Poet Kate Hanson Foster of Groton learned today that her book “Mid Drift” from Loom Press was selected as one of the best collections of poetry published in Massachusetts in 2011. Mass Book Awards are for books by Massachusetts authors or about Massachusetts. The book is on the “Must-Reads” list with other works of fiction, non-fiction, and children’s literature and will be featured on a colorful poster being sent to every public library in the state by the Massachusetts Center for the Book, which administers the annual Mass Book Awards. Congratulations to Kate. You can order the book at www.loompress.com

Kate is a graduate of UMass Lowell and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the Bennington Writing Seminars. Her poetry has appeared in California Quarterly, Poet Lore, and elsewhere. Poet Amy Gerstler wrote that Kate’s poems “move with meticulous grace,” and poet Major Jackson commented that “she is a lyrical thinker who makes thinking sensuous and alluring. Consider yourself lucky to read her poems.” Many of the poems in this collection are set in Lowell and evoke a complex setting of pain and redemption, a place whose people find the courage to move forward even when the path is undefined.