Grad Student Named Bucks County Poet Laureate

Madeline Marriott, MA ’26, has been a writer for as long as she could remember.

As a child, she crafted stories from the family’s desktop computer in the basement. Reading and writing were natural hobbies for her, picked up from her dad, who studied English in college and passed on his love of William Shakespeare and other great writers.

Recently, Marriott was named Bucks County Poet Laureate. At 23 years old, she is the second-youngest person to be honored in the contest’s 49 year history, according to a news release from Bucks County Community College, which sponsors the award. A poet laureate is honored for their achievement as one of the most influential poets in their region.

“I feel very lucky to live in a place that cares about art and poetry and supports it,” Marriott says. “I feel honored to be considered with these poets and have a chance to share my work and represent my hometown.”

Marriott was introduced to poetry in high school and enjoyed it when she was in college as a respite from her role as the editor of the student newspaper. While she enjoys all forms of writing, poetry became a creative outlet and a foil to newspaper writing, she says.

At first, she says, she was hesitant to share her work, which is often vulnerable and personal. Ultimately, she decided to enter the Bucks County poet laureate contest for the first time last year, reasoning that the possibility of winning is a bad excuse not to enter. Marriott was named a runner up in last year’s competition. 

“I went to the ceremony, got the chance to read a little bit, meet more people in the local poetry community, and I knew I wanted to enter again,” she says. “I had generated a lot of work I was really proud of in my workshop, and I decided to enter it.”

After earning her undergraduate degree in English from Lafayette College in 2024, Marriott decided to enroll in the Writing Studies MA program at Saint Joseph’s University to continue to explore writing in various genres. 

“I grew up going to St. Joe’s basketball games and hearing all about it, and this program seemed like the best place to do that, and it seemed like the most flexible place to do that,” she says. “Being online and being able to work as well was important to me. It’s exceeded all my expectations.”

Marriott attends classes online while working as a freelance writer and at her local independent bookseller, Newtown Bookshop. She’s also a staff writer for the University’s Office of Marketing and Communications.

For the contest, Marriott submitted a portfolio of 10 poems, many of which were finished this past summer in her poetry workshop taught by Kay Cosgrove, PhD, an instructor in the Writing Studies graduate program. 

“My cohort of classmates is such a great group to generate work with,” Marriott says. “Workshop classes can be cutthroat and kind of stressful, and my classmates have a way of giving constructive and real feedback in a way that’s supportive and meets the work where it is, which I’m grateful for.”

Cosgrove says that Marriott’s poetry has several qualities that set her work apart. She quickly noticed that Marriott has a command of form, so Cosgrove asked her to speak to the class about line breaks.

“She is a master of the shock, the gut punch in the poem, and sometimes it’s just a simple line,” Cosgrove says. “She really speaks to, what we say in poetry, the ineffable. She’s able, through her metaphor and imagery, to put into words the human experience that is really difficult to articulate.”

To be named a poet laureate is a title that Cosgrove says she is not surprised to see associated with a remarkable poet like Marriott. 

“It’s a real honor to be named such and to be able to be a voice of the community,” she says. “You get to be a keeper of the culture, which I think is super exciting.”

Marriott says that throughout her year as the poet laureate, she hopes to promote poetry at her local school district.

“I’m excited for the year of poetry,” she says. 

On Writing

Marriott typically writes every day. In true English major fashion, she jokes, she does not write about anything in particular. For roughly an hour, she writes by hand in her journal about anything that comes to mind – her feelings that day or beautiful things she saw.

“I don’t set out to write about something, I set out to evoke a feeling,” she says. “The text of the poem is likely autobiographical to me or my experience, but the feeling of the poem is the reader’s own experience.”

What comes out on the page is “a thought dump,” she says, followed by any metaphors or imagery that come to her. She says she likes to hand write every part of her thought process, even parts she knows she will remove later. 

Next comes arranging her words, a process she described as putting together a puzzle to figure out what goes where and what is missing. Oftentimes that is a catching opening or closing line to draw readers in. 

She seeks feedback from fellow poets, whether at Saint Joseph’s, in her poetry group at the bookstore or friends.

“I become attached to the work and I need a little bit of space from it, or I need a bit of outside perspective on it” Marriott says.