Martha Duncan

Martha Duncan was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and for the past 47 years, has lived in California, Massacusetts, and Maine.

She has published three chapbooks Just Enough Springs, Being and Breakfast, and Beanblossom and is working on two memoirs. Their working titles are Grocery Girl and Just Like a Mother. Her poems have appeared in Puckerbrush Review, Aputamkon Review, and Four Zoas Night House Anthology. Her short story "Grandmother's Funeral" was chosen for the I Thought My Father Was God collection sponsored by the NPR National Story Project. Recently, her poem "Abortion, 1968" was accepted by Grandmothers for Reproductive Rights. In the 1980's, her book project A Goal of Life, about her experiences in urban adult learning and literacy, was accepted as part of her Master's Degree in Adult and Community Education. She has written articles on women and literacy and other topics for The Change Agent, a publication of The New England Literacy Resource Center in Boston and has also published poems in the newsletter of the Blue Hill Food Co-op, The Harvest Herald.

At WERU, a local radio station, Duncan collaborated with programmers to create two poetry/jazz sessions. As an adult and community educator in Boston and in Sullivan, Maine, she worked for 30 years with students from the U.S. and 47 other countries. In the early 2000's, she hosted writing groups at The Parker Ridge Retirement Community, and for a couple of years, led poetry workshops at the Sedgwick Elementary School.

She received a B.A. from The University of Massachusetts and an M.Ed. from Lesley College in Cambridge.