About

Leonore

 

LEONORE HILDEBRANDT grew up in Hamburg, Germany, and moved to eastern-most Maine in the 1980s. She and her husband Robert Froese built a solar home, planted vegetables and fruit trees, and raised their lovely daughters. More recently, they have been spending the winter in Silver City, NM.

Leonore Hildebrandt is the author of the poetry collections The Work at Hand (Deerbrook Editions, 2018), The Next Unknown (Pecan Grove Press, 2014) and Where You Happen to Be (Letterpress chapbook, University of Maine, 2011). Her poems and translations have appeared in the Cafe Review, Cerise Press, the Cimarron Review, Denver Quarterly,  Harpur Palate, Poetry Daily, Rhino, Salzburg Poetry Review, and the Sugar House Review, among other journals. She was nominated several times for a Pushcart Prize. Winner of the 2013 Gemini Poetry Contest, she received fellowships from the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Maine Community Foundation, and the Maine Arts Commission. Leonore serves on the editorial board of the Beloit Poetry Journal.

As a musician and songwriter, Leonore has performed locally in various ensembles and venues, most often as part of a folk duo with Brian Dyer Stewart. They play original music with a jazzy flair, and have recorded several CDs.

Upward Spiral is an anthology of poems by four Silver City women. Shelly Barnett, Leonore Hildebrandt, Pamela Warren Williams, and Lynne Zotalis. Its theme “spiraling upward” speaks to the momentum of transformative thought. Exploring the elements of Air, Fire, Water and Earth, the poems evoke the forces of the natural world, instilling both love and concern for our future. More information here.
"Centers of Balance" in Plant Human Quarterly with an Artist Statement. "Shapeshifter" in The Cafe Review.  "Look for the Girl with the Sun in Her Eyes" in the Hamilton Stone Review. "Threads" in Ninth Letter.  "The Younger Brother" in Wordrunner eChapbooks. “Twists on a Topographic Map” and “What Kind of Renewal?” Comstock Review.
Book banning limits freedom of speech. PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans lists 2,532 instances of individual books being banned. My poem "Banned Books" talks about some of them. Here is a recording. Thanks to Howie Richie, who recorded it for his Poetry Bread show on Mimbres Community Radio, and to Linda Anderson, who taught us how to make cartonera books from recycled cardboard.