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If your bard-assed, overly drab self is (a) dragging the proverbial river for yet another unoriginal, bargain-binned, Avant-garden variety, grab-bag of verse you might be off-targeting the long-gonged, plain-old wrong, anti body of work.
Because Props: Poetic Intros, Praises, Co-Conspiracies, Pairings is an ably trained, brain teaser/set list of 50 or so New Hampshire poets, that Mark DeCarteret bonds and corresponds with, via the semi-found and fun-filled, the nonstop fluid and even unsound, that even Jerseyite Whitman might write up a promo, stomp his boot-soles. And is an asbestos-lined maze even Massachusettsan Dickinson, might rub two boards the wrong way, tip the top of her head, tap her toes. A map for the apathetic poet. A spell for lapsed rhapsodists. A musical score for those whose sum is part whole and part holy mess. Props is also a playlist and prayer. A workbook and simple. Pitted against the stupidly phoned-in and the artificially decimated, the binge hungover and the serially unhinged.
Enlisting their talents with Mark Decarteret in this latest installment will be:
Sarah Anderson
Michael Brosnan
Bill Burtis
Nancy Jean Hill
Chris Locke
Jennifer Militello
$5 suggested donation | Doors at 4:00pm | Reading at 4:30
ABOUT CHRIS LOCKE
Chris Locke has published books ranging from travel essays, poetry, speculative short fiction, and memoir. His most recent books are Music for Ghosts (New York Quarterly Books) and Without Saints (Black Lawrence Press). Locke has been honored with over a dozen national awards, grants, and fellowships for his writing, including grants in poetry from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts and Massachusetts Cultural Council. He has written for both radio and television and has seen his plays produced in New York City and California, among other locations. Locke released his first studio album of spoken word/post-punk music (Burst & Bloom Records) as LATE LIGHTS. He currently teaches English and creative writing at SUNY Plattsburgh and North Country Community College, both in the Adirondacks. He was born and raised in New Hampshire.
ABOUT NANCY JEAN HILL
Nancy Jean Hill is the author of two collections of poetry, Beryllium Diary (Pudding House, 2007, and rereleased by Igneus Press, 2015) and Unholy Ghost (Kelsay Books, 2016) Her poems have also appeared in several literary journals and anthologies. She is currently working on a new book, Geographic Atrophy. The title poem of this collection refers to an advanced form of macular degeneration that she was diagnosed with in 2017. Geographic atrophy robs its victims of central vision. Because writing and sharing her poems brings her so much joy, she keeps trying, despite her visual disability. She lives and writes in Exeter, NH and Readfield, ME.
ABOUT SARAH ANDERSON
Sarah Anderson holds an MFA in poetry from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers. She has 20 years of high school teaching experience, and currently teaches 8th grade and 10th grade English at Berwick Academy in southern Maine. With her husband, she owns and operates The Word Barn in Exeter, NH, a gathering space for literary and musical events, where she runs a reading series (The Silo Series) as well as various creative writing workshops. Her poems have appeared in various journals, including December Magazine, Raleigh Review, and North American Review. She is the author of We Hold On To What We Can (Loom Press, 2021).
ABOUT JENNIFER MILITELLO
Jennifer Militello is the Poet Laureate of New Hampshire. She is the author of the forthcoming hybrid collection Identifying the Pathogen (Tupelo Press, 2025), the memoir Knock Wood, winner of the Dzanc Nonfiction Prize, and five collections of poetry, including, most recently, The Pact (Tupelo Press/Shearsman Books, 2021). Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry, Best New Poets, American Poetry Review, The Nation, The New Republic, The Paris Review, and Poetry. She teaches in the MFA program at New England College.
ABOUT BILL BURTIS
Bill Burtis’s first published poem, “Night Fright,” appeared in the Hartford Times in 1958. He was 10. When he was 24, he earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop. That was 1973; he published his first poems in a journal, Chelsea, in 1975 and a chapbook, Villians, was published by W. D. Hofstadt in 1978. His work has also appeared in Aurorean, Glint, Nine Mile, Paris Review, Rat's Ass Review, Seneca Review, Sou’wester, The Shore, Three Quarter Review, and others. In 2021, he was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and his full-length collection, Liminal, came out from Nine Mile Books. He is currently associate editor at the Hole-in-the-Head Review and lives in Exeter, NH and Readfield, ME
ABOUT MICHAEL BROSNAN
Michael Brosnan is a poet and writer based in Exeter, New Hampshire. His most recent collection of poetry, Emu Blis, Bums Lie, Blue-ism, a finalist for the Wandering Aengus Book Award, was published in early 2024 by Broadstone Books. He is the author of two previous collections — The Sovereignty of the Accidental (2018) and Adrift (2023). His poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals and has won awards from various arts organizations, including the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts. In 2023, he was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He is also the author of Against the Current, a book on inner-city education, and writes often on issues related to school and learning.