Poems by Heart / Wed April 29 / 6:30-8PM
“Poems by Heart”
with Themes of Spring- birth, loss & renewal
Wednesday, April 29th from 6:30 – 8:00 PM in the SAL Room
April is National Poetry Month!
The Library is honored to welcome four wonderful Vermont-based writers to a night of poetry and prose.
- Helen Whybrow
- Alison Prine
- Erika Nichols-Frazer
- Colleen Ovelman
Poetry validates the oneness of all humans, it reveals and connects us to our deepest feelings.
Helen Whybrow is a writer, editor and organic farmer whose book about shepherding, land and belonging, The Salt Stones, was longlisted for the National Book Award and chosen as a New Yorker Best Book of 2025. Her other titles include Dead Reckoning (W. W. Norton, 2001) and A Man Apart (Chelsea Green, 2015). She has a master’s in journalism and has taught writing at Middlebury College and the Breadloaf Environmental Writer’s Conference. She and her family farm and steward a refuge for land justice at Knoll Farm in Fayston, Vermont.
Alison Prine’s latest collection of poems, LOSS AND ITS ANTONYM (Headmistress Press, 2024), won the Sappho’s Prize in Poetry and was a finalist for the Vermont Book Award. Her debut poetry collection, STEEL (Cider Press Review, 2016), was also named a finalist for the Vermont Book Award. She lives and works in Burlington, Vermont.
Visit her at alisonprine.com.
Erika Nichols-Frazer is the author of the poetry collection Staring Too Closely and the memoir Feed Me: A Story of Food, Love and Mental Illness. Her poetry chapbook Can you see her, the moon? is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in June 2026. Her short story collection No One Will Ever Hear You is coming out from Rootstock Publishing in September 2026. She has an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. She works at Vermont State University and lives in Waitsfield with her husband, infant daughter, and various animals.
Colleen Ovelman’s creative work has appeared in Best of the Burlington Writer’s Workshop, Grand Exit podcast, Vermont Stage’s Winter Tales, Philadelphia Stories, and elsewhere. She has been awarded fellowships and residencies from the Vermont Studio Center and Hollowdeck Press’s Poet Cottage. She is working on a collection of poems, a history of mending, which explores living with grief in the aftermath of her teenage son’s death. Her son, Eli, was killed along with four of his friends from the Mad River Valley in 2016. Colleen lives with her family in Waterbury, Vermont
