Jeri Theriault

Jeri Theriault is a Franco-American, Maine native who grew up in Waterville and attending Colby College. She also holds degrees from USM (Instructional Leadership) and Vermont College of Fine Arts (Poetry). She taught English for thirty-four years, and also conducted workshops and professional development seminars.

Some of her publishing credits include: The Beloit Poetry Journal, Rhino, Rattle, Juked, The Texas Review, The Asheville Poetry Review and The American Journal of Poetry. Her work has been included in several anthologies, including: French Connections: A Gathering of Franco-American Poets, Orpheus and Company, Contemporary Poems on Greek Mythology, and The Return of Kral Majales, Prague’s International Literary Renaissance, 1990-2010 and Balancing Act: An Anthology of Poetry by Fifty Maine Women.

She has three chapbooks: In the Museum of Surrender, winner of the 2013 Encircle Chapbook Competition, Catholic (2002, Pudding House Publications) and Corn Dance (1994 first runner-up in the William and Kingsley Page Chapbook Competition). Her full collection, Radost, my red was published by Moon Pie Press in 2016. More recently, she edited an anthology, Wait: Poems from the Pandemic (Littoral Books, 2021).

A Fulbright recipient, Jeri spent a year (1998-99) teaching in Prague where she published a dual-language chapbook, East of Monhegan. She returned to Prague in 2002 and spent six years as English department chair at the International School of Prague.

Some recent achievements: She was a finalist for the William Matthews Poetry Prize (2019), a finalist for the Desert Pavilion Chapbook Series (2020), and the third-place winner in the Nâkim Hizmet Poetry Contest (2020). She was also winner of the Maine Literary Award for poetry (short works) in 2019.

Some of Jeri’s influences include her French-Catholic background, her love and connection to Prague as well as her lifelong affinity for classical mythology. As a practicing collage artist, Jeri also feels a strong inclination toward the visual. She connects her love of pattern, color and texture to the fabric work of her maternal grandmother. Theriault’s visual art, vivid with bright color, makes use of scrap-paper: junk mail, discarded magazines, tissue paper, old coffee cups.

Jeri now lives in South Portland with her husband, the composer, Philip Carlsen.