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Poet Isis Phoenix recited her poem “Ecstatic Burdens” during last year's Freeport Folio open mic. The nonprofit Freeport Folio has partnered with the Freeport Community Library for this year's Poetry Month. (Courtesy of Freeport Folio)

A Freeport-based nonprofit with a community poetry initiative aiming to spread accessibility to poetry, has partnered with the local library for the first time during National Poetry Month.

The partnership is between the Freeport Community Library and the nonprofit Freeport Folio after its formation and launch last April. One of the founding members of Freeport Folio, Jonas Werner, began planning with the Freeport library this year in January to bring a suite of poetry-centered events to town, said Freeport librarian Meghan Fogg.

Former Freeport Town Council member John Egan had a love of poetry and wanted to share it with the town to make the art form more accessible, Werner said. Egan teamed up with Werner to form Freeport Folio for a quarterly poetry reading during last year’s National Poetry Month. Throughout Freeport Folio’s first year, the nonprofit booked other shows in July and October to bring more people together through poetry.

National Poet Series winner for 2009, Colin Cheney, reads during last year’s open mic at Freeport Folio, which formed last year to make poetry more accessible to the public. (Courtesy of Freeport Folio)

“Our goal was to just get the best poets we could to come and share the power of poetry, and that’s what we have been doing,” Werner said.

Workshops and poetry events take place on Saturdays throughout the month of April, culminating in the celebration of the Maine poets laureate on Thursday, April 30, at Meetinghouse Arts from 6:30-8 p.m. The event will feature a panel discussion led by Maine Arts Commission Executive Director Amy Hausmann, bringing together all the Maine poets laureate.

The new highlights of the Freeport Folio and the Freeport Community Library partnership are both the offerings of the poetry workshops and the poetry walks. The poetry walks begin on April 1 and last until April 30. A poetry workshop with the 2025 Maine Arts Fellow Lynne Schmidt is set for noon to 2 p.m. Saturday, April 4, and another from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on April 25 with poet and Maine Guide Joseph Coleman.

Another first is the 2026 Freeport Community Poetry Competition, judged by 2009 National Poetry Series winner, Colin Cheney from 7:30-8:30 p.m. on April 25. Winners will be featured on a “What Holds Us Together” Poetry Walk throughout Freeport. The winners also have a chance to be selected by the Freeport Historical Society and featured in its permanent collection.

“We are hoping to show the more fun side of poetry, and that it is really nothing more than the voice of the people,” Werner said. “We go about our lives, often forgetting how much poetry is part of everything we do.”

Paul Bagnall got his start in Maine journalism writing for the Bangor Daily News covering multiple municipalities in Aroostook County. He graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with a bachelor's...

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