The Massachusetts Poetry Festival 2016

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.

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."

For all levels of experience with publishing. We’ll discuss researching journals and how to decide if your poems are a good fit; good submission practices; cover letters and follow-up inquiries; how editors read submissions and communicate with submitters; the usefulness of rejections and what to do when you receive “we’d love to see more of your work” rejections; how journal issues are crafted; and literary citizenship. Panelists include poets who have also worked as editors and are able to share insight from both sides of the publishing equation. Discussion will be shaped by audience questions.