Maine Poet Laureate Betsy Sholl reads from her work at UNE April 16th

 Maine Poet Laureate Betsy Sholl will read from her work on Thursday, April 16, 2009 at 6 p.m. in the St. Francis Room of the Ketchum Library on the University of New England's Biddeford Campus.

The reading, sponsored by UNE's Department of English and Language Studies, is part of UNE's celebration of National Poetry Month. It is free and open to the public.

Betsy Sholl has published seven collections of poetry, most recently Rough Cradle (Alice James Books, 2009), and Late Psalm (University of Wisconsin Press, 2004).

Don't Explain won the 1997 Felix Pollak Prize from the University of Wisconsin, and her book The Red Line won the 1991 AWP Prize for Poetry. Her chapbooks include Pick A Card, winner of the Maine Chapbook Competition in 1991, Costal Bop (Oyster River Press, 2003) and Betsy Sholl: Greatest Hits, 1974-2004, Pudding House Publications.

She was a founding member of Alice James Books and published three earlier collections with them: Changing Faces, Appalachian Winter and Rooms Overhead. Among other awards are a fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts, and two Maine Writer's Fellowships.  

She lives in Portland, Maine, and teaches at the University of Southern Maine and in the MFA Program of Vermont College.  In 2006 she was chosen to be the Poet Laureate of Maine, a five-year position.