Toussaint St. Negritude is the winner of the 2025 Firebird Award for the collection of poems Mountain Spells [Rootstock Publishing 2024]. A former Poet Laureate of Belfast, Maine, and 2024 Nominee for Poet Laureate of Vermont, poet, bass clarinetist, and composer Toussaint St. Negritude conjures whole liberations in full tempo. US Poet Laureate Gwendolyn Brooks described his work as "full of sweet sounds and surprises." Writer Xenia Turner, of Burlington's 7 Days weekly, declares him as "A Preacher of Jazz Influenced Gospel." Originally from San Francisco, he has lived and broadly thrived across the African Diaspora, from the sacred mountains of Haiti to the Coltrane District of North Philadelphia. He, along with bassist Gahlord Dewald, is the leader of the band Jaguar Stereo!, a free-form ensemble of his own poetry and improvisational jazz, and his works have been widely published and recorded for over 40 years. He is also an avid educator, annually teaching poetry for the Governor's Institute of the Arts, among other institutions. On an alpine sanctuary facing east, Toussaint St. Negritude continues to thrive in the farthest elevations of Vermont's Northeast Kingdom.