Crow Milk

You might say crows watched over me,
taking turns walking the rails of my crib,
singing
heads bobbing
black throats rippling…

At sunrise they carried me wild purple grapes.
We shared black raspberries on the thorn
in the evening… a mesh of sugar in our voices
wove us loosely into a family.

Rick Agran

For the last two and a half decades I’ve made my way in the world in a variety of roles: poet and image-maker, college professor, elementary school literacy specialist, photographer, radio producer, humanist and educator, social justice advocate, multimedia journalist and fine arts reporter.

My books include Pumpkin Shivaree, a picture book for children, and a collection of poems entitled Crow Milk. I co-edited Under the Legislature of Stars: 62 New Hampshire Poets which includes national poets laureate Charles Simic, Donald Hall and Maxine Kumin. My poems are anthologized in the Great Poems American Places, edited by Garrison Keillor, the Poetry Society of NH’s Poets Guide to NH, Portsmouth Unabridged: New Poems for an Old City, and American Poetry: The Next Generation.

I’ve taught artists and students (from 7 to 70 years old) to write for many years at the New Hampshire Institute of Art, The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Heartwood College of Art, and in the Vermont and NH State College systems. I spent three years as Poet in Residence at Plymouth State University.

I produce and host Bon Mot, a weekly radio program dedicated to poetry, spoken word, the literary arts, and all things word-inspired at WGDR.org, worldwide. We’re terrestrial radio as well at 91.1 FM in Plainfield and further north in Vermont at 91.7 FM in Hardwick.  We are now known as Central Vermont Community Radio in Plainfield, Vermont, broadcasting from the campus of Goddard College. Goddard passed us the torch, transferring their license to our community non-profit in May 2021. We remain a committed, community, educational, radio station.