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Chickadee Chaps & Broads, a Vermont poetry publishing project, is pleased to announce that Ralph Culver of Burlington is the winner of the first Vermont Poetry Broadside Contest. His poem, "Signed Self Portrait: February" was selected by Vermont Poet Laureate, Sydney Lea.

Mr. Lea said of Culver's work that he particularly relishes "moments in reading poetry when something comes at me that seems at once so completely surprising and so precisely appropriate."

The winning poem is now a beautiful letterpress broadside, illustrated by Craftsbury artist,Gabriel Tempesta, handset and published by Kelly McMahon of May Day Studio in Montpelier and available in a signed and numbered limited edition of 60.

The poetry broadside will be on display in the window of the Drawing Board on Main Street in Montpelier throughout April in celebration of National Poetry Month, as part of MontpelierAlive and the Kellogg Hubbard Library's PoemCity programming. Copies are available for purchase at the Drawing Board throughout April 2013 and online while supplies last at our online store.

Ralph Culver received five copies of his broadside and a complimentary four- night stay at the Writer's Retreat in Craftsbury, Vermont.

Ralph Culver will read "Signed Self Portrait: February" and other poems from his award winning new chapbook, Both Distances recently published by Anabiosis Press, at 3:30pm on Saturday, April 27th in the Hayes Room of the Kellogg Hubbard Library.

Chickadee Chaps and Broads, which sponsored the contest and the upcoming reading, was cofounded by Kelly McMahon and Julia Shipley in 2011. As part of their small spirited effort to promote letterpress printed literature, they'll be offering the Vermont Poetry Broadside contest annually over the next decade to build a Vermont letterpress printed and illustrated broadside archive.  

For more information: chickadeechapsandbroads@gmail.com.  

For more information about PoemCity: http://www.montpelieralive.org/poemcity