There is nothing like a poem to inspire, heal and provoke. As Major Jackson says, "a poem advances our humanity in language". Blue Raven Gallery's Reading Series brings to the central Maine coast a reading series steeped deep in poetry's oral tradition featuring some of the most prominent and distinguished voices nationally and regionally. Housed in Blue Raven Gallery's one-of-a-kind space and surrounded by a curated collection of some of the country's best painting, photography, sculpture and contemporary art.

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Series #2

Jennifer Grotz
Jennifer Grotz is the author of four books of poetry, most recently Still Falling (Graywolf Press, 2023). Also a translator from the French and Polish, her newest translation is Everything I Don't Know, the selected poems of Jerzy Ficowski (World Poetry, 2021). Her poems, reviews, and translations have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The Nation, The New Republic, New York Review of Books, Ploughshares, New England Review, and in five volumes of the Best American Poetry Anthology. The recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, Grotz has also received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. She is the Director of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conferences and teaches at the University of Rochester.

Samaa Abdurraqib
Samaa is a writer, poet, and a lover of the outdoors. She’s spent the last 10 years working with many organizations as a facilitator and a leadership coach (for leaders of color). Samaa’s recent writing can be found in Cider Press Review, Bigger Than Bravery: Black Resilience and Reclamation in a Time of Pandemic, Writing the Land: Maine, and in her recent chapbook, Each Day is Like An Anchor. She is the editor of From Root to Seed: Black, Brown, and Indigenous Poets Write the Northeast (2023). She currently serves as the Executive Director of the Maine Humanities Council and spends her spare time exploring the woods, waterways, mountains of Maine.

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