New Vermont poet laureate Bianca Stone follows in the footsteps left by her grandmother
The new poet laureate of Vermont is following in the footsteps left by her grandmother less than 20 years earlier.
Gov. Phil Scott signed a May 1 proclamation naming Bianca Stone as the state’s poet laureate for the next four years. Stone, who lives in Brandon, has had her work published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Nation and other publications. She has written five books, with her most recent, 2022’s “What is Otherwise Infinite,” winning that year’s Vermont Book Award.
Stone’s grandmother, Ruth Stone, was named the state’s poet laureate in 2007. Ruth Stone, who died at her home in Ripton in 2011 at age 96, won a National Book Award in 2002 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2009.
Bianca Stone is co-founder of the nonprofit Ruth Stone House, where she teaches classes on poetry and hosts the “Ode & Psyche” podcast.
“Poetry brings the inner and outer world together and translates consciousness itself onto the page. It is not only relevant to our lives, but crucial in exploring what it is to be in this world,” Stone said in a news release from the Vermont Arts Council announcing her May 1 appointment. “It is perhaps one of the most playful and serious mediums we have. But it is often misunderstood.”
The best-known poet with ties to Vermont, Robert Frost, served as the state’s first poet laureate from 1961 until his death in 1963. The position was left unfilled until Gov. Madeleine Kunin reinstated the poet laureate in 1988.
The full list of Vermont poet laureates includes:
- 1961-63, Robert Frost
- 1989-93. Galway Kinnell
- 1994-98, Louise Gluck
- 1999-2002, Ellen Bryant Voigt
- 2003-07, Grace Paley
- 2007-11, Ruth Stone
- 2011-15, Sydney Lea
- 2015-19, Chard deNiord
- 2019-24, Mary Ruefle
- 2024-28, Bianca Stone
Contact Brent Hallenbeck at bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com.
This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Vermont poet laureate follows in footsteps of grandmother Ruth Stone
