NEW LONDON, N.H. — New Hampshire Poet Laureate Jennifer Militello will read a selection of her poems at 4 p.m. Tuesday, April 8, at Colby-Sawyer College. The public is invited to the free event in the Cleveland Colby Colgate Archives at the Susan Colgate Cleveland Library/Learning Center.
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Charles Simic described Militello as “one of the finest poets of her generation, an immensely original poet who has enriched American literature since her first book.”
That first book, “Anchor Chain, Open Sail,” was published in 2006. Her fifth book, the 2019 memoir “Knock Wood,” earned the Dzanc Nonfiction Prize. Militello’s upcoming hybrid collection, “Identifying the Pathogen,” was a finalist for the Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize.
Militello’s work has also been published in The Best American Poetry, Best New Poets, American Poetry Review, The Nation, The New Republic, The Paris Review, Poetry London, and The Poetry Review.
The director of the Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing at New England College previously taught at Brown University, the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and Rhode Island School of Design.
Prior to her public reading April 8, she will discuss “Knock Wood” with Colby-Sawyer Professor Ewa Chrusciel’s intermediate creative writing class. Chrusciel said it will be a unique gift for students to meet Militello, whose poems and poetic essays they’ve been reading and analyzing.
“Her poems are punctuated by passion and grief via hauntingly dense, dark and luminous images,” said Chrusciel.
Militello began her five-year term as poet laureate in April 2024. In the role, she is an ambassador for poets and seeks to elevate the visibility and value of poetry in the state.
