Geof Hewitt
Filed under: Authors
In 1966, his senior year at Cornell University, Geof Hewitt started The Kumquat Press to self-publish a pamphlet of his poems, Poem & Other Poems. His little press followed up with three issues of Kumquat (a poetry magazine), a series of letterpress poetry broadsides, and Sphinx, a pamphlet of poems by the outsider poet Alfred Starr Hamilton. From 1970-2000 the press lay dormant until, discouraged by a series of rejections, he revived the press to publish Only What's Imagined. The Vermont Arts Council awarded him $500, which he used to hire a designer, Maureen O'Connor Burgess, and his mentor/friend, the late poet Hayden Carruth, wrote the book's introduction and sent a check to support printing costs.
Prior to Only What's Imagined, Hewitt had published Stone Soup (Ithaca House, 1974) and Just Worlds (Ithaca House/The Greenfield Review Press, 1989). Since the year-2000 publication of Only What's Imagined, he has published Hewitt's Guide to Slam Poetry and Poetry Slam (Discover Writing Press, 2005), The Perfect Heart: Selected & New Poems (Mayapple Press, 2010) and a chapbook, Affordable Poems, Alternative Facts (Brown Fedora Books, 2019). The Kumquat Press has fallen dormant again, but its staff still distributes copies of Only What's Imagined ($15 postpaid, check payable to Geof Hewitt and mailed to P.O. Box 51, Calais, VT 05648).
Born in New Jersey, Hewitt has lived in Vermont since 1970, where he has worked for the state arts council and for the Vermont Department of Education. Now retired, he is the state's reigning poetry-slam champion and offers writing and performance workshops throughout the state. He and his wife Janet Lind have two grown children and two adult grandsons.
Winning Entry: Only What’s Imagined
Contest Won: North Street Book Prize 2023, First Prize
