Prosper Barter

Propser Barter grew up in Maine near Acadia National Park and spent her childhood in the woods, growing vegetables and reading books. She graduated from Bowdoin College and Emerson College with an MFA in creative writing and literature. Her poems have appeared in The Quarterly, The William and Mary Review, Sonora Review, Bowdoin Magazine, and The Lowell Pearl. After moving from Maine to Boston, she taught in area colleges, and through Pen New England and Reach out and Read, she helped bring books to children in hospitals. She is now an English teacher at the Weston Middle School. “My poems are concerned with the ordinary,” Barter says. “A conversation, a walk, a piece of music—experienced in an extraordinary way. This is what poetry is to me.”