This past September, Westport appointed its newest Poet Laureate, Donna Disch. It’s a unique position—there are only 50 towns and cities in Connecticut with Poet Laureates—and Donna is only the third to occupy the role in Westport, succeeding Jessica Noyes McEntee. The Westport Arts Advisory Committee instituted the position to “promote poetry as a form of communication, inspiration, and entertainment in the life of town residents,” and this objective was a personally resonant one for Donna. “As a child, I was a daydreamer—I composed little stories that helped paint and explain the world to myself. But I was really composing poems with no notion of poetry,” Donna tells Westport Lifestyle. “My college years availed me of poetry’s mother load. It wasn’t that [poetry] explained life, but acknowledged life’s intricacies, mysteries, beauty, brightness, tragedies, and sorrows in exquisite language. It was the full-throttled, imaginative conversation I intuited and reached for as a child.” She says she came to view poetry as “essential to lead a more balanced and vital life.”
Donna moved to Westport twenty-five years ago. Before that she earned an MFA from Vermont College, taught English at Vermont Academy
and at an international school in Caracas, Venezuela. She then lived in Manhattan for many years and worked as a textbook editor. As Poet Laureate she plans to introduce Westporters to the burgeoning wealth of America’s contemporary poetry scene in the hope that they will become future poetry readers.
Since assuming the role in September, Donna has already done much towards this goal. She wrote a poem entitled "Day of Remembrance" for the annual Veterans Day event and at the Tree Lighting ceremony, she read her poem, "Lights Up.” She says she plans to write and read an original poem at every public event in Westport during her laureate appointment (in Westport, Poet Laureates serve two-year terms). “I support injecting art into our public events,” she says. She’s also working closely with the Westport Library— she presented a three-part seminar, Robert Frost: Poet of Wonder, in January and is working on an upcoming series about Sylvia Plath— and is helping to plan a “robust” celebration of National Poetry Month in April for the town.
Perhaps her most visible contribution to Westport so far is the Poetry Box, which was erected at the corner of Compo Road South and Hillside Avenue with the support of Jennifer Tooker, Nancy Diamond, co-chair of Westport’s Arts Advisory Committee, and Rick Guinta of Parks and Recreation. The box displays a curated, one-page poem that rotates weekly on the beach-side path. “The point is to offer the reader a breather, a respite, a fresh perception,” says Donna. “If it’s a poem that awakens you, photograph it and read more of that poet online. Each time I switch out the poems in the Poetry Box, I have met a grateful reader.”
Ultimately, Donna hopes to help Westporters become confident, proficient poetry readers. “This gift of poetry–whether the poetry box, or a reading or a seminar, or poems projected on the screen in our library’s forum—is something restorative and free,” she says. We can all benefit from spending more time contemplating this beautiful art form, especially with Donna’s expert guidance. “The more poetry in your life, the more porous and aware one becomes,” she says. “When one becomes a more perceptive reader, one leads a more perceptive life.”
"Poetry is essential to lead a more balanced and vital life.”