by someone else, plus food to share if they like. Special guest, Catamount Arts 560 Railroad Community Artist Jessie Rothwell, will share her work. Free admission.
Blackout Poetry for Kids (Grades 5-8)
Friday, April 10, 1:00pm–3:00pm (Catamount Arts Center)
A creative workshop for kids in grades 5-8 with Abby Maier Johnson.
PoemTown St. Johnsbury Poetry Reading
Saturday, April 11, 4:00pm (St. Johnsbury Athenaeum, 1171 Main Street)
Poets who are participating in this year’s PoemTown St. Johnsbury celebration will read their poems at the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum. Twelve poets from the more than 100 who submitted poems will be selected to share their poems, as will Catamount Arts’ 560 Railroad Community Artist Jessie Rothwell. Many of the poems read will address the 2026 PoemTown theme, “Voices.” The event is free of charge and open to all ages, and all are invited to stay for a reception and poet meet and greet.
Pancake Poetry at Kingdom Maple Festival
Saturday, April 18, 11:00am–1:00pm
Catamount Arts’ 560 Railroad Community Artist Jessie Rothwell of Takoma Park, Maryland will lead Pancake Poetry at the festival, inviting people of all ages to imagine out-of-this-world pancake toppings and use the menu items to create short poems.
“The Country in the Mirror” Book Launch
Saturday, April 25, 4:00pm (Masonic Hall at Catamount Arts Center, 115 Eastern Avenue)
Hosted by Tunnel Books at Catamount Arts, this event celebrates the launch of The Country in the Mirror: Poems of Protest and Witness, an anthology newly published by Rootstock Publishing. The event features music by Whistlepig Riot. Included poets will read their work at the Arts Center until 5:45pm, then will continue reading at 6:00pm at Wandering Vine on Railroad Street. Featured poets include Chard deNiord, Beth Kanell, Judith Janoo, Tim Mayo, Jean-Blaise Bourque, Samantha Kolber, Katie Moritz, Steve Minkin, Ron Lay-Sleeper, Arlene Iris Distler, Amanda Harris, Sandy Edmonds, Sean Prentiss, Katherine Quimby, Tom Schmidt, Eva Zimet, Kelly Bennett, Cindy Faughnan, Alyx Young, Sarah B Sullivan, Christine Petrillo, Sharon Darrow, Amanda West Lewis, Sarah B. Sullivan, and Tim Wynne-Jones. Books available for purchase from Tunnel Books.
BAD Poetry Workshop
Monday, April 27, 6:00pm–7:30pm (Tunnel Books, 560 Railroad Street)
Hosted by Catamount Arts 560 Railroad Community Artist Jessie Rothwell. As writers, we often stop ourselves before we start. Let’s shed that pressure by doing the opposite: let’s write as badly as we can! No punctuation. All the cliches. Run-on sentences, incomplete sentences. Forgo grammar. In this workshop, we will make our hands move faster than our brains. We’ll make a mound of word clay and then start the process of going back into a page to mold Brilliant And Daring writing. We’ll dig into (and get over!) ourselves to mine the gems that were there all along. Free admission.
About the Artists
Jessie Rothwell (Takoma Park, Maryland) is a writer, storyteller and musician. Her writing has appeared in The Rumpus, Barrelhouse, Gargoyle, the Grace & Gravity journal series, Breadcrumbs magazine, and on Minnesota Public Radio’s Classical blog. She has sung Balkan traditional and other types of music with the Balkan women’s vocal ensemble Orfeia and as a member of the band Mezhdou. She participated in Season 19 of AWP’s Writer to Writer mentorship during 2023/2024 and holds an MFA in music composition from the California Institute of the Arts.
