Paulette Demers Turco began writing verse when she learned she soon would be a grand-mother. She studies poetry in Alfred Nicol’s poetry workshop and Rhina P. Espaillat’s annual poetry Lyceum classes, both in Newburyport, MA. She’s attended the annual Robert Frost Farm poetry conferences in Derry, NH since 2015. In 2018, she became a member of the Powow River Poets in Newburyport, MA (www.powowriverpoets.com ), and co-organizes their monthly reading program. She is editor of The Powow River Poets Anthology II (Able Muse Press, 2021); link: www.ablemusepress.com/buy-powow-anthology-ii.
by Paulette Demers Turco
Her first full-length book, Shimmer, an ekphrastic poetry collection (Kelsay Books, 2023), pairs her poetry with her art (including acrylic on canvas, photographs, and drawings in ink and graphite, link https://kelsaybooks.com/. More of her art is featured on these pages under the section “Paintings.” Her poetry has appeared in The Lyric; Ibbetson Street; the Sonnet Scroll feature of The Poetry Porch; Mezzo Cammin; Loch Raven Review; Quill & Parchment, and others poetry magazines; the chapbook, Poems for Plovers (Hawk and Whippoorwill, 2020); the 2020 Hippocrates Awards Anthology; and Merrimac Mic Anthology II: Going with the Floes, 2016; Merrimac Mic Anthology III: The River Widens, 2017. Her art and poetry is in Merrimac Mic Anthology IV: Watershed, 2018; and Merrimac Mic Takes the Fifth: Anthology V, 2019, edited by Isabell VanMerlin.
Her awards include the Robert Frost Poetry Award; commendation in the FPM-Hippocrates Health Professional Prize for Poetry and Medicine; first prize in the 2019 Rockport Poetry Festival Ekphrastic Poetry contest; Lesley University MFA in Writing President’s Award in 2017-19; honorable mention in the 2014 Naomi Cherkofsky North Shore Chapter of the Mass Poetry Society Poetry Contest. Paulette earned her MFA in Writing at Lesley University, Cambridge, MA in June 2019.
Author photo: Greg Nikas Photography
Cover photo: Paulette Demers Turco
Paulette’s first poetry chapbook, In Silence, was published by Finishing Line Press in June 2018 (see back cover reviews under “Books”).
She reads her poetry at open mics and has performed as Emily Dickinson at the 2019 Rockport Poetry Festival. She has been a featured poet reader for: Herstory Stanzas, a celebration of American Women Poets at the Actor’s Studio in Newburyport in March 2018 and 2019, an event hosted by Rhina P. Espaillat and Deborah Szabo; at Creative Haverhill and Haverhill River Bards; the Boston National Poetry Month Festival at the Boston Public Library in Copley Square; the Annual Tapestry of Voices Collaborative Poetry Reading of the poetry of John Greenleaf Whittier at the Whittier Home, Amesbury, MA; Gibson’s Bookstore, Concord NH; Manchester by the Sea Public Library; Paula Estey Gallery as one of three poet artists, “The Three Muses: Poetry and Art”; Jabberwocky Bookstore, Newburyport, etc.
A retired optometrist, she enjoys being close to family, writing for young people, nature photography, and painting. She lives in Newburyport, MA.
Paulette Demers Turco 