Poet Laureate Schedule
AUGUST 8, 2026 Poetry reading as part of The Mystic Arts Festival’s outdoor entertainment stage program, which will also include classical, Broadway show, and folk-rock music. Program starts at 5:00 p.m. Mystic River Park serves as venue. Seating on the lawn by the river. Picnics welcome. Admission free.
OCTOBER 4, 2026 MCing a community poetry reading as part of the James Merrill Centennial, hosted by James Merril House. Poetry starts at 3:00 p.m. at La Grua Center in Stonington Borough. Admission free.
Christie Max Williams
Poet Laureate of Stonington
Christie Max Williams is a poet and actor. He is also the inaugural Poet Laureate of Stonington. His recent poetry collection, The Wages of Love, won the William Meredith Poetry Prize and North Street Book Prize. His poetry has been published in journals, magazines, and anthologies, and has won the Grolier Prize and Connecticut River Review Prize and was a finalist for the National Poetry Series. He co-founded and for many years directed The Arts Café Mystic, which is in its 35th year of presenting America’s best poets and New England’s finest musicians. He has worked as a leading actor on stage and screen in California, New York, and Connecticut. He also worked as a fruit vendor in Paris, a salmon fisherman in Alaska, a consultant on Wall Street, a writer for the National Audubon Society, a wine grape harvester in Chateauneuf du Pape, and in leadership posts for non-profit organizations in whose causes he believes. Though originally from California and then New York City, he now lives in Mystic Connecticut, where he and his wife raised their daughter and son.
The Poet Laureate of Stonington is both an honorary and functional position. In part, it represents the Town of Stonington’s acknowledgement of the importance of poetry in the life of the town. It also represents a unique opportunity for the Poet Laureate to use poetry to touch the lives of the people who live in and around Stonington. Christie Max Williams has made it his mission as the inaugural Poet Laureate to serve as an ambassador of poetry – in particular to bring poetry to people and places that aren’t often, if ever, touched by it – to inspire and move people in every corner of our fair town.
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