{{Short description|American writer}} {{Use mdy dates|date=May 2026}} {{Infobox writer | name = Gary Lawless | embed = | honorific_prefix = | honorific_suffix = | image = | image_size = | image_upright = | alt = | caption = | native_name = | native_name_lang = | pseudonym = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1951}} | birth_place = Belfast, Maine, U.S. | death_date = | death_place = | resting_place = | occupation = poet, writer | language = English | citizenship = | education = | alma_mater = Colby College | period = | genre = | subject = | movement = | notableworks = | influences = | influenced = | spouse = Beth Leonard | relations = | children = | years_active = | module = | website = <!-- {{URL|example.org}} --> | portaldisp = <!-- "on", "yes", "true", etc; or omit --> | signature = }}
'''Gary Lawless''' (born 1951) is an American poet and businessperson from Maine. He has written and published several collections of poems, and has owned Gulf of Maine Books, in Brunswick, Maine, since 1979.
== Early life == Lawless was born in 1951 in Belfast, Maine, to Richard "Jake" Lawless and Ruth Dow.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ruth Lawless Obituary {{!}} 1916 - 2011 {{!}} Bangor Daily News |url=https://obituaries.bangordailynews.com/obituary/ruth-lawless-804377631 |access-date=2026-05-19 |website=obituaries.bangordailynews.com |language=en}}</ref> Growing up, he got to know "local eccentric", poet Bern Porter.<ref name=":3" /> Lawless graduated from Colby College in Waterville, Maine, in 1973. He spent the following year studying with poet Gary Snyder in California,<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=A Maine Writer: Maine State Library |url=https://www.maine.gov/msl/maine/writdisplay.shtml?id=94856 |access-date=2026-05-19 |website=www.maine.gov}}</ref> where he met writers and political activists such as Jerry Brown and Daniel Ellsberg.<ref name=":3" /> Lawless and Snyder lived in the Sierra Nevada mountains.<ref name=":3" />
== Career == thumb|Gulf of Maine Books (2026) In 1979,<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |title=Gary Lawless: A Life in Literature, Activism, and Islands - Island Institute |url=https://www.islandinstitute.org/island-journal/gary-lawless-a-life-in-literature-activism-and-islands/ |access-date=2026-05-19 |website=www.islandinstitute.org |language=en-US}}</ref> Lawless became co-founder (with his now-wife) of Gulf of Maine Books, a bookstore on Maine Street in Brunswick, Maine.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Humphrey |first=Jack |date=2020-01-17 |title=Rewilding Leadership Council Member Gary Lawless |url=https://rewilding.org/rewilding-leadership-council-member-gary-lawless/ |access-date=2026-05-19 |website=Rewilding |language=en-US}}</ref> He also established Blackberry Books, a publishing company.<ref name=":1" /> Before opening his own bookstore, he worked the register at Bookland in Lewiston, Maine,<ref name=":4">{{Cite web |date=2019-01-18 |title=Five Questions: Gary Lawless, owner of Gulf of Maine Books |url=https://www.pressherald.com/2019/01/18/five-questions-gary-lawless-owner-of-gulf-of-maine-books/ |access-date=2026-05-19 |website=The Portland Press Herald |language=en-US}}</ref> and then at Cook's Corner.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |title=Why Brunswick?: Gary Lawless and Beth Leonard – The Bowdoin Orient |url=https://bowdoinorient.com/2026/04/10/why-brunswick-gary-lawless-and-beth-leonard/ |access-date=2026-05-19 |website=bowdoinorient.com}}</ref> It was at the first location where his manager, poet James Koller,<ref name=":4" /> taught him the basics of book publishing.<ref name=":3" />
In 1987, Lawless organized a Gulf of Maine Bioregional Congress, a four-day focus on workshops and presentations with people from northern New England and eastern Canada.<ref name=":1" />
Lawless has been poet-in-residence of Sitka, Alaska, and for the National Park Service at Isle Royale National Park at Lake Superior.<ref name=":1" />
He is an associate professor of literature at Bates College in Lewiston.<ref name=":1" />
Lawless is a member of the Rewilding Institute for a Wilder World leadership council.<ref name=":0" />
== Personal life == [[File:NobleboroME ChimneyFarm.jpg|thumb|Lawless and his wife live at Chimney Farm in Nobleboro, Maine]] Lawless is married to Beth Leonard, a native of Brunswick whom he met when she was a customer at Bookland.<ref name=":2" /> They are caretakers of Chimney Farm,<ref name=":3" /> a property formerly owned by Henry Beston and Elizabeth Coatsworth in Nobleboro, Maine, near Damariscotta Lake.<ref name=":0" /> They were alerted to its availability by future Maine poet laureate Kate Barnes, a customer at Gulf of Maine and daughter of Coatsworth, in 1987.<ref name=":2" /> Barnes died in 2023, and left Chimney Farm―now listed on the National Register of Historic Places—and its land to Lawless and Leonard.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Hayes |first=Emily |date=2021-11-29 |title=Characters of the County: How a Nobleboro Resident Became a Popular Poet in Italy |url=https://lcnme.com/opinion/columns/characters-of-the-county-how-a-nobleboro-resident-became-a-popular-poet-in-italy/ |access-date=2026-05-19 |website=The Lincoln County News |language=en-US}}</ref>
In 2017, Lawless was awarded the Constance H. Carlson Public Humanities Prize, the Maine Humanities Council's top honor, for his work in "bringing poetry and the creative process to the people of Maine, his commitment to helping Mainers of every background find their voice, and his ardent devotion to the environment and to all those that inhabit it."<ref name=":3" />
{{As of|2019}}, the couple had attended the Common Ground Country Fair, in Unity, Maine, for 39 consecutive years (25 of which were as its social and political focus area).<ref name=":2" />
Lawless is also a musician. He plays bass guitar for the Leopard Girls.<ref name=":3" />
== Selected works == Below is a selection from Lawless's biblioography:<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last= |first= |last2= |first2= |last3= |first3= |date=2018 |title=Lawless (Gary) Papers, 1970-2010 |url=https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/findingaids/386 |journal=University of Maine |language=en}}</ref> * ''Full Flower Moon'' (1975) * ''Gulf of Maine: A Blackberry Reader'' (1977) * ''Poems for the Wild Earth'' (1994) * ''In Ruins'' (2002) * ''Caribou Planet'' (2015)<ref>{{Cite web |date=2017-01-22 |title=Poems from Gary Lawless’ ‘Caribou Planet’ (2015) |url=https://www.pressherald.com/2017/01/22/poems-from-gary-lawless-caribou-planet-2015-2/ |access-date=2026-05-19 |website=The Portland Press Herald |language=en-US}}</ref> * ''How the Stones Came to Venice'' (2021) He also edited and published Japanese poet Nanao Sakak<nowiki/>i's collected poems ''Let's Eat Stars'' (1997) and ''How to Live in the Planet Earth'' (2013). They was published on Lawless's Blackberry Books.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Gary Lawless |url=https://www.thepoetscorner.org/writers/gary-lawless |access-date=2026-05-19 |website=The Poets Corner |language=en-US}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist|30em}}
==External links== *[https://wpsites.maine.edu/20poets/poets/poets-l-z/gary-lawless/ Lawless reading excerpts of his poems] – University of Maine
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Lawless, Gary}} Category:1951 births Category:Living people Category:People from Belfast, Maine Category:20th-century American poets Category:21st-century American poets Category:Poets from Maine Category:Writers from Maine Category:Colby College alumni Category:Bates College faculty Category:Musicians from Maine Category:American bass guitarists