West Hartford has had a poet laureate program since 2008.

By Jim Finnegan

Clare Rossini will be officially named West Hartford’s Poet Laureate on April 8 at the Town Council meeting scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in Room 314 of West Hartford Town Hall, 50 South Main Street.

The West Harford Poet Laureate is an honorary title given to a poet-resident of West Hartford, who serves a three-year term with a simple mandate of promoting the art of the poetry and literary writing in the West Hartford community.

Rossini’s poems and essays have appeared in many fine journals and anthologies, including The Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, The Iowa Review, Poetry, and The Best American Poetry series. Her latest collection of poetry is Lingo (The University of Akron Press). More recently she co-edited an anthology titled The Poetry of Capital (U of Wisconsin, 2020).

Rossini has received grants and awards from the State of Connecticut, the Minnesota Arts Board, the Bush Foundation, and the Maxwell Shepherd Foundation. She has been awarded residencies at MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the American Academy in Rome.

After teaching at the college level for over four decades – including 23 years at Trinity College in Hartford – Rossini recently retired. She continues to teach at conferences and is laying plans for an environmental organization involving poets and birds. For more info on Rossini, visit her website: clarerossini.com.

In 2008, the town poet laureate position was initiated by Maria Sassi (who became the town’s first poet laureate) in consultation with then Town Council member and now Mayor Shari Cantor. After Sassi’s term, six other poets laureate of West Hartford have been named: Dennis Barone, James Finnegan, Ginny Lowe Connors, Christine Beck, Julie Choffel, and Benjamin Grossberg.

Grossberg, the outgoing West Hartford Poet Laureate, and other former town poets laureate plan to attend the April 8 Town Council meeting to welcome Clare Rossini into her role as the eighth West Hartford Poet Laureate.

While many other towns in Connecticut have named a poet laureate, West Hartford has named more poets laureate than any other Connecticut municipality. There is an organization called the Connecticut Council of Poets Laureate with more information on its website.

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