Shanna Compton is a painter, poet, and printmaker in Blue Hill, ME. She is the author of five books of poems—Creature Sounds Fade (Black Lawrence Press), Midwinter Constellation (coauthor, Black Lawrence Press), Brink (Bloof Books), For Girls & Other Poems (Bloof Books), Down Spooky (Winnow Press)—and one of collages, Deep Whoosh (Black Square Editions). Her poems have appeared in publications such as the Nation, American Poetry Review, the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day series, Court Green, Bennington Review, Black Warrior Review, Typo, and The Best American Poetry anthology series.
As a visual artist, she works in acrylic, mixed media, collage, and various printmaking techniques. She exhibits her work regularly around Maine, including a solo show at Anodyne in June 2025, and group shows at galleries such as Sidle House (Freeport), Buoy Gallery (Kittery), Craignair Gallery (Spruce Head), Maine Art Gallery (Wiscasset), and the Art Gallery at the Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuge (Rockland). She is currently showing in Dreaming at Dawn, an exhibition of the Union of Maine Visual Artists in Bangor, through September 30. In October, she will be part of WORD.ART, the visual art exhibition of the Word Festival, at Cynthia Winings Gallery in Blue Hill.