In the early morning hours looking out over the Halemaumau crater at the summit of Kileauea, the Hawaiian goddess Pele makes her presence felt. The chill morning air is not the only source of goose bumps on my arms; it is her power and her beauty reflected in the steam rising from the crater, the sharp points of stars in the sky letting me know the vastness of the universe, the quiet whispers in my ears that I am nothing, I am one with everything. I am moved by the living breath of the earth.
–Meg Weston
Meg Weston’s poetry expresses a passion for geological processes that shape the earth and the stories that shape our lives. Her obsession with volcanoes can been seen in her photographs. After receiving an MFA in Creative Writing in creative non-fiction from Lesley University in 2008, she began to focus on and study the craft of poetry. Her first poetry collection, Magma Intrusions, was published in May 2023 by Kelsay Books, a collaborative work with Margaret Haberman, To the Point and Back: Swimming Poems was released in May 2024. Her poems have appeared in Hawaii Pacific Review, The Red Fez, The Mountain Troubadour, and other anthologies and publications, and in a chapbook, Letters from the White Queen.
“When you look back on a lifetime and think of what has been given to the world by your presence, your fugitive presence, inevitably you think of your art, whatever it may be, as the gift you have made to the world in acknowledgment of the gift you have been given, which is the life itself…That work is not an expression of the desire for praise or recognition, or prizes, but the deepest manifestation of your gratitude for the gift of life.”
–Stanley Kunitz
Meg is the co-founder and director of The Poets Corner and co-founder/co-director of the Camden Festival of Poetry. The Poets Corner, now four years old with over 4,500 members from around the world, hosts both emerging and celebrated poets for monthly readings over Zoom. She’s hosted Richard Blanco, Ellen Bass, Rick Barot, Naomi Shihab Nye, Pádraig Ó Tuama, Spencer Reese, and in Autumn 2024, will welcome Billy Collins.
In January 2020, Weston retired after 8 years as president of Maine Media College in Rockport, Maine. She previously held various leadership positions in the field of imaging, education, and journalism including President of the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, President of the University of Southern Maine Foundation, President of Konica Corporation, and Chair of the Board of the University of Maine Board of Trustees.