The Massachusetts Poetry Festival 2016: Full Schedule

1:15pm EDT

Perspectives on the Short Poem

In a reading/discussion, four colleagues at Suffolk University--David Ferry, Fred Marchant, Dan Carey, and Jenny Barber—will read some of their own very short poems as they examine the ways that intense focus on a single moment or on a very few moments can suggest a larger framework. They will also discuss how specific stanza shapes and line-lengths, and the use of the white space surrounding the poem on the page, can spread a wider horizon of meaning and feeling.

Moderators

Fred Marchant

Emeritus Professor of English, Suffolk University

Fred Marchant has authored five books of poetry, the most recent of which, Said Not Said, was named an Honored Book by the Massachusetts Book Awards. He has edited Another World Instead: The Early Poetry of William Stafford, and, co-translated (with Nguyen Ba Chung) works by several... Read More →

Speakers

Jennifer Barber

Scholar in Residence/Editor, Suffolk/Salamander

Jennifer Barber teaches literature and creative writing at Suffolk University in Boston, where she is also founding and current editor of the literary journal Salamander. Her poetry collections are Works on Paper, which received the 2015 Tenth Gate Prize (The Word Works, 2106), and... Read More →

Dan Carey

David Ferry

Friday April 29, 2016 1:15pm - 2:15pm EDT
Salem Five Community Room 210 Essex Street, Salem, Massachusetts

Group Reading

1:15pm EDT

College Slammers

Spoken word is thriving on today’s college campuses, and it is changing the way poetry is written, taught, and understood. This program features college slammers from Salem State University and Merrimack College, students who are tapping into the spoken word movement to express, explore and assert identity, as well as to engage with the political and social issues of the day. Come check out some dynamic performances and get a first hand look at the Massachusetts college poetry scene in action.

Moderators

Kevin Carey

Kevin Carey is Coordinator of Creative Writing at Salem State University. Books include: The Beach People (2014), The One Fifteen to Penn Station (2012), Jesus Was a Homeboy (2016) which was an Honor book for the Paterson Literary Prize, & Set in Stone (2020). His poems have appeared... Read More →

Danielle Jones

Danielle Jones holds an M.F.A. in poetry from the University of Massachusetts Boston, and is assistant director of the Writers House. Her poems have appeared in Best New Poets 2014, Beloit Poetry Journal, Southern Poetry Review, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of a 2014 Rona... Read More →

Friday April 29, 2016 1:15pm - 2:15pm EDT
Old Town Hall 2nd Fl 32 Derby Square, Salem, MA 01970

Group Reading Performance

2:30pm EDT

Gail Mazur and Joyce Peseroff: New Books from Common Threads Poets

2012 Common Threads poets Gail Mazur and Joyce Peseroff read from their new collections, Forbidden City and Know Thyself. Forbidden City, Gail Mazur's seventh book of poems, builds a meditative structure upon the elements of mortality and art. At the collection’s heart is the poet’s long marriage to the artist Michael Mazur (1935–2009). The Judges' Citation for the 2001 National Book Award praises Mazur as “Colloquial as well as eloquent, pitch-perfect no matter how delicate her material…Full of warmth, humor, and a dry-eyed toughness, her work is a superb personal and civic achievement.” Know Thyself, Peseroff's fifth book of poems, teases the nature of self-knowledge from a world where identity is fluid, character fragmented, landscape overwhelmed, and culture riven. As Donald Hall writes, "She brings up together with down, as the human psyche does--and as poetry must do to be true and beautiful together."

Moderators

Joyce Peseroff

My fifth book of poems, Know Thyself, is available from Carnegie Mellon University Press. I have poems forthcoming in Consequence, New Ohio Review, and Plume. I'm reading with Gail Mazur at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival Friday, April 29, at 2:30 pm.

Speakers

Gail Mazur

GAIL MAZUR is author of seven books of poems, including Forbidden City, Figures in a Landscape, Zeppo’s First Wife, winner of the Massachusetts book Prize and finalist for the LA Times Book Prize; and They Can’t Take That Away from Me, finalist for the National Book Award. She... Read More →

Friday April 29, 2016 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT
Salem Five Community Room 210 Essex Street, Salem, Massachusetts

Group Reading

2:30pm EDT

The Bravest Women in the World: Afghan Women Speak Out Through Poetry

Founded in 2009 by American journalist Masha Hamilton, the Afghan Women’s Writing Project strives to give women the basic human right to tell their own stories – a right that has often been denied because of the long Taliban rule and the history of oppression in Afghan culture. Through online writing workshops led by international writers, educators, and journalists, AWWP empowers women in seven of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. For security reasons, the identities of the writers are not fully disclosed. Pat Mottola and Nancy Antle, who mentor Afghan women writers, joined by two Afghan writers, will read from Washing the Dust from our Hearts, a bilingual book (English and Dari) published by Grayson Books in cooperation with the Afghan Women’s Writers Project. Following the reading they will lead a discussion of the role of poetry as a “human right” and answer questions.

Moderators

Ginny Lowe Connors

publisher, Grayson Books

Ginny Lowe Connors is the author of a chapbook and four full-length poetry collections, the most recent of which is Without Goodbyes: From Puritan Deerfield to Mohawk Kahnawake(Turning Point, 2021). Her poetry collection Toward the Hanging Tree:Voices of Salem Village is described... Read More →

Speakers

Nancy Antle

Executive Mentor, English, Afghan Women's Writing Project

Nancy Antle wrote short stories, books and poems for children and young adults for 30 years. She started writing for an older audience when she earned her MFA in fiction writing in 2013. She's worked with AWWP since 2009 as a mentor/writing instructor and has recently moved into the... Read More →

Pat Mottola

Co-President, Connecticut Poetry Society

Award-winning poet and Pushcart Prize nominee Pat Mottola teaches Creative Writing at Southern Connecticut State University, where she earned both an M.S. in Art Education and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing. In addition to working with students at S.C.S.U., she is thrilled to teach... Read More →

Friday April 29, 2016 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT
Hawthorne Pickman Hawthorne Hotel, 18 Washington Square W, Salem, MA 01970

Group Reading

3:45pm EDT

North of Boston: Poetry from the Granite State

For five years, the Hobblebush Granite State Poetry Series has been dedicated to publishing New Hampshire poets who deserve a national audience. Although these poets differ in many ways—their upbringings, writing styles, ages (from 31 to 78), writing careers—the roots of their poetry dig deep in the Granite State. Join us as five of the nine Granite State Poetry Series poets—Maudelle Driskell (Talismans), James Fowler (Falling Ashes), Henry Walters (Field Guide A Tempo), Becky Sakellariou (Earth Listening), and J. Kates (The Briar Patch)—read their work.

Moderators

Sidney Hall Jr.

Speakers

Maudelle Driskell

James Fowler

J. Kates

J. Kates is a poet, literary translator and the president and co-director of Zephyr Press, a non-profit press that focuses on contemporary works in translation from Russia, Eastern Europe and Asia. He has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship... Read More →

Henry Walters

Friday April 29, 2016 3:45pm - 4:45pm EDT
Hawthorne Pickman Hawthorne Hotel, 18 Washington Square W, Salem, MA 01970

Group Reading

11:00am EDT

All That You Touch You Change: Mother Poets Read Poems About Change

Poetry can react to and process change or itself be a force for change in the world. Mothers are both agents of and witnesses to change. In this reading, poets who are mothers explore personal and political change, changes in children and others, changes of mind, body, heart. The reading will be followed by a brief discussion and Q and A centering on the relationship of change of poetry, both in terms of subject matter and craft. Mom Egg Review is a literary journal focused on work by or about mothers.

Moderators

Marjorie Tesser

Editor in Chief, Mom Egg Review

Marjorie Tesser is the editor in chief of Mom Egg Review, author of poetry chapbooks THE IMPORTANT THING IS (Firewheel Chapbook Award), and The Magic Feather (Finishing Line), and co-editor of the anthologies Bowery Women and Estamos Aquí: Poems by Migrant Farmworkers (Bowery Books... Read More →

Speakers

Alice B. Fogel

NH Poet Laureate

Alice B.Fogel, Walpole, NH, is New Hampshire's poet laureate (2014-2019). She is the author of several books of poems, most recently Interval: Poems Based on Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” which won the Nicholas Schaffner Award for Music in Literature. Her third collection, Be... Read More →

Jennifer Jean

Program Manager, 24PearlStreet Online Writing Program at FAWC

Jennifer Jean’s poetry collections include VOZ and The Fool, as well as Object Lesson which is about sex-trafficking and objectification in America. Her teaching resource is Object Lesson: a Guide to Writing Poetry and she's a co-editor and co-translator of an anthology in development... Read More →

Lori Lamothe

Lori Lamothe is the author of three poetry collections, Trace Elements and Happily (Aldrich Press 2015 and 2016, respectively) and Kirlian Effect (FutureCycle Press, forthcoming 2017). She has also published several chapbooks, most recently Diary in Irregular Ink (ELJ Publications... Read More →

Jennifer Martelli

Co-Poetry Editor, MER

Jennifer Martelli is the author of The Queen of Queens, selected as a “Must Read” by the Massachusetts Center for the Book, and My Tarantella, also selected as a “Must Read,” awarded an Honorable Mention from the Italian-American Studies Association and named as a finalist... Read More →

Colleen Michaels

Founder/Host, Improbable Places Poetry Tour

Colleen Michaels is the author of Prize Wheel (Small Bites Press, 2023). Her poems have appeared in journals and anthologies including Passages North, The Paterson Review, Cider Press Review, Barrelhouse, and have been commissioned as installations for The Massachusetts Poetry Festival... Read More →

Saturday April 30, 2016 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
Hawthorne Library Hawthorne Hotel, 18 Washington Square W, Salem, MA 01970

Group Reading

11:00am EDT

Over the Border: Three Vermont Poets

Across the Connecticut River, poets Elizabeth Powell, Kerrin McCadden and Karla Van Vliet have been writing in community with each other for almost twenty years. Based in the Champlain Valley of Vermont, their work is rooted in the landscapes and communities they inhabit and imagine.

Moderators

Elizabeth Powell

Speakers

Kerrin McCadden

Kerrin McCadden is the author of Landscape with Plywood Silhouettes, inaugural winner of the Vermont Book Award and the New Issues Poetry Prize, chosen by David St John. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, a Vermont Studio Center Fellowship... Read More →

Karla Van Vliet

Van Vliet Arts / Dreams as Source

Karla Van Vliet’s newest books are She Speaks in Tongues (Anhinga Press,) a collection of poems and asemic writings, and Fluency: A Collection of Asemic Writings (Shanti Arts.)She is the winner of the Bacopa Literary Review’s Visual Poetry Award. She has been a finalist for... Read More →

Saturday April 30, 2016 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
Hawthorne Essex Hawthorne Hotel, 18 Washington Square W, Salem, MA 01970

Group Reading

11:00am EDT

Poetry and Religion

From five perspectives on religion—Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and Atheist—panelists will read from their own and others’ work to show how poetry, itself, serves the better functions of religion: promoting empathy, community, service, awe, and joy.

Moderators

Susanna Rich

Founding Producer and Principal Performer, Wild Nights Productions, LLC

Poet and songwriter, Susanna Rich is an Emmy Award nominee and a Fulbright Fellow in Creative Writing. Founding producer and principal performer of Wild Nights Productions, LLC, Susanna's repertoire includes the new poetry musical Shakespeare's *itches: The Women Talk Back; ashes... Read More →

Speakers

Faleeha Hassan

Faleeha Hassan, who currently resides in the United States, was born in Najaf, Iraq, in 1967. She is affectionately known as the for her prolific writing skills. She is one of the most widely published women in Iraq, perhaps in the entire Middle East, and is a pioneer bringing... Read More →

Susan Jackson

Marilyn Mohr

Madeline J. Tiger

Saturday April 30, 2016 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
The Bridge at 211 211 Bridge Street, Salem Massachusetts 01970 (Formerly First Universalist Church)

Group Reading

11:00am EDT

Poetry, Memory, and Salvaging: A Kundiman Reading

What do we choose to value? What do we choose to record? What do we choose to keep, toss, guard, or put on display? Six Asian American poets, Tamiko Beyer, Duy Doan, Joseph O. Legaspi, Vikas Menon, Sejal Shah, and Yim Tan Wong, whose works range from writing about history, the environment, the politics of labor, to music, place, and the body, will present an ekphrastic reading at the Peabody Essex Museum. Presented by Kundiman, an organization that serves Asian American writers.

Moderators

Joseph O. Legaspi

Speakers

Tamiko Beyer

Tamiko Beyer is the author of two poetry collections from Alice James Books, Last Days (forthcoming), We Come Elemental, and two chapbooks. Her work has been published in Black Warrior Review, Denver Quarterly, Georgia Review, Literary Hub, the Rumpus, Hyphen, Dusie, and elsewhere... Read More →

Duy Doan

Duy Doan is the author of We Play a Game, winner of the 2017 Yale Series of Younger Poets (Yale University Press 2018). His work has appeared in Poetry, Poetry Northwest, Slate, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere. A Kundiman fellow, he received an MFA in poetry from Boston University.

Vikas Menon

Yim Tan Wong

Yim Tan (Lisa) Wong is a Kundiman Emerging Asian American Poets Fellow and holds an MFA from Hollins University. She hopes one day (soon!) to publish her first poetry collection, which has been a finalist for Four Way Books’ Levis Prize as well as the Alice James Books/Kundiman... Read More →

Saturday April 30, 2016 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
PEM Bartlett Gallery Peabody Essex Museum, 161 Essex St, Salem, MA 01970

Group Reading

11:00am EDT

This is a Mighty Room: Poetry Written in Emily Dickinson's Bedroom

In 2014, the Emily Dickinson Museum invited over 40 poets into Emily Dickinson's bedroom, the creative space where she wrote nearly all of her poems. The room was in the midst of a restoration that had stripped away the 20th century additions, leaving bare walls, the wood floors Dickinson had walked on and which had been covered by other flooring for nearly 100 years, and the outline of the original door to the room, plastered over in 1855. The space, while dilapidated, was as close as possible as anyone would ever get to Dickinson's own creative space. We wanted poets to experience this raw, powerful space, before the room was fully restored, and offered each an hour to write there. A book of those poems, A Mighty Room, will be coming out later this fall or early next winter, and we would love to premiere it at the festival.

Moderators

Michael Medeiros

Public Relations Coordinator, The Emily Dickinson Museum

Michael Medeiros is the public relations coordinator at the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, MA. He is a member of Northampton poetry, and recently edited A Mighty Room, a compilation of poetry by contemporary poets written in Emily Dickinson's bedroom.

Speakers

Lloyd Schwartz

Frederick S. Troy Professor of English, University of Massachusetts Boston

Lloyd Schwartz is Frederick S. Troy Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Boston and teaches in the MFA program. He is a commentator on music and the arts for National Public Radio's Fresh Air, Senior Editor of Classical Music for New York Arts, and Contributing... Read More →

Susan Snively

Ellen Steinbaum

Poet, Journalist, Blogger

Ellen Steinbaum is the author of three poetry collections, "Afterwords," "Container Gardening," and "Brightness Falls." Her work has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and is included in Garrison Keillor’s “Good Poems, American Places” and “The Widows’ Handbook... Read More →

Donald Vincent

Saturday April 30, 2016 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
PEM East India Marine Hall Peabody Essex Museum, 161 Essex St, Salem, MA 01970

Group Reading

12:15pm EDT

Cave Canem Fellows

Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady founded Cave Canem in 1996 with the intuition that African American poets would benefit from having a place of their own in the literary landscape. Over the past 16 years, that intuition has become a conviction. In Cave Canem, emerging poets find sustenance, a safe space to take artistic chances. The organization's community has grown from a gathering of 26 poets to become an influential movement with a renowned faculty and high-achieving national fellowship of 344. Our Cave Canem roster features mostly poets who have not yet made appearances at this event. We will have fresh faces and fresh voices to present at this year's festival.

Moderators

Jarita Davis

Jarita Davis is a poet and fiction writer with a B.A. in classics from Brown University and both an M.A. and a Ph.D. in creative writing from the University of Louisiana, Lafayette. She was the writer in residence at the Nantucket Historical Association and has received fellowships... Read More →

Speakers

Antoinette Brim

Associate Professor of English, Capital Community College

Antoinette Brim, author of These Women You Gave Me, Icarus in Love and Psalm of the Sunflower, is a Cave Canem Foundation fellow, a recipient of the Walker Foundation Scholarship to the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and a Pushcart Prize nominee. Her poetry, memoir and critical... Read More →

Treasure Shields Redmond

Founding Writer, Feminine Pronoun Consultants, LLC

Treasure Shields Redmond is a St. Louis metro-area based poet, speaker, diversity & inclusion coach, and social justice educator. Her book, chop: a collection of kwansabas for fannie lou hamer (Argus House Press, 2015) focuses on the life of civil rights icon Fannie Lou Hamer. Over... Read More →

Saturday April 30, 2016 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT
PEM Bartlett Gallery Peabody Essex Museum, 161 Essex St, Salem, MA 01970

Group Reading

12:15pm EDT

Outlaw Poets: Sibling Rivalry Press Reading

The only press to have ever won both Best Gay Poetry and Best Lesbian Poetry, SRP takes its mission directly from Adrienne Rich’s call for outlaw poetry: “There’s a lot of what I would call comfortable poetry around. But then there is all this other stuff going on….It’s intellectual and moral and political and sexual and sensual — all of that fermenting together. It can speak to people who have themselves felt like monsters and say: you are not alone, this is not monstrous. It can disturb and enrapture.” Whether exploring queer identity in the Peace Corps, social fragmentation, or family ghosts the four poets today are outlaws of form and subject. Join us as we share our monsters on the page and work towards creating a literature of connection.

Moderators

Emily Jaeger

Poet, Editor, Window Cat Press

Emily Jaeger is an MFA candidate at UMASS Boston and co-editor/co-founder of Window Cat Press. A Literary Lambda and TENT fellow, her poetry has appeared in Four Way Review, Soundings East, and Rust + Moth among others. Her chapbook The Evolution of Parasites is forthcoming from Sibling... Read More →

Speakers

Theresa Senato Edwards

Theresa Senato Edwards’ poetry books include Voices Through Skin, (Sibling Rivalry Press), a poem from this book entitled “Her Rituals” was a poetry finalist for the OCD Foundation’s Dare to Believe Contest; Painting Czeslawa Kwoka ~ Honoring Children of the Holocaust, a full-color... Read More →

Matthew Hittinger

Matthew Hittinger is the author of The Erotic Postulate (2014) and Skin Shift (2012) both from Sibling Rivalry Press, and the chapbook Pear Slip (2007), winner of the Spire Press Chapbook Award. He received his MFA from the University of Michigan where he won a Hopwood Award... Read More →

Michael Klein

Faculty, Hunter College

MICHAEL KLEIN is a five-time Lambda Literary Award finalist and has won the award twice in poetry. In addition, his books of prose are "Track Conditions" and "The End of Being Known" both from the University of Wisconsin Press. He teaches at Hunter College and in the low residency... Read More →

Saturday April 30, 2016 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT
The Bridge at 211 211 Bridge Street, Salem Massachusetts 01970 (Formerly First Universalist Church)

Group Reading

12:15pm EDT

Cape Cod Poetry Review: A Reading and Discussion of Lit Journals on a Shoestring

The program will begin with a brief introduction of the genesis behind the Cape Cod Poetry Review, a regional literary journal which aims to showcase writers from the Cape and Islands. The first part of the discussion will center around the connected history of the lit journal's origins within open mics throughout the mid-Cape, the journal's subsequent birth, and its struggles for funding throughout the three issues. Editors M.L. Wolters and John Bonanni will then introduce short readings from five poets who have been featured in the journal: Alice Kociemba, Gregory Hischak, Lauren Wolk, Mary Ellen Redmond, and Barry Hellman.

Moderators

John Bonanni

Editor, Cape Cod Poetry Review

John Bonanni lives on Cape Cod, MA, where he serves as editor for the Cape Cod Poetry Review. He is the recipient of a scholarship from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and a residency from AS220 in Providence, RI. His work has appeared in CutBank, Assaracus, Verse Daily... Read More →

Speakers

Alice Kociemba

Founding Director, Calliope—Poetry for Community

Alice Kociemba is a co-editor of From the Farther Shore: Discovering Cape Cod and the Islands Through Poetry (Bass River Press, forthcoming) along with Robin Smith-Johnson and Rich Youmans. She is founding director of Calliope Poetry and is the author of Bourne Bridge (Turning Point... Read More →

Mary Ellen Redmond

Maddie Wolters

Editor, Cape Cod Poetry Review

Word nerd. Bookseller. Editor of the Cape Cod Poetry Review.

Saturday April 30, 2016 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT
Hawthorne Essex Hawthorne Hotel, 18 Washington Square W, Salem, MA 01970

Group Reading Panel Discussion

2:00pm EDT

LOL: Poetry That’s Funny, A Reading by Jamaica Pond Poets with Open Mike

“Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese,” said G. K. Chesterton. Jamaica Pond Poets have cheese poems to read and will expand the spread to other humorous subjects and styles. Members of the weekly workshop will read a selection of theirs or someone else’s poems to tickle the funny bone. Then, attendees will be invited up to the mike to read a humorous poem. Someone once said, “Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.” Maybe, but sharing funny poems results in group laughter every time (and maybe some ideas for new poems). To borrow a phrase from a recent episode of NPR’s “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!” this LOL program promises to “taste so Gouda.”

Moderators

Sandra Storey

Sandra Storey is the author of the poetry collection, Every State Has Its Own Light, a finalist for the May Swenson Poetry Award, published in 2014 by Word Poetry imprint of WordTech Communications. Her poetry has appeared in New Millennium Writings, Windfall and the New York Quarterly... Read More →

Speakers

Carolyn Gregory

Published two full length books, "Open Letters" and "Facing the Music". Poems and music reviews published in American Poetry Review, Seattle Review, STYLUS. Community activist and former member of the Occupy Movement. Involved in stricter gun control movement in America and civil... Read More →

Audrey Henderson

OutdoorsRx Manager, Appalacachian Mountain Club

Susanna Kittredge

Susanna Kittredge is a proud member of the Jamaica Pond Poets and a regular participant in the Brighton Word Factory. She has a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. Her self-published chapbook is titled Dear Pigeons, and her work has appeared... Read More →

Jennifer Markell

Jennifer Markell's first poetry collection, Samsara, (Turning Point, 2014) was named a “Must-Read Book” by the Massachusetts Book Awards in 2015 and was a Finalist in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Markell received the Barbara Bradley and Firman Houghton awards from the... Read More →

Alan Smith Soto

Saturday April 30, 2016 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
The Bridge at 211 211 Bridge Street, Salem Massachusetts 01970 (Formerly First Universalist Church)

Group Reading

2:00pm EDT

Poets at the Bar

Five Massachusetts attorneys, who practice the art and craft of poetry, as well as that of the law, read from their published and unpublished verse.

Moderators

John L. Holgerson

John L. Holgerson is the author of two books of poetry, Unnecessary Tattoo and Other Stains on a Stainless Steel Heart (Finishing Line Press, 2016) and Broken Borders (Wasteland Press, 2012). His work has appeared in literary journals such as Modern English Tanka, Shadow Quill Poetry... Read More →

Speakers

Matthew C. Brenneman

Not altogether successfully, Matt Brenneman tries to balance a lifelong devotion to poetry with the happy demands of fatherhood and a solo corporate and transactional law practice based up the road in Marblehead, Massachusetts. Matt was born and raised in Connecticut and received... Read More →

James Decoulos

Jessica Fjeld

Jessica Fjeld is the author of the chapbooks The Tide (2010) and On animate life (2006), for which she received the Poetry Society of America's Chapbook Fellowship. Her poems have appeared in Conduit, Fou, iO, jubilat, Poetry, and elsewhere. In 2015, she was awarded a "Discovery... Read More →

Amy Demas Grunder

Director of Legislative Affairs, Massachusetts Immigrant & Refugee Advocacy Coaliton

I write poetry and fiction, live in Cambridge, and work as a legislative advocate for a non-profit advancing and defending the rights of immigrants and refugees in Massachusetts. My writing has been published in Consequence Magazine and Nashville Review.

Saturday April 30, 2016 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
PEM Bartlett Gallery Peabody Essex Museum, 161 Essex St, Salem, MA 01970

Group Reading

2:00pm EDT

Populating our Poems: A reading of Persona Poems and Poems of Place

Four award-winning emerging poets will read from their new and recent books, all of which are infused with voice and place: Rebecca Morgan Frank’s The Spokes of Venus (Carnegie Mellon) channels the voices of art makers; Megan Grumbling’s Booker’s Point (University of North Texas) is a portrait-in-verse of an old Maine woodsman; Rachel Richardson juxtaposes the quests of Ahab and Melville against the daily voices of wives and mothers in The Hundred-Year Wave (Carnegie Mellon); and David Roderick conjures myriad voices in the patchwork identity search of The Americans (PITT). Through their work and commentary, they will demonstrate the possibilities of the persona poem and poetry of place, drawing on the physical, literary, and artistic landscapes of New England and beyond.

Moderators

Rebecca Morgan Frank

Editor, Memorious: A Journal of New Verse & Fiction

Rebecca Morgan Frank is the author of The Spokes of Venus (Carnegie Mellon 2016)and Little Murders Everywhere (Salmon 2012), finalist for the 2013 Kate Tufts Discovery Award; her third collection, Sometimes We're All Living in a Foreign Country, is forthcoming from Carnegie Mellon... Read More →

Speakers

Megan Grumbling

Rachel Richardson

Contributing Editor, Memorious

Rachel Richardson has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and Wallace Stegner Program at Stanford University. She is the author of Copperhead (2011) and Hundred-Year Wave (forthcoming in 2016) both from Carnegie Mellon University... Read More →

Saturday April 30, 2016 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
Hawthorne Library Hawthorne Hotel, 18 Washington Square W, Salem, MA 01970

Group Reading

2:00pm EDT

UMass Poets: Sandra Lim, Maggie Dietz, and Jill McDonough

An homage to Berryman and Bradstreet, poems about Zoloft and in the style of Lyle Lovett, villanelles about American drones and their operators--some of the variety you'll hear from these three award-winning poets and professors in the University of Massachusetts system. Sandra Lim, Maggie Dietz, and Jill McDonough, present poems from recent, new, and forthcoming books, respectively. Lim will read from The Wilderness, which was selected by Louise Gluck for the Barnard Women Poets Prize and published by Norton in 2014; Dietz will read from her long-awaited second collection, That Kind of Happy, just out from The University of Chicago Press; and McDonough will read from Reaper, her groundbreaking book forthcoming next fall from Alice James. Together the three present widely varied approaches to the art of poetry. Q&A to follow reading.

Moderators

Maggie Dietz

Assistant Professor, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Maggie Dietz’s is the author of the newly released That Kind of Happy and Perennial Fall, which won New Hampshire’s Jane Kenyon Award for Outstanding Book of Poetry in 2007 (both from The University of Chicago Press). The former director of the Favorite Poem Project, Dietz is... Read More →

Speakers

Sandra Lim

Assistant Professor of English, University of Massachusetts, Lowell

Sandra Lim is the author of two collections of poetry, Loveliest Grotesque (Kore Press, 2006) and The Wilderness (W.W. Norton, 2014), winner of the 2013 Barnard Women Poets Prize, selected by Louise Glück. Her work is also included in the anthology Gurlesque (Saturnalia, 2010). She... Read More →

Jill McDonough

Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts, Boston

Three-time Pushcart prize winner Jill McDonough is the recipient of Lannan, NEA, Cullman Center, and Stegner fellowships. Her most recent book is Reaper (Alice James, 2017); Here All Night, her fifth collection, is forthcoming from Alice James Books. She teaches in the MFA program... Read More →

Saturday April 30, 2016 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
PEM East India Marine Hall Peabody Essex Museum, 161 Essex St, Salem, MA 01970

Group Reading

2:00pm EDT

What the World is Saying: Contemporary Poets in Translation

This session will showcase translators (and their authors, where possible) exploring meaning across languages and cultures. Themes of intimacy, loss, temptation, unexpected pleasures, and subversive declamations form the nucleus of multiple bodies of poetic work across the globe. Works in Bengali, Catalan, Chinese, English, Korean, and Spanish will be read, where possible, with accompanying music as composed or identified by the poets of origin. Certain poems have been published as part of a series of broadsides or in anthologies that pair poetry with visual image.

This program reveals insights into and celebrations of human feeling across cultures and languages. Bilingual readings punctuated by music composed or identified by the poets of origin and/or by visual works of art offer yet another dimension to the expression of life.

Moderators

Kristine Doll

Professor, World Languages and Cultures, Salem State University

Kristine Doll is a poet and translator whose work has been published internationally. “My Friends” from her first collection Speak to Me Again was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in Poetry. Following the publication of her second book of poetry, The Light of Ordinary Days, (The... Read More →

Speakers

Hassanal Abdullah

Editor, Shabdaguchha

Hassanal Abdullah is the author of more than 50 books in various genres including 20 collections of poetry, and the editor of Shabdaguchha, an international bilingual poetry magazine. He introduced Swatantra Sonnets, seven-seven stanza and abcdabc efgdefg rhyming scheme, and wrote... Read More →

Hong Ai Bai

Hong Ai Bai, PhD in Linguistics, teaches English Writing courses at English Department of Long Island University Post Campus, New York. She published a book, Deviation in Advertising Language: A Functional Analysis (2009), three English textbooks, and ten academic articles. As part... Read More →

Peter Thabit Jones

Founder and Editor, The Seventh Quarry Press

Peter Thabit Jones was born in Swansea in Wales and is the author of thirteen books, several of which have been reprinted and four published in Romania. His work has been translated into over twenty-two languages.In 2008 Peter’s American publisher, Stanley H. Barkan, organised a... Read More →

Saturday April 30, 2016 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
Hawthorne Essex Hawthorne Hotel, 18 Washington Square W, Salem, MA 01970

Group Reading

2:00pm EDT

Women Poets of Tupelo Press

While the VIDA Count has revealed major imbalances regarding the state of women in literature, such has never been true of Tupelo Press: 68% of our titles are by women. Lyrical, experimental, eclectic, all of them extraordinary, we present here several of the excellent women poets Tupelo is fortunate to call our own.

Moderators

Marie Gauthier

Senior Marketing Project Manager, Pioneer Valley Books

Marie Gauthier’s debut full-length poetry collection, Leave No Wake, was published by Pine Row Press in April 2022. She works as the senior marketing project manager at Pioneer Valley Books. She is a Franklin County regional representative for Mass Poetry, runs the Collected P... Read More →

Speakers

Jennifer Militello

Jennifer Militello is the author, most recently, of A Camouflage of Specimens and Garments (2016) and Body Thesaurus (2013), both from Tupelo Press. Her poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, The New Republic, The Paris Review, and Best New Poets. She teaches... Read More →

Kathy Nilsson

Kathy Nilsson earned a BA from Mount Holyoke College and an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. Her book The Infant Scholar was published by Tupelo Press in January 2015 and won Honorable Mention, Berkshire Prize for a first or second book chosen by Tupelo Press Editors. Her... Read More →

Lee Sharkey

Saturday April 30, 2016 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
Old Town Hall 2nd Fl 32 Derby Square, Salem, MA 01970

Group Reading

3:15pm EDT

Solstice Anthology Reading

Solstice is one of the leading literary magazines when it comes to publishing diverse voices and reaching diverse audiences. Last year, it published its first print anthology, a selection of the best pieces of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction since it first started publishing over five years ago. This reading brings together five different poets from the anthology – Major Jackson, Martha Collins, Betsy Sholl, Alysia Harris and Karen Skolfield – for a celebratory reading of their work.

Moderators

Regie Gibson

Literary performer, Regie Gibson has performed, taught, & lectured at schools, universities, theaters, & other venues around the world. He’s a Brother Thomas Fellow & has received several Mass Cultural Council Awards, two Live Arts Boston Grants to develop his first play, The Juke... Read More →

Speakers

Martha Collins

Martha Collins’s eleventh volume of poetry, Casualty Reports, was published by Pittsburgh in fall 2022, and her fifth collection of co-translated Vietnamese poetry will be published by Milkweed in May 2023. Her tenth poetry book, Because What Else Could I Do (Pittsburgh, 2019... Read More →

Jeff Friedman

Alysia Harris

Dzvinia Orlowsky

Dzvinia Orlowsky is a poet and translator. She is the author of five collections of poetry published by Carnegie Mellon University Press including A Handful of Bees, reprinted in 2009 as a Carnegie Mellon Classic Contemporary; Convertible Night, Flurry of Stones, recipient of a 2010... Read More →

Karen Skolfield

Karen Skolfield’s book Battle Dress (W. W. Norton) won the 2020 Massachusetts Book Award in poetry and the Barnard Women Poets Prize. Her book Frost in the Low Areas (Zone 3 Press) won the 2014 PEN New England Award in poetry, and she is the winner of the 2016 Jeffrey E. Smith Editors... Read More →

Saturday April 30, 2016 3:15pm - 4:15pm EDT
Charter School 2 Museum Place Mall, 2nd Fl, Salem, MA 01970

Group Reading

3:15pm EDT

Warrior Writers Poetry Reading

Warrior Writers is a veteran-focused arts organization whose mission is to give voice to veterans’ experiences, providing creative community for artistic expression through casual workshops and retreats and bearing witness to the experiences of warriors through public performances and art exhibitions. Warrior Writers provides a bridge between veterans and their families and their communities. Through poetry, veterans are empowered to share their experiences and heal in a public yet intimate way.

Moderators

Rachel McNeill

Warrior Writers

Speakers

Tom Aikens

Tom Aikens is privileged to have been published in Warrior Writers' most recent anthologies, After Action Review (2011) and Warrior Writers (2014). He was an infantryman with 1st ID, and served as a team leader and squad leader on deployments to Kosovo (2002) and Iraq (2004-2005... Read More →

Michael Anthony

Warrior Writers

Michael Anthony was invited to read by Warrior Writers, a great group of veteran writers. He is honored to be a part of the 2015 Massachusetts Poetry Festival.

Nathan Heilman

Shannon Kafka

Volunteers

Eric Wasileski

Boston Facilitator, Warrior Writers

Eric Wasileski is a Persian Gulf Veteran of Operation Desert Fox, father, activist, preacher, ethicist and poet. Eric recently published his first book of poetry, Live Free (or Die), with Human Error Publishing. He is the coordinator of the Smedley D. Butler Brigade of Veterans for... Read More →

Saturday April 30, 2016 3:15pm - 4:15pm EDT
Hawthorne Pickman Hawthorne Hotel, 18 Washington Square W, Salem, MA 01970

Group Reading

3:15pm EDT

Writing/Teaching/Living: Four Perspectives on Making a Life with Poetry

Faculty and a senior student from the University of Maine Farmington will read excerpts from their diverse works and discuss a variety of approaches to making a living (and a life) as a poet. Points of discussion will include the role of teaching, the workshop as pedagogical practice, the relationship of contemporary poetry to the academy, and the complexities involved in balancing the demands of art with the demands of paid work. This panel features writers at four different stages of their careers. The panel welcomes discussion with audience members working to fashion their own writing lives and will draw strength from the variety of experiences the panelists had prior to teaching as they were building their writing lives.

Moderators

Shana Youngdahl

Assistant Professor, University of Maine Farmington

Shana Youngdahl is the author of History, Advice and Other Half-Truths (Stephen F. Austin State University Press 2012) and three chapbooks, most recently Winter/Windows from Miel Books. She teaches first-year writing at the University of Maine Farmington.

Speakers

Kristen Case

Audrey Gidman

Jeffrey Thomson

Jeffrey Thomson is the author or editor of nine books across genres including fragile, amemoir, Birdwatching in Wartime, winner of both the 2010 Maine Book Award and the 2011 ASLE Award in Environmental Creative Writing. The Complete Poems of Catullus: an Annotated Translation, and... Read More →

Saturday April 30, 2016 3:15pm - 4:15pm EDT
Hawthorne Library Hawthorne Hotel, 18 Washington Square W, Salem, MA 01970

Group Reading

10:15am EDT

Reading for Salamander Magazine

Join Salamander Magazine for a reading by poets Beth Woodcome Platow, Simeon Berry, and Valerie Duff. These poets have appeared in Salamander's pages and represent a cross-section of the solid and compelling work published there. They have received recognition for books of poetry (Platow's manuscript won the Rousseau Poetry Prize, Berry is a two-time winner of the NPS, and Duff was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize); they come together at the festival to embody a magazine whose mission, after two decades, remains singular and dynamic: “to publish a generation of writers reaching artistic maturity and deserving of a wider audience alongside new work by established writers.”

Moderators

Jennifer Barber

Scholar in Residence/Editor, Suffolk/Salamander

Speakers

Simeon Berry

Simeon Berry lives in Somerville, Massachusetts. He has been an Associate Editor for Ploughshares and received a Massachusetts Cultural Council Individual Artist Grant. His first book, Ampersand Revisited (Fence Books), won the 2013 National Poetry Series, and his second book, Mo... Read More →

Valerie Duff

Valerie Duff's book, To the New World (Salmon), was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre Poetry Prize (Queen's University Belfast) in 2011. Her recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Common, AGNI, Solstice, The Cortland Review, and elsewhere. She is the poetry editor... Read More →

Beth Platow

Sunday May 1, 2016 10:15am - 11:15am EDT
Old Town Hall 2nd Fl 32 Derby Square, Salem, MA 01970

Group Reading

10:15am EDT

Us and Them: Poets Read Original Works and New Translations

US & THEM began with a group of translator/writer/poets who met at the Bread Loaf Translators' Conference in June 2015. This reading will feature New England poets presenting their original work (US) and work they have translated (THEM). The reading will explore the effects of translation on ones own writing and how the translator has the ability to write in the voice of another poet while maintaining their own voice when working on original pieces. As many translators today are themselves writers/poets, it is important to showcase both sides of the "writing self" in one space as the passion for words comes from a single source: a love of language.

Moderators

Todd Portnowitz

Speakers

Sam Bett

Maria Jose Gimenez

Pablo Medina

Lloyd Schwartz

Frederick S. Troy Professor of English, University of Massachusetts Boston

Sunday May 1, 2016 10:15am - 11:15am EDT
PEM Create Space 1 Peabody Essex Museum, 161 Essex St, Salem, MA 01970

Group Reading

10:15am EDT

Working Class Poetics

This session explores poetry by and about working class lives. We will explore the concept of privilege, asking questions about who gets to tell their poetic stories, and why. Sally Bellerose and Ellen LaFleche will read poetry describing their childhood experiences with poverty and class, including poems from LaFleche’s chapbook Workers' Rites and Bellerose’s poems about growing up in a mill town in western MA. Howie Faerstein will read his poetry, including selections from his book Dreaming of the Rain in Brooklyn. These poems challenge notions of class in the USA. Oonagh Doherty will read poetry about her experiences as a poverty lawyer and hand out a poem that asks questions about privilege and intersectionality and connects classism with other social issues including ageism, ableism and racism. Audience questions and a discussion period will follow.

Moderators

Ellen LaFleche

Ellen LaFleche has published three chapbooks of poetry: Workers Rites (Providence Athenaeum); Ovarian (Dallas Poets Community Press); and Beatrice (Tiger's Eye Press.) She is a winner of the Philbrick Poetry Prize, the Ruth Stone Poetry Prize, New Millennium Writings Poetry Prize... Read More →

Speakers

Sally Bellerose

In her writing, Sally Bellerose loves to mess with rhythm, rhyme, and awkward emotion. Bellerose writes about class, sex, illness, absurdity, and lately, growing old. Her novel The Girls Club, http://www.bywaterbooks.com/shop/the-girls-club won many awards including an NEA Fellowship... Read More →

Oonagh Doherty

Oonagh Doherty was born in Scotland, and grew up in both the United Kingdom and the United States. She is seriously interested in poetry about cultural clashes, connections between people who seem very different, globalization, desire, misunderstanding, love, and loss. She has published... Read More →

Howie Faerstein

Westfield State University

Howie Faerstein is the author of two chapbooks: Play a Song on the Drums, he said and Out of Order (Main Street Rag) and two full-length collections: Dreaming of the Rain in Brooklyn and Googootz and Other Poems, both published by Press 53. His poetry and reviews can be found in Great... Read More →

Sunday May 1, 2016 10:15am - 11:15am EDT
Hawthorne Library Hawthorne Hotel, 18 Washington Square W, Salem, MA 01970

Group Reading

11:30am EDT

Bengali Poetry Reading

We are a group pf writers who live and work in Boston and write in our mother tongue, Bengali. Our group is named LEKHONI, meaning "the pen," and has been in existence for more than a decade. We have had annual poetry and fiction readings and two Anthologies published with our collected works. Five of our poets, each reciting his/her original poetry individually in Bengali followed by its translation in English, each poet talking about the theme of immigrant living. Come and hear the varied cadences of two different languages; the language of birth and the language of the adopted home and how they are expressed; and how nostalgia for the past is experienced by an immigrant even as assimilation into the modern new world is happening here.

Moderators

Gouri Datta

Speakers

Susmita Bando

Papia Banerjee

Sajal Banerjee

Badiuzzaman Khan

Nilay Mukherjee

Sunday May 1, 2016 11:30am - 12:30pm EDT
Hawthorne Pickman Hawthorne Hotel, 18 Washington Square W, Salem, MA 01970

Group Reading

11:30am EDT

How Did I Get Here? MA Book Awards Winners Tell All

Amy Dryansky, Jeffery Harrison, and Daniel Tobin are all recent winners of the Massachusetts Book Award for Poetry, a prize that’s sponsored by the Massachusetts Center for the Book. Each poet will read from their work, and talk briefly about their experience as writers- not just about their achievements, but their struggles, the diverse paths each has taken that brought them to where they are today, and where they might go in the future. Come hear these three very different poets share their work, and talk about what it means to make your way as a writer in the world.

Moderators

Amy Dryansky

Amy Dryansky has two poetry collections; Grass Whistle (Salmon Poetry), winner of the Massachusetts Book Award for poetry, and How I Got Lost So Close to Home (Alice James). She’s a Massachusetts Cultural Council Poetry Fellow, and former poet laureate of Northampton, MA. You can... Read More →

Speakers

Jeffrey Harrison

Jeffrey Harrison is the author of five full-length books of poetry, including THE SINGING UNDERNEATH, selected by James Merrill for the National Poetry Series in 1987; FEEDING THE FIRE, winner of the Sheila Motton Award from the New England Poetry Club in 2002; INCOMPLETE KNOWLEDGE... Read More →

Daniel Tobin

Professor of Writing, Literature and Publishing, Emerson College

Daniel Tobin is the author of six books of poems, Where the World is Made, Double Life, The Narrows, Second Things, Belated Heavens (winner of the Massachusetts Book Award in Poetry), and The Net (2014). His seventh book of poems, From Nothing, is forthcoming in 2016. He is the author... Read More →

Sunday May 1, 2016 11:30am - 12:30pm EDT
Old Town Hall 2nd Fl 32 Derby Square, Salem, MA 01970

Group Reading

11:30am EDT

North of the Border: Canadian Women Poets Speak Out

Canadians live so close and speak our language yet American poets rarely know what is going on in their poetry community. We do not pay attention to their journals, awards, contests, writing organizations and MFA programs. How does it differ to be a poet in Canada compared to the States? What are the concerns of women poets in Canada in particular? Three edgy and exciting female Canadian poets will discuss the state of poetry in Canada right now. They all live in different regions of the country and will offer multiple perspectives on the topic. Our panelists will share their concerns, the influences on their writing, and discuss how Canadian women’s poetry differs from men’s and from the poetry of the States, and they will also read from their celebrated and refreshing work.

Moderators

Elisabeth Weiss

Salem State University

Elisabeth Weiss teaches writing at Salem State University in Salem, MA. She’s taught poetry in preschools, prisons, and nursing homes, as well as to the intellectually disabled. She’s worked in the editorial department at Harper & Row in New York and has an MFA from The University... Read More →

Speakers

Stevie Howell

Stevie Howell is an Irish-Canadian writer and worker. Sharps, a first collection of poetry, was a finalist for the 2015 Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. Poems from the book were finalists for The Walrus Poetry Prize and The Montreal Poetry Prize. Poems have also been anthologized in... Read More →

Sharon McCartney

Sharon McCartney is the author of Metanoia (Biblioasis, Spring 2016), Hard Ass (2013, Palimpsest), For and Against (2010, Goose Lane Editions), The Love Song of Laura Ingalls Wilder (2007, Nightwood Editions), Karenin Sings the Blues (2003, Goose Lane Editions) and Under the... Read More →

Chantal Ringuet

Chantal Ringuet is a scholar, an award-winning poet and a literary translator from Quebec. She has published two collections of poetry (Le sang des ruines, 2010, and Under the Skin of War, 2014), a cultural essay about Yiddish Montreal (À la découverte du Montréal yiddish) and... Read More →

Sunday May 1, 2016 11:30am - 12:30pm EDT
Old Town Hall 2nd Fl 32 Derby Square, Salem, MA 01970

Group Reading

11:30am EDT

Youth Poetry: Publishing and Performance

Books of Hope will lead a youth poetry workshop, open mic and feature, as well as a discussion around publishing for youth audiences.

Moderators

Erich Haygun & Jayy Dodd

Books Of Hope

Youth Poetry Publishing

Speakers

Michael Jones

Andrine Pierresaint

Briana Pierrette

Tyler Roze

Jahi Spaloss

Sunday May 1, 2016 11:30am - 12:30pm EDT
PEM Create Space 1 Peabody Essex Museum, 161 Essex St, Salem, MA 01970

Group Reading

1:00pm EDT

A Many Sided Reality: The Poetic Sequence and the Book-Length Poem

The poetic sequence has become a staple of contemporary poetry from its beginnings in the work of Whitman and Dickinson, Yeats and Eliot, and a great many others, over the course of the 20th and into the 21st centuries. Likewise, the book-length poem has found renewed purchase in the culture over the past decade or more. This panel of five prominent poets—Christine Casson, Martha Collins, Steven Cramer, and Daniel Tobin--will discuss the subject and read from their work in these two important and dynamic sub-genres of the art.

Moderators

Daniel Tobin

Professor of Writing, Literature and Publishing, Emerson College

Speakers

Christine Casson

Scholar- /Writer-in-Residence, Emerson College

Christine Casson is the author of After the First World, a book of poems. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies and she has also published critical essays on the work of Leslie Marmon Silko and the poetry of Linda Hogan and Robert Penn Warren. She is currently... Read More →

Martha Collins

Steven Cramer

Steven Cramer’s poetry collections include Listen, Clangings, and Goodbye to the Orchard, a Sheila Motton Prize-winner, and a Massachusetts Honor Book. Published in The Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, Poetry, et al., and recipient of Massachusetts Cultural Council and NEA fellowships... Read More →

Sunday May 1, 2016 1:00pm - 2:00pm EDT
PEM East India Marine Hall Peabody Essex Museum, 161 Essex St, Salem, MA 01970

Group Reading

1:00pm EDT

A World Of Voices from White Pine Press

Since 1973 White Pine Press has published and presented a wide diversity of poetry from the American mosaic and in translation from around the world. Editor/Publisher Dennis Maloney will introduce a group of our poets who will read from their work published by White Pine Press.

Moderators

Dennis Maloney

Speakers

Marjorie Agosin

MARJORIE AGOSIN is a Chilean-born Americanwriter. She is a prolific author: her published books,including those she has written as well as thoseshe has edited, number over eighty. Her two mostrecent books are both poetry collections, The Lightof Desire / La Luz del Deseo, translated... Read More →

Wyn Cooper

Editor, Wyn Cooper Editing

Wyn Cooper is the author of five books of poems, most recently Mars Poetica. His poems have appeared in Poetry, Slate, The Southern Review, AGNI, and in 25 anthologies of contemporary poetry. His poems have been turned into songs by Sheryl Crow, David Broza, and Madison Smartt Bell... Read More →

Kim Garcia

Kim Garcia is the author of The Brighter House, winner of the 2015 White Pine Press Poetry Prize, DRONE, winner of the 2015 Backwaters Prize, and Madonna Magdalene, released by Turning Point Books in 2006. Her chapbook Tales of the Sisters won the 2015 Sow’s Ear Poetry Review Chapbook... Read More →

Sunday May 1, 2016 1:00pm - 2:00pm EDT
Hawthorne Pickman Hawthorne Hotel, 18 Washington Square W, Salem, MA 01970

Group Reading

1:00pm EDT

Greetings from the Happy Valley

"Happy Valley" is local vernacular for the surrounding Northampton area of Western Mass. But Happy Valley can be a misnomer. This diverse group of poets is deeply committed to the act of writing as a social movement, whose common goal of merging the personal with the political into a growing 21st century narrative tradition. Some us might identify as “spoken word” poets, some of us might say “page poets” but all four of us come from Open Mic/Slam culture where the goal is to create the kind of writing that is both highly engaging and elegantly crafted, always with the audience/reader in mind. We are Tara Jean Bernier, Robbie Dunning, Adam Grabowski, and Lauren Singer. We are teachers, social workers, mothers, fathers, and caregivers. You will hear poems about identity, loss, sexuality, river jumping and other forms of rapture. You will leave happy.

Moderators

Adam Grabowski

Vermont College of Fine Arts

Adam's work has appeared in Off the Coast, jubilat, The Rattling Wall, The Naugatuck River Review, Wilderness House Literary Review, Meat for Tea, and elsewhere. Adam received his MSW from Westfield State University in 2012 and is currently an MFA candidate at the Vermont College... Read More →

Speakers

Tara Jean Bernier

Tara Jean Bernier walked into an open mic in August of 2012, and never left. Currently, she is the slam master and co-host of the weekly Northampton Poetry open mic (though, admittedly, she is vexed by adding three numbers together after having two beers on slam nights). She also... Read More →

Robbie Dunning

Movement Voter Project

Robbie Dunning is a poet, performer, artist and educator living and working on stolen land (specifically of the Pawtucket and Massa-adchu-es-et people). They have worked at Movement Voter Project since 2016 in a range of areas from graphic design to their current focus on Operations... Read More →

Lauren Singer

Lauren Singer is the assistant judge of the Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest, the Tom Howard/John H. Reid Fiction & Essay Contest, and the North Street Book Prize. She is a native New Yorker living in Western Massachusetts. Her poetry has been published in Nerve House, Bareback... Read More →

Sunday May 1, 2016 1:00pm - 2:00pm EDT
Old Town Hall 2nd Fl 32 Derby Square, Salem, MA 01970

Group Reading