Patricia Ranzoni

Poet

Bucksport, ME
Maine US
Email: 
pranzoni@aol.com
Website: 
poetryinmaine.org/

Author's Bio

*TRANSGRESSIONS*
I know I / am not supposed / to be writing our women / digging their greens, tres- / passing in another class, / but this ground is composed of my people / and I am on my knees / and this is a knife.* Working from one of the subsistence homesteads of her youth, mixed-blood Yankee, Patricia Smith Ranzoni, considers the cultures of her boundary-crossing people in seaboard, outback, and upriver Maine and Canada to be her literary credentials. A former child development specialist and education consultant, her unschooled documentary poetry has been published across America and abroad, is drawn from by UM departments of English, and is archived by writing, history, working class, folk, disability, and women’s studies and realities in whose settings and by whose fires, near and away, she reads and recites.

In addition to the published chapbooks listed, she has handmade and sewn sheafs of her work entitled, TAKE ME BACK TO SEBEC (2003), HIBERNACULUM & Other North-natured Poems (2010) and FROM HERE, Poems from Being Born in Lincoln, Maine (2010) through OneWater Press.

Publications & Prizes

Anthologies:
TAKE HEART Poems from Maine (Down East Books, 2013)
,
Maine in Four Seasons: 20 Poets Celebrate the Turning Year (Down East Books, 2010)
,
A Coastal Companion: A Year in the Gulf of Maine, from Cape Cod to Canada (Tilbury House, 2008)
,
Illness & Grace/Terror & Transformation (Wising Up Press, 2007)
,
Paintings of Maine: A New Collection Selected by Carl Little (Down East Books, 2006)
,
The Other Side of Sorrow/Poets Speak Out About Conflict, War, and Peace (Poetry Society of New Hampshire, 2006)
,
Fresh Water (Pudding House Publications, 2002)
,
Prayers to Protest (Pudding House Publications, 1998)
Books:
BEDDING VOWS Love Poems from Outback Maine (North Country Press, 2012)
,
Only Human: Poems from the Atlantic Flyway (Sheltering Pines Press, 2005)
,
Settling (Puckerbrush Press, 2000)
,
Claiming (Puckerbrush Press, 1995)
Chapbooks:
WHEREing, Poems of Location & Adornment (Red Ochre Press, 2011)
,
Patricia Ranzoni Greatest Hits 1982 - 2008 (Pudding House Publications, 2009)
,
Leavings (Lillian Baker Kennedy, 2005)
Journals:
Blueline
,
Buffalo Vortex
,
Café Review
,
Christian Science Monitor
,
Green Fuse
,
Off the Coast
,
Scythe
,
Shearsman
,
Spoon River Poetry Review
,
Three Candles
,
Untitled Country Review
,
XCP: Cross Cultural Poetics/Streetnotes
Prizes won: 

First Place, 2010 Rockland, Maine POETRY MONTH Contest. Other Honors: In 2004 University of Maine classmates gave a step in her honor for the renovation of the Fogler Library entrance for whose dedication she was invited to compose and read her "Steps." 2008 Chapbook publication in Pudding House Publications' invitational GREATEST HITS National Archives Series; selection to perform at 2011 American Folk Festival. 2012 invitations to read at Maine Equal Justice Partners' "Poetry, Poverty & Blues" and Gala commemorating 100th anniversary of Edna St. Vincent Millay's discovery at Whitehall Inn. Also in 2012 named first Poet Laureate of University of Maine Class of 1962, chosen by Maine Poet Laureate Wesley McNair as one of the featured readers in his "Poetry Express" (through Maine) series, received nomination for St. Botolph Foundation Emerging Artist Award. In 2014 named first Poet Laureate of Bucksport, Maine, for life.

More Information

Gives readings: 
Yes
Travels for readings: 
Yes
Born in: 
Lincoln
Raised in: 
Bucksport, ME
Please note: All information in the Directory is provided by the listed writers or their representatives.
Last update: Jul 05, 2014