Laurie Byro

Laurie Byro has been facilitating “Circle of Voices” poetry discussion in New Jersey libraries for over 25 years. Laurie has garnered more IBPC awards (InterBoard Poetry Community) than any other poet, stopping at 60. She began competing in 2002 and was named "Poet of the Decade" for work produced between 2000-2010. She had two books of poetry published in 2015: Luna (Aldrich Press) and Gertrude Stein's Salon and Other Legends (Blue Horse Press). A chapbook was published in 2016, Wonder (Little Lantern Press) out of Wales. She received a 2016 New Jersey Poet's Prize for the first poem in the Stein collection and received a NJ Poetry Prize for a poem in: "The Bloomsberries and Other Curiosities" by Kelsay Books. Laurie had a 5th book published "La Dogaressa & Other Poems" (Cowboy Buddha Press.) "D'eux & Other Sorrows" by Cowboy Buddha Press, poems about Vincent Van Gogh and Isadora Duncan among others was published in 2019. Laurie's collection "Hopeless Romance" was published in 2021 by Cholla Needles Arts and Literary Library, followed by Zeus's Wives & Other Goddesses (Dancing Girl Press) and New & Selected, both published in 2023. Laurie was a travel agent for 24 years, a librarian for 14 years. She has traveled widely, most recently Italy, Greece, and Provence and has used these explorations in order to write her "Salon" poems having visited the places these events took place. She refers to her Salon poems as "historical poetry." Laurie is currently Poet in Residence at the Albert Wisner Public Library where "Circle of Voices" continues to meet and Pacem in Terris, Warwick New York. She is proud to say her artist husband, Michael Byro, has created all the paintings that grace the covers of her books. D'eux has 8 pages of his paintings of Van Gogh in pointillism.