Who We Are

Eloise Bruce, Juditha Dowd, Lois Marie Harrod, Betty Lies, Judy Michaels, Sharon Olson, Penelope Scambly Schott, Maxine Susman, Gretna Wilkinson.

Cool Women, a poetry critique group founded in 1997 by Carolyn Foote Edelmann and Betty Lies, has been performing since Valentine’s Day, 2000. Known for their sassy poetry readings from Princeton, New Jersey, to Portland, Oregon, they have been called “bold, insightful and provocative” as well as “zesty, protean and prodigious.” Terry Blackhawk writes “the weaving of poetic voices is remarkable, raising a single luminous canopy” above its separate authors. Although each poet has her own strong voice, Cool Women think of themselves as a group in which the communal enriches the individual.