Join Millay House Rockland for an evening where we call to poets of the past. Contemporary writers will speak to their relationships with poets from earlier eras. Each poet left a significant mark on American culture, and we will explore, interrogate, celebrate, and creatively respond to their indelible poems.
This conversation between four living writers and four who have “shuffled off this mortal coil” includes Maine’s Poet Laureate Julia Bouwsma on Edna St. Vincent Millay; Rosa Lane on Emily Dickinson; Samaa Abdurraqib on June Jordan; and A. O. Scott on Thom Gunn.
This event will be hosted at Arctic Tern Books & Sanctuary in their new event space at 434 Main Street in Rockland.
This event is FREE in-person. If you’re not local, we will be live streaming the event on Zoom for a $25 fee. The space holds 50 people, please register to attend in person so you’re sure to get a seat!
Meet the Presenters:
Julia Bouwsma is Maine’s sixth Poet Laureate, currently serving a term from 2021 to 2026, and the author of the poetry collections Death Fluorescence (Sundress Publications, 2025), Midden (Fordham University Press, 2018), and Work by Bloodlight (Cider Press Review, 2017), as well as the librettist for the short chamber opera, Ghost Apples (fall 2025). Bouwsma’s honors include a 2024 Poet Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets and two Maine Literary Awards. Her work can be found in various publications including Ecotone, Green Mountains Review, Kenyon Review, Plume, and Poetry Daily. She has taught in the Creative Writing department at the University of Maine at Farmington, serves on the Community Advisory Board for the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance, and works as the Library Director for Webster Library in Kingfield, ME.
Rosa Lane is author of four poetry collections including Called Back (Tupelo Press, 2024), winner of the 2025 Maine Literary Book Award. Called Back, a title memorializing the last two words Dickinson wrote, gives queer voice to the LGBTQ+ dimension of one of America's greatest poets, which draws from most recent research by Dickinson scholars. Lane is also author of Chouteau's Chalk, winner, Georgia Poetry Prize (University of Georgia Press, 2019); Tiller North, winner, 2017 National Indie Excellence Award (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2016); and Roots and Reckonings, a chapbook published by Granite Press, partially funded by a grant from the Maine Arts Commission. Her most recent work won the 2023 Morton Marcus Memorial Poetry Prize, was named Best of Poetry for the 2024 Geminga Prize, and selected finalist for the 2023 Gregory O'Donoghue International Poetry Competition among other awards. Lane’s poems have appeared in Cloudbank, Five Points, Nimrod, RHINO, Third Coast, and elsewhere.
Samaa Abdurraqib (she. her. hers.) currently serves as the Executive Director of the Maine Humanities Council. She has served on the board of several Maine-based nonprofits, and has worked with many nonprofits and organizations as a contract consultant, a leadership coach, and a facilitator. Samaa was recently certified as a Maine Master Naturalist, which allows her to lead outdoor teaching experiences for people who want to learn about the beings (plants, insects, animals) in this region. Recently, her poetry can be found in Cider Press Review, december magazine, and Obsidian: Literature and Arts in the African Diaspora. She’s the editor of From Root to Seed: Black, Brown, and Indigenous Poets Write the Northeast (2023). Her forthcoming chapbook, Towards a Retreat, will be released by Diode Editions in August 2025.
A.O. Scott is a critic at large for the New York Times Book Review and the author of Better Living Through Criticism: How to Think About Art, Pleasure, Beauty, and Truth. Previously, he was a film critic at the Times and Distinguished Professor of Film Criticism at Wesleyan University. He has been a Pulitzer Prize finalist and his writing has been widely reprinted, including in Best American Essays 2020 and the Library of America anthology of American movie criticism.