Each week, Maine Poet Laureate Wesley McNair’s “Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry” column offers newspapers across Maine one previously published poem by a Maine poet.There are currently more than two dozen Maine newspapers taking part in Take Heart, and the columns reach tens of thousands of readers each week.

McNair selects each poem and writes a brief introduction about the poet’s background and connection to Maine, or the history, context, and themes of the poem. Working in collaboration with the MWPA, this service will be free to all interested newspapers. “Take Heart” will eventually grow to include an online archive.

For the first time since the inception of the Maine Poet Laureate, the MWPA supports the position as an office of the Maine Poet Laureate. This partnership helps bolster and propel the Laureate’s statewide initiatives.

> WATCH A VIDEO of Wesley McNair's remarks from the April 20, 2011 poetry celebration at the Blaine House in Augusta.

> Download the PRINTED REMARKS here from the event here.

> WATCH A VIDEO of Wesley McNair on MPBN's Maine Watch with Jennifer Rooks.

TAKE HEART: The Column Archive 2011

May 01 April Prayer Stu Kestenbaum PDF/Word

May 08 Nature Longfellow PDF/Word

May 15 April and then May Kate Barnes PDF/Word

May 22 Free Agent Marija Sanderling PDF/Word

May 29 Night Patrol Bruce Guernsey PDF/Word

June 05 Roses Thomas Carper PDF/Word

June 12 Inland Edna St. Vincent Millay PDF/Word

June 19 The Crossing David Walker PDF/Word

June 26 Driving Down East Robert M. Chute PDF/Word

July 03 A Little Bit of Timely Advice Mekeel McBride PDF/Word

July 10 Early Morning Trumpet George V. Van Deventer PDF/Word

July 17 In Nightgowns Sheila Jourdan PDF/Word

July 24 Closing Time Dave Morrison PDF/Word

July 31 Transportation Kristen Lindquist PDF/Word

Aug 06 Hummingbird & Hen Ellen Taylor PDF/Word

Aug 14 Her Telling Thomas R. Moore PDF/Word

Aug 21 Feed My Birds Elizabeth McFarland PDF/Word

Sept 04 Mr. Fix-It Stuart Kestenbaum PDF/Word

Sept 11 Some Clear Night Gary Lawless PDF/Word

Sept 18 Peaches Kate Barnes PDF/Word

Sept 25 The Geese May Sarton PDF/Word 

Oct 02 Moth at My Window Richard Aldridge PDF/Word

Oct 09 Two Poems Tom Sexton PDF/Word

Oct 16 The Last Lamp-Lighters Kenneth Rosen PDF/Word

Oct 23 Reuben Bright Edwin Arlington Robinson PDF/Word

Oct 30 Mom Gets In One of My Poems Martin Steingesser PDF/Word

Nov 06 For The Falling Man Annie Farnsworth PDF/Word

Nov 13 United States Phillip Booth PDF/Word

Nov 20 The Poet Marta Rijn Finch PDF/Word

Nov 27 The Hands Bruce Guernsey PDF/Word

Dec 04 Coming Home Elizabeth Tibbetts PDF/Word

Dec 11 Two Poems Edward Nobles PDF/Word

Dec 18 To Jesus on His Birthday Edna St. Vincent Millay PDF/Word

Dec 25 Winter Friends Robert P. Tristram Coffin PDF/Word

Jan 01 The Plymouth on Ice Thomas R. Moore PDF/Word

Jan 08 What Positions Do They and We Assume in the Encapsulated Stillness John Tagliabue PDF/Word

Jan 15 Potatoes Jay Davis PDF/Word

Jan 22 Where Inspiration Has Learned a Thing or Two Mekeel McBride PDF/Word

Jan 29 Two Poems Elizabeth Garber PDF/Word

SUBMIT TO TAKE HEART 

Maine poets who would like their work considered for “Take Heart” may send copies of published poetry collections or other poetry publications (such as magazine or quarterlies) to:

Take Heart

c/o MWPA

314 Forest Avenue, Room 318

Portland, Maine 04102

 

All submissions should include the poet's mailing address, email, and phone number.

Questions may be directed to David Turner, Special Assistant to the Maine Poet Laureate: poetlaureate@mainewriters.org

FULL SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

- The poetry must be previously published.

- The poet must be a Maine resident.

- Please include contact info with your submission: email, phone & mailing address.

- For submissions to the Maine Poet Laureate’s library, we prefer full volumes or chapbooks, but would also be happy to receive individual poem submissions if you would like---with individual poems, please include where the poem was previously published and when.

- All selections for Take Heart are poems that are under 30 lines in length. This does not mean all the poems in a book must be under 30 lines, but that only those under 30 lines will be considered. The line count includes spaces between stanzas.

- Please note that all selections for Take Heat are made on a rolling basis throughout the life of the column. This means a poem may be selected anytime over the upcoming years.

ABOUT THE MAINE POET LAUREATE

Wesley McNair is the author of nine volumes of poetry and two books of nonfiction, and he has edited five anthologies of Maine writing, including three that feature Maine poetry. Few authors are as well versed in the history of Maine poetry or the work of Maine’s contemporary poets as Wesley McNair.

The recipient of numerous awards in poetry, McNair has held grants from the Guggenheim and Fulbright foundations, two Rockefeller fellowships, and two grants in creative writing from the National Endowment for the Arts. He recently read his poems at the Library of Congress and was selected for a United States Artists Fellowship as one of “America’s finest living artists.” McNair’s latest book is the newly released volume Lovers of the Lost, New & Selected Poems.