Featured Poets

Keynote Poet:

Andrei Codrescu was born in Sibiu, Transylvania, Romania, and emigrated to the U.S. in 1966, arriving first in Detroit during the riots, then settling among poets in New York City. His first poetry collection in English, License to Carry a Gun, appeared in 1970. He founded Exquisite Corpse: a Journal of Books & Ideas (1983–2016) and taught literature and poetry at Johns Hopkins, the University of Baltimore, and Louisiana State University. A longtime commentator on NPR, he returned to Romania in 1989 to cover the fall of the Ceaușescu regime, an experience that rekindled his Romanian and produced a body of work in both languages. His recent books include A Possible Epic of Care (Black Widow Press, 2023), Too Late for Nightmares (Black Widow Press, 2022), and No Time Like Now (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019). His correspondence, notebooks, and archives are held at LSU, the University of Illinois, the University of Iowa, and several Romanian institutions.

Featured Poets:

bios coming …

• Charles Cantalupo – Writing on the bellum omnium contra omnes or the Woodstock Nation, Charles Cantalupo’s literary trajectory ranges far: from poems and essays published in religious journals in the 1980s to experimental British and American literary journals in the 90s. Yet the year 2000 marked a new development for Cantalupo, writing poetry and literary criticism about Africa, translating poets from Eritrea, and co-authoring the historic Asmara Declaration on African Languages and Literatures. This led to his memoir, Joining Africa: from Anthills to Asmara (2012) and returned Cantalupo as a poet to his own American experience. The subtitle, “Further Steps,” of one of his subsequent books of poetry could apply to all of his writing. Eastport resident, Charles Cantalupo is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English, Comparative Literature, and African Studies at The Pennsylvania State University.

• Michael Palma

• Mihku Paul

• Craig Sipe

• Mark Pawlak

• Jefferson Navicky

• Mary Bonina

• Carl Little

• Bill Carpenter

• Janee Baugher is an author of three full-length poetry collections and the nation’s leading expert in ekphrastic writing. She wrote the only craft book of its kind, The Ekphrastic Writer: Creating Art-Influenced Poetry, Fiction and Nonfiction. A long-time assistant editor at Boulevard magazine, she has been featured on Seattle Channel TV and at the Library of Congress. She won the 2023 Dorset Prize from Tupelo Press for her collection The Andrew Wyeth Chronicles and received a 2024–2025 City Artist grant from the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture. In 2026, she is teaching ekphrastic poetry workshops at the Eastport Arts Center as part of the Eastport Arts & Poetry Festival.

• Erine Leigh is formerly of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where she served as Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017. She has taught poetry workshops for school children at the Wheaton Writing Academy and the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. As part of her poet laureate service, Leigh worked with young poets within a project called Poems For Peace. Her work resulted in the National Beat Poetry Foundation conferring on her the title of Lifetime New Generation Beat Poet Laureate. She will be leading a workshop at Eastport Art Center as part of the Eastport Arts & Poetry Festival, which will be an informal gathering for writers and poets of all ages and experience that is composed of reading together some poems chosen for their healing potential, followed by discussing them and gaining inspiration.

• Valerie Lawson

• Jeffrey Cyphers Wright

• Steven Rea

• Sue Sinclair

• Steve Luttrell – Steve Luttrell is a poet, publisher, and literary advocate born and based in Greater Portland, Maine. He is the founder and Publishing Editor of The Café Review, an award-winning international art and poetry quarterly established in 1989, and a past Poet Laureate of Portland. He is the author of six collections of poetry, most recently Paper Boats (Igneus Press, 2024), and serves as Co-Founder and Co-Organizer of the Eastport Arts & Poetry Festival. A lifelong champion of Poetry as Public Art, Luttrell has hosted The Poet’s Cafe on Maine Community TV, led summer readings in the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow House garden, and currently hosts a monthly Open Mic Night at Novel Books in Portland.