In partnership with the Central Rappahannock Regional Library, the Friends of Handley Regional Library System, the Peninsula Patriots, the Poetry Society of Virginia, the Richmond Public Library, the Visual Arts Center of Richmond, and the Williamsburg Regional Library, Mattie Quesenberry Smith will launch “Perseverance and Resilience,” a project that supports veterans’ health and well-being through poetry. The project involves regional workshops facilitated by creative writing instructors and contemporary veteran poets; through the workshops, veterans will explore the ways they have persevered and found resilience in challenging times. The project also incorporates a veterans’ poetry contest; the design, production, and installation of the contest winner’s poem on a broadside in facilities serving veterans throughout the state; an anthology of poems collected from the contest finalists and selected entrants; and two public celebrations dedicated to the participating veterans, their families, and the workshop facilitators.