Verandah Porche

About the Artist

Verandah Porche works as a poet-in-residence, performer, and writing partner. Based in rural Vermont on the notable commune Total Loss Farm, since 1968, she has published Sudden Eden (Verdant Books), The Body’s Symmetry (Harper and Row), and Glancing Off (See Through Books). She has read her work on National Public Radio stations, in the Vermont State House, and at the John Simon Guggenheim Museum. 

Verandah developed a practice called “told poetry” or “shared narrative” to create personal literature with people who need a writing partner. She has run collaborative residencies in hospitals, factories, nursing homes, senior centers, a 200-year-old Vermont tavern, and an urban working-class neighborhood. Listening Out Loud documents her residency with Real Art Ways in Hartford, Connecticut.

Verandah began working as a poet in the schools in the 1970s. She initiated — and for almost 30 years taught — the poetry program at Vermont’s Governor’s Institute on the Arts. The Vermont Arts Council presented her with its Award of Merit and its first Ellen McCollough-Lovell Award. Marlboro College gave her an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters in 2012.

Verandah creates poems for moments and milestones. Commissions include the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, Windham and Windsor Housing Trust, and many poems for personal celebrations.

Verandah was featured in Freedom and Unity: The Vermont Movie. Her project Shedding Light on the Working Forest, exploring the lives of people who work in the woods in a collaboration with visual artist Kathleen Kolb, has toured New England. Broad Brook Anthology, a play for voices, honors the lives of elders in Guilford, Vermont. Her most recent project, Faces of Home, is a series of self-portraits in words narrated by residents of Great River Terrace, a community for people who had experienced homelessness, with portraits painted by River Gallery artists. In addition, she works with Art in the Neighborhood, creating poetry with Brattleboro’s children who live in public Housing.

Verandah serves on the Selectboard of Guilford, Vermont, a town of 2,100 souls.

Verandah Porche and Patty Carpenter write and perform original songs. Their first album is Come Over. They post songs and poems on a Patreon site to prepare for a new album.

See additional poems here and learn more at verandahporche.com