Bianca Stone will launch “The State of Poetry,” a traveling community-building initiative with events across Vermont. Each event will feature leaders of the local literary arts community, a writing workshop, and a reading and/or craft talk that will be open to the public. These events will be centered around a chapbook publication called The State of Poetry that will include selected poems from previous Vermont poets laureate and corresponding writing prompts for youth and adults. The craft talks will focus on poems written by past Vermont poets laureate that illuminate and speak to the critical current climate. The events will underscore how poems and poets are vital to our state, connecting community members to the changing landscape, architecture, wildlife, and each other.