Gloucester Poet Laureate
Dedicated to the poetry and poets of Gloucester, Massachusetts
This website is in the process of refinement. Expect additions and revisions in the weeks to come. Welcome.
“Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” – Percy Bysshe Shelley
“Poetry is just naturally the greatest goddamn thing that ever was in the whole universe.” – James Dickey
Poets Laureate
📣 Announcement
Jay Featherstone, longtime poet and literary advocate, and Heidi Wakeman, poet-educator, have been appointed as Gloucester’s new Co-Poet Laureates, continuing the legacy of Peter Todd and bringing a fresh vision to Gloucester’s poetic landscape.
Vincent Ferrini | Poet Laureate 1998–2007
Vincent Ferrini was the city’s first poet laureate. The honorary post was created in Gloucester in 1998 after Councilors John Foote and Dean Harrison created the position for him, capping his half-century of literary achievement. Mr. Ferrini died Dec. 24, 2007. He was 94.
John J. Ronan | Poet Laureate 2008–2010
John J. Ronan was Gloucester’s second Poet Laureate. In a 2008 editorial, he pledged to make “poetry a public commodity” and outlined four goals:
- Create a Poet Laureate Scholarship for a graduating Gloucester High School senior
- Connect poets with local schools to engage students with poetry
- Promote poetry among Gloucester’s elder community
- Publish a collection of poetry by and about Gloucester, celebrating the city’s diversity and talent
This website was launched to support those goals and became the source for Salt and Light: An Anthology of Gloucester Poetry, published in spring 2010.
Ruthanne Collinson | Poet Laureate 2010–2014
Ruthanne (Rufus) Collinson is the outgoing Poet Laureate of the City of Gloucester. Her energetic work in schools, at the Writer’s Center, and in other venues was a model of the role of Poet Laureate. When she was named to the post, former Mayor Bruce Tobey praised her poetry’s “Craftsmanship and precision…really wonderful. I saw it and felt it.” Collinson grew up in a Concord Street neighborhood where she was the only girl, and once worked as a reporter for the Gloucester Daily Times, started writing plays as an 8-year-old and penned her first poem at the age of 9. She now lives downtown near the Fort. Rufus replaced as Poet Laureate. “Rufus put her mark on the position,” Ronan said in an interview. “She did a wonderful job and brought honor to the city and the post of Poet Laureate.”
Peter Albert Todd | Poet Laureate 2014–2015
Peter Albert Todd was named Poet Laureate of the City of Gloucester, Massachusetts, in August, 2014. Peter died during his term as laureate, on December 15, 2015. The seventy-two year old Gloucester native had written poems for the city’s World War II Memorial and for the Fishermen’s Wives Memorial and other monuments and many events in the city. A self-taught poet, Todd wrote “on demand” for individuals and events. Also prolific, with over 800 poems to his credit, Todd was often inspired to write on placemats and other handy materials.
Heidi Wakeman | Co Poet Laureate 2025-present
Heidi Wakeman is delighted to serve as Co-Poet Laureate of Gloucester, MA. She offers her poetry in the service of love and liberation, in the footsteps of Mary Oliver and Audre Lorde. Some of her muses include animals, both domestic and wild, flowers and trees, Gloucester in all its guises, and her family, both living and dead. She believes in the power of poetry to move people on the micro and macro levels in the quest for beauty, truth and justice. Her work is published online on Instagram as well as in The Empyrean Review.
Jay Featherstone | Co Poet Laureate 2025–present
Joseph Featherstone is a poet, writer, and educator. He was an editor of the New Republic, and has served as the principal of the Commonwealth School in Boston, and for many years as the faculty leader of an acclaimed teacher education program at Michigan State University. He is the author of a number of books, including Dear Josie, Witnessing the Hopes and Failures of Democratic Education (Teachers College Press, 2002). His work has appeared in magazines such as Ploughshares and the Harvard Review. He has published a poetry collection, Brace’s Cove (New Issues), and has a new ms in preparation. Mr. Featherstone and his family have been living in East Gloucester summers, part-time, or full-time since the 1960’s.
Gloucester Poets
Many fine poets live and write in the city of Gloucester and their poems have been widely published, helping to maintain Cape Ann’s reputation as an important artistic center. The purpose of Gloucester Poet Laureate is to promote and distribute worldwide the names and poems of the city’s artists and to help build their reputations and the reputation of Gloucester in the age of cyber space. The pages here are dedicated to professional poets, those published artists long committed to the craft, and also to non-professional poets, citizens who have written for special occasions and express part of the core identity of Gloucester in their work.
Anne Babson Carter
Winner of the prestigious Four Way Book Prize for Strike Root, Anne lives and writes in Gloucester.
View Anne’s Work →
Pat Lowery Collins
An accomplished poet, painter and novelist, Pat has won national and regional honors for her work. She lives and works in Gloucester.
Stephen Scotti
Stephen was a renowned composer and musician and singer who also wrote poetry. A resident of Gloucester for many years, he is especially known for his work setting American and Irish poems to music.
Nancy Seidman
Nancy was a frequent visitor to Cape Ann where her daughter, Kate Seidman, lives.
Frances Wosmek
Frances is a writer of children’s books and a poet. She has won many national honors for her work and is vibrant and creative in her 90’s. Frances lives in the Magnolia neighborhood of Gloucester.
Seascape Poems
Seascape Poems are important to a community that depends on the ocean for industry, art and leisure. The poets included here range from Rose DiMaria, whose father and husband were fishermen, to T. S. Eliot, whose Dry Salvages is about that shelf of rock off Cape Ann.
Featured Poets from the Archive
As part of the site’s relaunch, we’re re-presenting work by poets who previously chose to have their writing featured here. Representing voices from Gloucester and Cape Ann, this group includes Fred Andrews, Larry Brooks, K.W. Erickson, Lisa Manning, Lydia Priest, Bradley Smith, and Mary Pat Butterfield.
History
Vincent Ferrini was preceded by a long tradition of poetry in his adopted city. His friend and colleague, Charles Olson, began his American-Gloucester epic, The Maximus Poems, in 1950 and the the work, though unfinished as his death in 1970, has gained worldwide recognition. Other twentieth century poets who lived in or wrote of Gloucester included Herb Kenny, Percy MacKaye, Kitty Parsons, and Lora Clark.
Earlier, at the turn of the twentieth century and in the nineteenth, the list of writers included Lucy Larcom, Clarence Falt, Elizabeth Phelps, and Hiram Rich. Probably the most famous poet to write about Gloucester remains Henry Wadsworth Longfellow for his ballad, The Wreck of the Hesperus. This is a very short list of Gloucester poets, or poets writing about Gloucester. A full list of poets or other writers inspired by Gloucester might stretch to T.S. Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, and even H.P. Lovecraft, but that is beyond the scope of this website. The links below will help in researching Gloucester poetry and poets.
Local Contests
There have been many one-off and annual poetry events and contests on Cape Ann.
Held in the spring of 2010, The Fishermen’s Wives Memorial Poetry Contest was a competition for Gloucester residents to honor the Fishermen’s Wives Memorial, including the statue by Morgan Faulds Pike. The contest was a success with dozens of poets entering finely crafted work. The winner was Diane Giardi for her poem, “The Fishermen’s Wives.” Her poem appears on the Fishermen’s Wives page, along with the poems of the runners-up: Wayne Soini, Nancy LeGendre, and Douglas Goldman.
Held in the summer of 2009, the Quarterdeck Poetry Contest was a competition for Gloucester residents to honor the iconic The Man at the Wheel statue on the city’s waterfront, for a Massachusetts quarter. The winner was Pamela Mansfield, for her poem, “Verdigris – The Man at the Wheel.” Her poem appears on the Quarterdeck page, along with the poems of the runners-up: Amber Gailitis, Neal Kleindienst, and Lydia Priest.
Thousands of students have participated in the Gloucester Lyceum’s annual Poetry Without Paper competition, and the work is among the best being written in Gloucester. Additional student poetry can be found at the Gloucester High School’s literary website, The Elicitor.
Gloucester Poet Laureate
Copyright John Ronan 2025