Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Series: Central Region Reading with Maria Rouphail Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Series: Central Region Reading with Maria Rouphail at Flyleaf Books

Featuring poetry readings from the four central region emerging poets and the central region Distinguished Poet Maria Rouphail.

This mentoring program links established poets in three regions of North Carolina with emerging poets, enabling them to develop and perfect their lyric craft. Students in middle school, high school, and college, and adults not in school applied to work with a Distinguished Poet during the winter months. 2023-2024’s Distinguished Poets are: Melinda Thomsen in the eastern region, Maria Rouphail in the central region, and Mildred Kiconco Barya in the western region.

The resulting poems are being presented at group and individual readings like this one at venues across the state. An anthology of these poems entitled Witness: Appalachia to Hatteras will be published by the North Carolina Poetry Society in late 2024.

Maria Rouphail, Central Region is Senior Lecturer Emerita from North Carolina State University, where she taught courses in World Literature and served as an academic adviser to the English major. She is Poetry Editor of Main Street Rag. Her third poetry collection, All the Way to China, was a finalist in both the University of Wisconsin Brittingham Poetry and the Blue Light Press competitions. Her earlier collections are Apertures and Second Skin. In 2022, NC Poet Laureate Emeritus, Joseph Bathtanti awarded Rouphail First Place in the NCPS Poet Laureate competition. In 2023, she was awarded in both the Randall Jarrell and the Prime Magazines contests. A six-time Pushcart nominee, she lives in Raleigh.