BRATTLEBORO-Write Action, Brattleboro’s local group for poets and writers of all genres, announces the publication of its 2026 anthology, Through the Windows of Brattleboro.
The anthology brings together 87 poems by 53 poets from Brattleboro and surrounding towns, all of which appeared in the windows of the downtown and Canal Street businesses during this year’s National Poetry Month. Through the Windows of Brattleboro will be for sale for $15, plus tax, at Byway Books & More, 399 Canal St.; and at Everyone’s Books, 23 Eliot St.
Celebrating April as National Poetry Month was introduced in 1996 and organized by the Academy of American Poets as a way to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry in the United States.
The celebration of Poetry Month through posting poems in the windows of local businesses first began in 2010 in Montpelier with Poetry Alive! and the event was subsequently credited in local media as transforming Montpelier into “Poem City” each April. The Montpelier event was organized in great part through the Kellogg-Hubbard Library; and, today, including Brattleboro, the total number of towns in Vermont celebrating poetry in April in this manner stands at seven, with more towns planning to join.
Brattleboro has created a unique extension of the project through Write Action, supported by Brooks Memorial Library and ByWay Books. Called “Poems Around Town” (PAT), this project started six years ago during the isolation of the Covid pandemic.
An anthology of that year’s poems was published as Poems in the Time of Covid. Recent years have included a public reading of the posted poems at Brooks Library.
“Thanks to the welcoming windows of Brattleboro’s businesses,” wrote organizers in a news release, “this year brings together another collection of poems penned by writers living in Brattleboro and nearby towns.” For more information, email info@writeaction.org.
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