Marie Kane

Marie Kane is the 2006 Bucks County (PA) Poet Laureate. She received her undergraduate degree in Secondary English Education from Bloomsburg University and earned a Master's Degree in Education with a concentration in Creative Writing from Arcadia University in 1995. Other studies include a weekend writing program at West Chester University under the guidance of Dana Gioia in 1987, and a summer graduate program at the University of New Hampshire in 1997 with Donald Murray and others. She also takes annual Poetry Master Classes at Bucks County Community College with Dr. Christopher Bursk.

She has received a recognition award for her poetry from the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts, and an award for her teaching of young writers from The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. She recently retired from Central Bucks School District where she taught English for twenty-seven years. For the past eight years, she has been the chairman of the James A. Michener Art Museum poetry contest for students in the Central Bucks School District. She has been a featured reader at the New Jersey State Museum, James A. Michener Art Museum, the International House in Philadelphia, and at many universities, bookstores, and libraries. Some of her writing credits include The River, Stirring, The Bucks County Writer, U. S. 1 Worksheets, Wordgathering, The Poet's Touchstone, Bone and Tissue, and the Delaware Valley Poets Anthology. She is a second place winner in the 2008 Poetry Society of New Hampshire's International Contest and an Honorable Mention winner in the Inglis House National Contest in Philadelphia in 2008. At present, she is working on a chapbook of poetry entitled Survivors in the Garden. In the last few years, she has enjoyed being a juror in regional and national scholastic poetry contests; and even though she is retired, continues to support young poets as a coach and tutor.

She believes that poetry connects emotion and senses to reason and thought, and, when the "right words are put into the right order," reveals the often-overlooked corners of a life.

She lives in Yardley, PA, with her husband, Stephen Millner, an artist.

A number of her poems have been published by Hot Metal Press. To view them, CLICK HERE.