Biography

Dawn Potter is Maine’s seventh poet laureate (2026–2031). She has published seven collections of poetry, two books of nonfiction, a teaching text, and an edited volume of writings about poetry. Her memoir, Tracing Paradise: Two Years in Harmony with John Milton, won a Maine Literary Award in Nonfiction, and she has received grants and fellowships from the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Writer’s Center, and the Maine Arts Commission. Her poems and essays have appeared in the Beloit Poetry Journal, the Sewanee Review, the Threepenny Review, and elsewhere. Dawn has been a visiting writer at the Solstice MFA Program, Smith College, Bates College, and many other institutions. When not teaching, she works as a freelance editor for literary and academic presses.

In addition to her personal projects, Dawn is involved in a number of collaborations with other artists. These include writing, designing, and performing the multidisciplinary Monson Maine, USA with the poet Teresa Carson, the poet and performance artist Gretchen Berg, and the dancer Gwyneth Jones. With the poets Jeanne Marie Beaumont and Teresa Carson she publishes conversations and communal poetry experiments in their Substack journal Poetry Lab Notes. And she writes weekly with the May Street Writers, a group of Portland-area poets who generate new drafts via interactive prompts and share this supportive model in their teaching and public outreach.

For more than a decade Dawn led poetry and teaching programs at the Frost Place in Franconia, New Hampshire. Currently, she directs two poetry-centered programs at Monson Arts, Maine’s renowned residency center, located in rural Piscataquis County:

* The high school writing program, which meets all day every other week for an entire school year, offers a cohort of talented central Maine students the opportunity to participate in an intense studio experience on the Monson Arts campus. The goal is to guide students into closer knowledge of what it means to make art the center of a life—helping them hone their craft, build bonds with other young artists from around the region, and become more confident about their future as makers.

 * The Conference on Poetry and Learning, also held on the Monson Arts campus, is an annual weeklong gathering of classroom teachers, arts educators, and poets that focuses on collaboration, cross-disciplinary experimentation, and collegial support.

In addition, Dawn works with poets from around the United States and Canada via her online platform, the Poetry Kitchen, offering affordable Zoom-based sessions on generating and revising poems and poetry collections. She welcomes writers at all stages of development and strives to create a noncompetitive, encouraging, yet rigorous haven for conversation and exploration.

Dawn lives in Portland, Maine, with her husband, the photographer and carpenter Thomas Birtwistle. They have two adult sons, both of whom also work in the arts.