Our South End Poet Laureate

Kendall Merriam, Rockland's Poet Laureate

Meet Our Poet Laureate

Kendall Merriam, of the Mechanic Street Merriams, was named poet laureate of Rockland earlier this spring during a Rockland Public Library event called “A Swarm of Poets.”

I reacquainted myself with Merriam a couple summers ago. He lived in the old South End neighborhood at the same time I did.

A well known poet of our time, Merriam recently wrote a play with Kitty Fassett, formerly of Waldoboro. The play, “Into the Forest,” is a dramatic reading in two acts and tells the story of Janina Dowbor-Musnicka Lewandowska, a Polish pilot, who was massacred in the Katyn Forest in Poland during World War II.

Although the play has already been presented at the Damariscotta Public Library at this printing, you can still see it at the Lincoln Street Center for Arts and Education on September 24 and 25 at 7:30 p.m.

You may find Merriam himself at the Sail, Power, and Steam Museum where he sometimes volunteers. The museum is just across the street from him down on Mechanic Street. He may even give you a private reading of one of his poems which he did for me one day.

Rockland, and especially the South End, is very proud that Kendall Merriam lives among us. Poets often have the pulse of the communities they live in. Merriam is no exception.