A Line Meant

Winner of Best Poetry Anthology at the 2025 Best Book Awards

In A Line Meant, the first of several planned community poetry projects, Poet Laureate of Wisconsin Dasha Kelly Hamilton has solicited cosmopolitan voices from across the state, gathering work from established poets to farmers, retirees, inmates, and more. Starting with single lines of existing poetry, participants have not only crafted their own unique works, but have also shared their poems and insights with each other as a form of connective tissue. Like a tree from many roots, this collection threads together the professional and hobbyist poet, growing new, powerful art from the margins between.

Dasha Kelly Hamilton is a writer, performance artist, and creative change agent. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University, and has authored award-winning poetry, essays, and fiction. She voices audiobooks, is a mainstage storyteller and host with The Moth, is an alum of HBO's Def Poetry Jam, and is Poet Laureate Emerita for both the City of Milwaukee and the State of Wisconsin. Dasha is currently working on the release of two novels in 2025: Baker's Dozen (Jaded Ibis Press) and a tenth anniversary reprint of Almost Crimson (Curbside Splendor), which BuzzFeed named as one of the "16 of the Most Exciting Books of 2015 by Independent Publishers."