In the world of poet laureates, Patricia Fargnoli is a rarity, a hardscrabble wildflower of a poet who grew tenaciously outside the walls of Academia. Fargnoli began writing poetry nearly 30 years ago, and has been published in over 100 literary reviews, magazines and journals, including Ploughshares, Poetry and the Mid-American Review. A resident of Walpole, NH, she was appointed New Hampshire”s Poet Laureate in January 2006. Fargnoli”s collection of poetry, Necessary Light, was awarded the May Swenson Poetry Prize, chosen by poet Mary Oliver in 1999, and her latest collection, Duties of the Spirit (Tupelo Press, 2005) was the recipient of the Jane Kenyon Poetry Prize for Outstanding Poetry in 2005.

A retired social worker, Fargnoli now teaches poetry in the Lifelong Learning program at Keene State College, but teaching is nothing new to the celebrated poet. For the past 12 years, she has taught poetry privately and at the Keene Institute of Music and Related Arts, and at the New Hampshire Institute of Art. She is a MacDowell Fellow and a frequent resident at the Dorsett Colony in Dorsett, VT. As Poet Laureate, her commitment is to “…bring poetry to other people, to have other people love poetry as much as I love it,” Fargnoli says on the Poet Laureate page on the NH Arts web site. To that end, she maintains a link on the state Arts page to a page of her own, where she features a New Hampshire poet and one of their poems every two weeks, along with links to their work so that readers can read and learn more.

Of Fargnoli”s latest work, Mary Oliver said, ” “These poems are stamped with an energetic and outgoing attentiveness to the world. This, so much more than just the humming examination of the self, is what makes writing a sacred thing. Who does this is a true poet, and few do it better than Patricia Fargnoli.”

Other reviews:
“These poems are written with serene grace… Fargnoli has found a striking, poetic voice that is above all deeply honest.” Comstock Review

Patricia Fargnili has found her own, very distinct place, and from there she speaks with a very moving—and, at its best, deeply spiritual, wise—voice that tells us about what it means to live in our time.
Ilya Minsky

Fargnoli’s poems open upopn us, then open in us. We are anchored, ruffled, soothed, and ultimately expanded. She makes us believe, all over again, in the goodness of art.”
— Gray Jacobik