Bertha Rogers, named First Poet Laureate of Delaware County, New York, in March 2005, is a poet, translator, visual artist, and master teaching artist.

 

More than 250 of her poems and critical reviews have appeared in such journals as Many Mountains Moving, The MacGuffin, Connecticut Review, Laurel Review, Karamu, Nimrod, Chelsea, Pivot, Yankee, and Barrow Street; and in several anthologies.

 

Her poetry collections include Sleeper, You Wake (Mellen, 1991), The Fourth Beast (Snark Publishing, 2004), For the Girl Buried in the Peat Bog (Six Swans Artists Editions, 1999), and A House of Corners, winner of the Maryland State Poetry Society and Review Competition (Three Conditions Press, Baltimore, 2000). Her translation of the Anglo-Saxon epic, Beowulf, was published in 2000 by Birch Brook Press, Delhi, NY, and her interdisciplinary Beowulf exhibit with readings and workshops toured the U.S. from 2000-2002.

 

In 2005, Bertha published Even the Hemlock, a collection of words and images from her "Even the Hemlock: Reliquaries and Illuminations" exhibit, traveling throughout New York since 2003. The exhibit and book were funded through grants from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts Decentralization Grant Program.

 

She has also received a fellowship from the AE Foundation. Her word-and-image works are in the Harry Ransom Collection, the University of Texas and other public and private collections. In 2007 her exhibit "The Stones & Bones of Delaware County" was awarded a NYSCA grant and was exhibited in museums and galleries in Delaware County, NY and at the Hamilton Club Gallery, Paterson, NY (March-April 2008).

 

In 2009, her exhibit, "Riddle Me This: The Anglo-Saxon Riddle-Poems Translated for Our Time and Place," received a New York State Council on the Arts Decentralization Program grant and toured Delaware County, opening at the Elijah Thomas Gallery, Delaware County Historical Association Museum in Delhi; then traveling to the historic Hanford Mills Museum in East Meredith.

 

Bertha is one of the original members of the Festival and this is her seventh Festival as a participating writer.  She will be offering the Writing INTENSIVE Workshop “EXPANDING IDEAS: Words into poems into artist books”.