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10 YEARS OF MASS POETRY!

Our 2018 headliners: Sonia Sanchez · Kaveh Akbar · Duy Doan · Jeffrey Harrison · Dorianne Laux · Erika Meitner · Carl Phillips · Nicole Sealey · Sean Thomas Dougherty · Rhina P. Espaillat

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Friday, May 4
 

1:15pm EDT

Circling the Earth: The Poetry of Refuge and Sanctuary
Limited Capacity filling up
What is the role of poetry in a broken world? This reading explores how poets both seek and create sanctuary and how poetry can itself be a home or sanctuary. Voices from Haiti, Mexico, and Brazil share their poems of flight, shelter, and home.

In this time when we are becoming sanctuary cities, schools, temples and churches, what does it mean to give and receive sanctuary? Five poets explore this question.
Moderators
avatar for Deborah Leipziger

Deborah Leipziger

Author. Advisor. Poet
Deborah Leipziger is an author, poet, and advisor on sustainability. Born in Brazil, Ms. Leipziger is the author of Story & Bone, published by Lily Poetry Review Books. Her poems have been published in the UK, US, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Israel and the Netherlands, in such magazines... Read More →

Speakers
avatar for Melissa Castillo-Garsow

Melissa Castillo-Garsow

Dr. Melissa Castillo-Garsow is a Mexican- American writer, poet and postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University's Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History. She is the author of the poetry collection Coatlicue Eats the Apple, editor of the anthology, ¡Manteca!: An Anthology... Read More →
avatar for Robbie Gamble

Robbie Gamble

Robbie Gamble (he/him) received an MFA in Poetry from Lesley University. His poems and essays have appeared in the Atlanta Review, Poet Lore, RHINO, Rust + Moth, Salamander, The Sun, and Tahoma Literary Review. His chapbook A Can of Pinto Beans was published by Lily Poetry Review... Read More →
avatar for Gloria Mindock

Gloria Mindock

Gloria Mindock is the founding editor of Cervena Barva Press and one of the USA editors for Levure Litteraire (France). She is the author of I Wish Francisco Franco Would Love Me (Nixes Mate Books), Whiteness of Bone (Glass Lyre Press), La Portile Raiului (Ars Longa Press, Romania... Read More →
avatar for Yermiyahu Ahron Taub

Yermiyahu Ahron Taub

Yermiyahu Ahron Taub is the author of six books of poetry, including most recently A moyz tsvishn vakldike volkn-kratsers: geklibene Yidishe lider/A Mouse Among Tottering Skyscrapers: Selected Yiddish Poems (2017). Tsugreytndik zikh tsu tantsn: naye Yidishe lider/Preparing to Dance... Read More →

Friday May 4, 2018 1:15pm - 2:15pm EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Sophia Room
  Group Reading

1:15pm EDT

Poetry of Place: Boston
Limited Capacity filling up
Boston's distinctive narrative and always-present past, its cityscape of buildings with architectural overlays of centuries, its varied neighborhoods, its magnificent green spaces, authored by Olmsted, and its iconic institutions have invited and inspired poetic works through the centuries.  The Boston poets reading today each have a different lens with which they reflect and refract the city: one is a Viet Nam veteran; one writes of place and identity, one is a spoken-word poet and musician; one observes and records; one writes about the Arboretum and Lowell millworkers.  Their Boston backgrounds are varied: two grew up in Boston neighborhoods; one "wandered into town 40+ years ago and never left; one has lived here most of  her adult life; one fell in love with Boston - once he got here.   From the visual to the visceral, these poets offer a span of perspectives on the dynamic and complex city we call home
Moderators
avatar for Ruby Poltorak

Ruby Poltorak

Prop, Rubies&Pearls Confections
Ruby Poltorak was born and grew up in Brighton. Her poetry has focused on social activism, on the city of Boston and its neighborhoods, and on family stories that illuminate class and Jewish issues. Three of her poems have been on display at Boston City Hall and four were staged at... Read More →

Speakers
avatar for Kevin Bowen

Kevin Bowen

Born and raised in the West End of Boston, an old section of the city, demolished in 1960 to make way for new high rise condominium living, that experience, I have always been deeply effected by that experience. Along with my experience as a soldier in Vietnam, it has informed most... Read More →
avatar for Charles Coe

Charles Coe

Writer and musician Charles Coe is the author of four books of poetry: All Sins Forgiven: Poems for my Parents, Picnic on the Moon, Memento Mori, and the recently released Purgatory Road, all published by Leapfrog Press. E. Ethelbert Miller, co-editor, Poet Lore Magazine says, “Coe writes... Read More →
avatar for Regie Gibson

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 →
avatar for Holly Guran

Holly Guran

Will read from poems based on photos in the Arboretum taken by husband, Phil McAlary and other work that echoes the spirit of my Boston neighborhood, Roslindale. Other interests: voices of the innocents; mid-19th century mill life; poems inspired by letters.

Friday May 4, 2018 1:15pm - 2:15pm EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Library Room
  Group Reading

1:15pm EDT

Personified: Finding Your Voice in Someone Else's
Limited Capacity full
In this program, participants will bring in a poem that they are having trouble writing-- or a finished poem that they don't mind playing around with-- and utilize various strategies to recreate the poem through the voice of a fictional or historical character. Participants will exercise creative constraint as they utilize only the words and images this persona would have at their disposal to retell the story of their poem. As a model, participants will be looking at two poems by Marie Howe “The Boy” and “Gretel from a Sudden Clearing” to see the ways in which a fictional persona can unlock a poem for the writer and reader.
Moderators
avatar for Taylor Liljegren

Taylor Liljegren

English Teacher, Lexington High School
Taylor Liljegren is a poet and educator from Central Massachusetts. Her work has been published in various literary magazines and anthologies including "Best Indie Lit New England" and "Nixes Mate Review". Her debut chapbook "The Sessions: Lucy Ricardo Talks to Her Therapist" is... Read More →

Friday May 4, 2018 1:15pm - 2:15pm EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Skylark Room
  Workshop

1:15pm EDT

Resisting the Erasure of Our (Im)Migrant Roots: Workshop with María Luisa Arroyo
Limited Capacity seats available
EVERYONE in the United States comes from another country –whether you arrived here yesterday or your ancestors arrived here either of their own volition or were forced here, due to slavery, religious persecution, or crisis/crises in the homeland. This engaging workshop with the multilingual, multicultural poet María Luisa Arroyo will provide a safe space for adult participants (to (re)claim and own your OWN complex cultural and linguistic identities. Resist the erasure of our (im)migrant roots by writing narrative poems. Before you arrive, come prepared with your family tree with names, dates, and geographic origins.
Moderators
avatar for María Luisa Arroyo

María Luisa Arroyo

multilingual Boricua poet & educator
Multilingual Boricua poet and educator María Luisa Arroyo was educated at Colby (BA), Tufts (MA) and Harvard (ABD) in German, her third language. Her poetry collections include Gathering Words: Recogiendo Palabras (2008) and Destierro Means More than Exile (2018). For 20+ years... Read More →

Friday May 4, 2018 1:15pm - 2:15pm EDT
Old Town Hall, 2nd floor
  Workshop

2:30pm EDT

Circling the square: Joyful (and helpful) critique workshop
Limited Capacity filling up
Love your poem but can't quite figure out how to bring it to the next level? Join the TinBox Poets of Swampscott for an immersive experience in the art of the poetic critique. This 20+ year group of professional poets (including Pushcart prize nominees) encourage participants to bring copies of their work and join the group as they provide considerate readings and joyful debate on the craft of the work.
Moderators
avatar for Melissa Varnavas

Melissa Varnavas

Poet. Yeah, that's right. I've had poems published in The New Guard, Margie, Oberon, Blast Furnace, among other journals. I have a couple of New England Press Association, a couple of Massachusetts Press Association awards, and one on investigative journalism from the Specialized... Read More →

Friday May 4, 2018 2:30pm - 3:00pm EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Skylark Room
  Workshop

2:30pm EDT

Headline Reading - Rhina P. Espaillat
Limited Capacity filling up
Join us for our kickoff event featuring acclaimed poet Rhina P. Espaillat. She will read new poems from a book due out this autumn, with brief comments to initiate a conversation with the audience about poetry: what it is and does, how it works, what makes it universal, and why it’s lasted so long despite all the obituaries it has inspired.   
Speakers
avatar for Rhina P. Espaillat

Rhina P. Espaillat

Rhina P. Espaillat has published ten full-length books and three chapbooks, comprising poetry, essays and short stories, in both English and her native Spanish, and translations from and into both languages. Her work appears in many journals, anthologies, and websites, and has earned... Read More →

Friday May 4, 2018 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Library Room
  Headline Event

2:30pm EDT

Golden Walkman
Limited Capacity filling up
Golden Walkman, a podcast journal, occasionally gives submitters a challenge: write poetry that responds to a musical piece. We call these our “Dialogue Submissions.” This workshop will give attendees a chance to write poetry as a musician plays music to inspire them. Workshoppers will have time to share their newly-created work at the end of the session and will be encouraged to submit their work to Golden Walkman afterwards, for we will release a special issue of poems first drafted during the workshop later in the year (they’ll have time to revise their work first).
Moderators
avatar for David Walker

Speakers
avatar for Joseph Gould

Joseph Gould

Joey Gould is a tutor, poet, & deckbuilder who loves creating improv poetry & walking through Audubon sanctuaries. He has helped facilitate four poetry festivals & was only picked up by the police once.

Friday May 4, 2018 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT
Old Town Hall, 2nd floor
  Workshop

2:30pm EDT

Poets on Poetry: An Ars Poetica Workshop
Limited Capacity filling up
“I, too, dislike it...”  Marianne Moore

What is poetry? More, what is YOUR poetry? Ever since Horace, poets have sought to define poetry, or express its essence, in their own works. We will read some poems about poetry—traditional and modern, and from diverse esthetics and perspectives. Then, workshop participants will create and share their own works of ars poetica. Through exploring how prominent and newer poets have defined their missions as poets and set parameters and ideals for the work, workshop participants will be inspired to consider, clarify, and express their own visions in new works.
Moderators
avatar for Marjorie Tesser

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
avatar for Jennifer Jean

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 →
avatar for Jennifer Martelli

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 →

Friday May 4, 2018 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Sophia Room
  Workshop

3:30pm EDT

Poetry Meet-Up!
Join Michael, Sara, January, and Laurin for a drink as the festival gets started!
Speakers
avatar for Michael Ansara
avatar for Laurin Macios
avatar for January O'Neil

January O'Neil

Associate Professor, Salem State University
January Gill O'Neil is an associate professor at Salem State University and the author of Glitter Road (forthcoming, 2024), Rewilding (2018), Misery Islands (2014), and Underlife (2009), all published by CavanKerry Press. From 2012-2018, she served as the executive director of the... Read More →
avatar for Sara Siegel

Friday May 4, 2018 3:30pm - 5:00pm EDT
Adriatic Restaurant and Bar 155 Washington St # 1, Salem, MA 01970
  Featured Event

3:45pm EDT

In the Still of the Night
Limited Capacity filling up
Join us for Factory Hollow Press Poetry Collective Chapbook reading,  and why we like chapbooks. We invite the audience to join in the literary culture of making, discovery, delivery and celebration.
Moderators
avatar for Dara Wier

Dara Wier

editor, factory hollow
Dara Wier's books include In the Still of the Night (Wave Books, 2017), You Good Thing (Wave Books, 2013), Selected Poems (Wave Books, 2009), Remnants of Hannah (Wave Books, 2006), Reverse Rapture (Verse Press, 2005, 2006 Poetry Center Book Award), Hat On a Pond (Verse Press, 2002... Read More →

Speakers
HS
avatar for James Haug

James Haug

James Haug’s newest collection, Riverain, has just appeared from Oberlin College Press, in the FIELD Poetry Series. His other books include The Stolen Car, Walking Liberty (winner of the Morse Poetry Prize), and Legend of the Recent Past. He’s also published a number of chapbooks... Read More →
avatar for Kate Lindroos

Kate Lindroos

Kate Lindroos lives in western Massachusetts. Her chapbook, The Costume of a Hunter, is out now from Factory Hollow Press. Recent poems appear or are forthcoming in jubilat, Sixth Finch, Barrow Street, Permafrost, Cover, Big Big Wednesday, Sugar House Review, Cosmonauts Avenue, and... Read More →

Friday May 4, 2018 3:45pm - 4:45pm EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Library Room
  Group Reading

3:45pm EDT

FDU MFA Poets: This Time It's Terminal
Limited Capacity filling up
Don’t think a low residency program means “low value.” These three poets, Kevin Carey, Mark Hillringhouse and R.G. Evans met while attending a low residency MFA program at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Since the quest of that terminal degree they have published six books of poetry collectively and have collaborated on two poetry documentary films. They will be reading from their books and discussing how their time in a terminal degree program led them to publication, and the mixing of media with poetry, including filmmaking, music and photography, and how their time together in this academic pursuit informed their work. They'll discuss the value of their low res experience and how it energized their poetry careers.
Moderators
avatar for Kevin Carey

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 →

Speakers
avatar for R.G. Evans

R.G. Evans

R.G. Evans's books include Overtipping the Ferryman (Aldrich Press Poetry Prize 2013),  The Noise of Wings (Red Dashboard Press, 2015), and The Holy Both (Main Street Rag, 2017). His original music was featured in the Kevin Carey/Mark Hillringhouse films All That Lies Between Us... Read More →
avatar for Mark Hillringhouse

Mark Hillringhouse

Mark Hillringhouse: is a published poet, essayist, and photographer whose workshave been widely exhibited in area galleries. His photography and writing havebeen published in The American Poetry Review, The Literary Review, The NewYork Times, The New Jersey Monthly, The Paris Review... Read More →

Friday May 4, 2018 3:45pm - 4:45pm EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Skylark Room
  Panel Discussion

3:45pm EDT

The Modern Devotional
Limited Capacity full
The river from which we draw our words runs through eternity.   Crossing beyond the traditional ecstatic, we take a deeper look into the modern search for awakening.  This panel brings together two poets from the water with two poets from the mountains to discuss how to create entry points into a devotional practice. The new voice of devotion sustains through reflection on our relationships to each other and the universe we live in.  It is a poetry born of necessity, a way to be in this world.
Moderators
avatar for Justen Ahren

Justen Ahren

founder and Director, Noepe Center for Literary Arts
Martha's Vineyard Poet Laureate, Justen Ahren is the author of A Strange Catechism and a forthcoming book from Shanti Arts Publishing entitled, A Machine for Remembering. He is founder of Noepe Center for Literary Arts and the Italy Writing Workshop in Orvieto, Italy.

Speakers
avatar for M R Baird

M R Baird

Rachel Elion Baird
M R Baird is a writer, poet and former theologian whose work appears in numerous publications including Poetry Scotland, South Light, Into the Void, New Millennium Writings and Cape Cod Poetry Review. Offering up poems as a language of shared experience, her poems walk the eco-tone... Read More →
avatar for Sue Scavo

Sue Scavo

deLuge Literary Journal :: Students of the Dream
Sue Scavo, poet and visual artist, is the author of Buried [A Place] (Anhinga Press, 2022). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals including Poet Lore, Tahoma Literary Review, Aster(ix), Burning House Press, Literary Mama, Panalopy and others. She has also had work... Read More →
avatar for Karla Van Vliet

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 →

Friday May 4, 2018 3:45pm - 4:45pm EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Sophia Room
  Panel Discussion

7:30pm EDT

Headline Reading - Dorianne Laux and Carl Phillips
Limited Capacity full
Join us for this extraordinary reading with two acclaimed poets, Dorianne Laux and Carl Phillips. Helen Creeley Student Poetry Prize winner Malia Chung will open.
Speakers
avatar for Malia Chung

Malia Chung

Malia Chung, winner of the Helen Creeley Student Poetry Prize, is a sophomore at Milton Academy. She started writing poetry in a middle school English class. She feels grateful to know that, through this competition, she joins a community of student writers.
avatar for Dorianne Laux

Dorianne Laux

Dorianne Laux’s fifth collection, The Book of Men, was awarded The Paterson Prize. Her fourth book of poems, Facts About the Moon won The Oregon Book Award and was short-listed for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. Laux is also the author of Awake; What We Carry, a finalist for... Read More →
avatar for Carl Phillips

Carl Phillips

Carl Phillips is the author of fourteen books of poetry, most recently Wild Is the Wind (FSG, 2018), and Reconnaissance (FSG, 2015), winner of the PEN USA Award and the Lambda Literary Award.  He is also the author of two books of prose: The Art of Daring: Risk, Restlessness, Imagination (Graywolf... Read More →

Friday May 4, 2018 7:30pm - 9:00pm EDT
PEM Atrium
  Headline Event

9:00pm EDT

College Slammers
Limited Capacity seats available
Students from local colleges, including Endicott, Gordon, Merrimack, and Salem State, engage in a friendly poetry slam. Come check out some dynamic performances and get a first-hand look at the Massachusetts college poetry scene in action.
Speakers
avatar for Danielle Jones

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 May 4, 2018 9:00pm - 10:30pm EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Library Room
  Slam

9:30pm EDT

Food 4 Thot - Live Podcast!
Limited Capacity seats available
Food 4 Thot is a podcast discussing sex, identity, race, relationships, what we like to read and who we like to read. This will be a live taping of an episode, and there will be a splash zone, along with Guest Thot Kaveh Akbar! food4thotpodcast.com
Speakers
avatar for Kaveh Akbar

Kaveh Akbar

Kaveh Akbar's poems appear recently in The New Yorker, Poetry, The New York Times, The Nation, and elsewhere. His first book, Calling a Wolf a Wolf, is just out with Alice James in the US and Penguin in the UK. He is also the author of the chapbook Portrait of the Alcoholic. The recipient... Read More →
avatar for Dennis Norris II

Dennis Norris II

Writer
Dennis Norris II is the author of the chapbook Awst Collection—Dennis Norris II, named a best book of 2018 by Powell's. A recipient of fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, Tin House, VCCA, and Kimbilio Fiction, their stories have twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and named... Read More →
JO
avatar for Fran Tirado

Friday May 4, 2018 9:30pm - 10:30pm EDT
Salem Waterfront Hotel, Ballroom 1
  Featured Event
 
Saturday, May 5
 

8:45am EDT

Poetry and Yoga
Limited Capacity full
Find ease and peace in this restful yoga class with poetic meditation guided by Stephanie Kirkos. This experience will take you on a journey through the four seasons, both in body and in mind. Stephanie will guide participants through a series of yin and restorative yoga postures to create a healing environment in the body that also mirrors the healing energy of the seasons. Once we create stillness and ease in each posture, Stephanie will share a selection of Robert Frost's poems with rich, seasonal imagery as a meditative guide to help keep you rooted in the present moment. Participants are asked to provide their own blanket and pillow. While mats are not necessary, participants are welcome to provide their own.
Moderators
avatar for Casey Roland

Casey Roland

Casey Lynn Roland grew up on the North Shore of Massachusetts and currently resides in Beverly. Casey began writing poetry in high school, but didn’t take it seriously until working towards a BA in English at Salem State University, where she became the first graduate with a concentration... Read More →

Speakers
avatar for Stephanie Kirkos

Stephanie Kirkos

Stephanie was first introduced to yoga in 2010 at a gym in Northern Virginia. For years, Stephanie only knew yoga as a “good workout,” a more engaging way to exercise than hitting the treadmill. It wasn’t until she moved to Boston in 2014 and began practicing at studios in her... Read More →

Saturday May 5, 2018 8:45am - 10:45am EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Essex Room
  Workshop

9:30am EDT

Forgotten Women: A Tribute in Poetry
Limited Capacity filling up
The lives of women are celebrated in poems from the recently published anthology: Forgotten Women: A Tribute in Poetry. Several of the contributing poets will share work from the collection, which pays tribute to women from all walks of life: factory workers, artists, sharp-shooters, scientists, lighthouse keepers, mothers, wives, and others. As poet Patricia Spears Jones has said of this collection, “In an era where you'd think that women's lives would always be celebrated or considered, we find that women's lives and stories are often disrespected and dismissed." The poems in this reading present the compelling stories of some women who deserve our attention and respect.
Moderators
avatar for Ginny Lowe Connors

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
CC

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 →
CD

Carol Dine

Carol Dine’s books of poems include Orange Night and Van Gogh in Poems. Her memoir, Places in the Bone, discusses the redemptive power of art. Carol’s work appears in literary magazines, including Aesthetica Creative Arts Annual, UK, Alehouse, Blue Mesa Review, Boulevard, Bitter... Read More →
JF
avatar for Suellen Wedmore

Suellen Wedmore

Suellen Wedmore, Poet Laureate emerita for the small seaside town of Rockport, Massachusetts, has been widely published. She has been awarded first place in the Writer’s Digest’s Rhyming Poem Contest and, most recently, in the digest’s Non-Rhyming Poems contest. Her chapbook... Read More →

Saturday May 5, 2018 9:30am - 10:30am EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Library Room
  Group Reading

9:30am EDT

How Voice Finds Form: Making Our Narrative Poems Sing!
Limited Capacity filling up
Poems will always tell stories. How to tell them effectively varies greatly. Each panelist, Rhina Espaillat, Jacquelyn Malone, David Surette and Rich Youmans has found a way to articulate his or her voice using a specific poetic form. Some of these forms rely on elements of song (meter, rhyme, repetition); others rely on a hybrid of prose and poetry to create imaginative leaps. As moderator, Alice Kociemba will explore with the panelists how they found their forms, why a form works for a particular story and what is gained and sacrificed by their choice. An open exchange among the panelists and with the audience will be facilitated so that attendees will leave this session with an expanded repertoire of strategies to make their own poems sing.
Moderators
avatar for Alice Kociemba

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 →

Speakers
avatar for Rhina P. Espaillat

Rhina P. Espaillat

Rhina P. Espaillat has published ten full-length books and three chapbooks, comprising poetry, essays and short stories, in both English and her native Spanish, and translations from and into both languages. Her work appears in many journals, anthologies, and websites, and has earned... Read More →
avatar for Jacquelyn Malone

Jacquelyn Malone

Jacquelyn Malone’s work has appeared in Poetry, Beloit Poetry Journal, Cortland Review, Poetry Northwest, and Ibbettson Street as well as other publications. Two of her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. One was featured on the website Poetry Daily. Her chapbook All... Read More →
DS
avatar for Rich Youmans

Rich Youmans

Rich Youmans's work has appeared in diverse publications, including Contemporary Haibun Online (where he currently serves as editor in chief), Cape Cod Poetry Review, the Cape Cod Times, and The Best Small Fictions 2020 (Sonder Press). He lives in North Falmouth with his wife, Alice... Read More →

Saturday May 5, 2018 9:30am - 10:30am EDT
Salem Waterfront Hotel, Ballroom 1
  Panel Discussion

9:30am EDT

Suturing with Wounds: Writing Poems About Long Term Illness
Limited Capacity filling up
How difficult it is write of the wasting away of someone we love, or the failure of our own body?  In this workshop, participants will reflect and implement different strategies to write about long term illness.  We will explore the importance of Point of View; discuss our range and opportunity for language not often found in poetry, and reflect on the difficulty and import of writing in the presence of death.  The workshop will briefly discuss the difference between writing about disability and writing about illness.  Students will engage in a number of brief fast exercises designed to jumpstart a poem.  Please be prepared to laugh and cry together.
Speakers
avatar for Sean Thomas Dougherty

Sean Thomas Dougherty

Sean Thomas Dougherty has worked in a newspaper plant, as a security guard, a poet in the schools, a preacher to parolees, and as an untenured college lecturer.  He’s also worked in a pool hall, as a caregiver and medical technician for people recovering from traumatic brain injuries... Read More →

Saturday May 5, 2018 9:30am - 10:30am EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Sophia Room
  Workshop

10:30am EDT

Breaking Through the Stigma: Writing Through Addiction and Recovery
Limited Capacity full
The ongoing opioid epidemic has become a national emergency. Its stigma and judgment prevents real understanding about the disease. Poetry is uniquely suited to expressing this understanding and compassion. In this panel discussion, four poets and a publisher discuss how they have tackled the topic, whether their own or others. They will talk about their writing and publishing processes, how they face the sometimes harrowing experiences brought about by addiction, and how they distill those experiences into memorable and meaningful poetry that, through its honesty and humanity, leads to understanding. If poetry is an opening in the lining between heaven and hell, within those folds we find these poets.  
Moderators
avatar for Donna Munro

Speakers
avatar for Kaveh Akbar

Kaveh Akbar

Kaveh Akbar's poems appear recently in The New Yorker, Poetry, The New York Times, The Nation, and elsewhere. His first book, Calling a Wolf a Wolf, is just out with Alice James in the US and Penguin in the UK. He is also the author of the chapbook Portrait of the Alcoholic. The recipient... Read More →
avatar for Mary Akers

Mary Akers

Editor-in-chief, r.kv.r.y. quarterly literary journal
I publish a journal with the theme of recovery--in all its many forms. We're all recovering from something, after all. I also write fiction with an underlying recovery theme.
avatar for William Brewer

William Brewer

William Brewer is the author of I Know Your Kind (Milkweed Editions, 2017), winner of the National Poetry Series, and Oxyana, selected for the Poetry Society of America's 30 and Under Chapbook Fellowship. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Boston Review, The Iowa Review, Narrative... Read More →
avatar for Nick Flynn

Nick Flynn

Nick Flynn’s “Another Bullshit Night in Suck City” (Norton, 2004), won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for the Art of the Memoir, and has been translated into ten languages. He is also the author of two book of poetry, “Some Ether” (Graywolf, 2000), which won the PEN/Joyce... Read More →
avatar for Wendy Mnookin

Wendy Mnookin

Wendy Mnookin’s most recent book of poetry is Dinner with Emerson (Tiger Bark Press, 2016.) To Get Here, her book about her son’s drug addiction, explores her family’s struggle with his addiction--what happened "to get here," what is unknowable, how they emerged. Wendy has received... Read More →

Saturday May 5, 2018 10:30am - 12:00pm EDT
PEM Create Spaces
  Panel Discussion

11:00am EDT

In Transit: A Poetry Reading with Brionne Janae, Joseph Legaspi, Leah Umansky, and Jenny Xie
Limited Capacity filling up
Four poets with recently released collections share their work, guiding the audience on journeys across the globe, into the past, and toward the future. These three debuts and a second collection address how we move through the world, cope with painful pasts, learn, change, and how we might navigate any turbulence ahead. Each of these collections were heralded by esteemed judges and selected for publication in concert with the Academy of American Poets' Walt Whitman Award (Juan Felipe Herrera), the New Issues Poetry Prize (Mary Szybist), Eyewear Publishing's Sexton Prize (Don Share), or the BOAAT Book Prize (Dorianne Laux).
Moderators
avatar for Joseph O. Legaspi

Joseph O. Legaspi

Kundiman
Joseph O. Legaspi is the author of the poetry collections Threshold and Imago, both from CavanKerry Press; and three chapbooks: Postcards (Ghost Bird Press), Aviary, Bestiary (Organic Weapon Arts), and Subways (Thrush Press). Recent works have appeared in POETRY, New England Review... Read More →

Speakers
avatar for Brionne Janae

Brionne Janae

Brionne Janae is a California native, poet and teaching artist living in Brooklyn. She is the recipient of the 2016 St. Botoloph Emering Artist award, a Hedgebrook and Vermont Studio Center Fellowship Alumni and proud Cave Canem Fellow. Her poetry and prose have been published in... Read More →
avatar for Leah Umansky

Leah Umansky

Leah Umansky is a poet and teacher in NYC, and the author of The Barbarous Century, out now with London's Eyewear Publishing. Her poems can be seen in or are forthcoming in Guernica, Plume, The Bennington Review and Salamander. She also hosts and curates the Couplet Reading Series... Read More →
avatar for Jenny Xie

Saturday May 5, 2018 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Library Room
  Group Reading

11:00am EDT

Nasty Women Poets: A Reading and Panel Discussion of Unapologetic, Subversive, Feminist Verse
Limited Capacity filling up
The 2017 Lost Horse Press anthology NASTY WOMEN POETS: AN UNAPOLOGETIC ANTHOLOGY OF SUBVERSIVE VERSE (ed. Grace Bauer and Julie Kane) is not only a response to the current sociopolitical climate, wherein many women feel outraged about the persistent pervasiveness of sexism in society, but also a timeless celebration of the many defiant women throughout history whose sass, strength, and smarts inspire us. This important anthology is a continuation of a proud tradition of diverse, inclusive feminist anthologies dating back to the 1970s that have helped situate the work of women poets in a canonical context. In this event, four locally based contributors to the NASTY WOMEN POETS anthology will read their work and discuss questions such as: are feminist poetry anthologies still necessary and why? For what reasons do we come together and do this work? How can such projects help advance women inside and outside poetry?
Moderators
avatar for Jenna Le

Jenna Le

Jenna Le is the author of two full-length poetry collections, Six Rivers (NYQ Books, 2011) and A History of the Cetacean American Diaspora (Indolent Books, 2018; 1st edition was published by Anchor & Plume Press, 2016), which won 2nd Place in the 2017 Elgin Awards. Her poetry, fiction... Read More →

Speakers
avatar for Janet Aalfs

Janet Aalfs

Founder and Director, Lotus Peace Arts
I'm an integrative arts performer, educator, activist, healer, and peace-builder. My joy is to facilitate the creation of "sites for revelation" between and among participants of diverse backgrounds and views about life. I've been practicing and teaching weavings of poetry, martial... Read More →
avatar for Liz Ahl

Liz Ahl

Professor of English, Plymouth State University
I joined the PSU (then PSC) faculty in the English Department in 2001. These days I'm teaching mostly Creative Writing, Poetry Workshop, and Composition. Talk to me about the provocative uncertainties of learning & teaching; the moon shot (unless you believe it didn't happen); all... Read More →
avatar for DeMisty D. Bellinger

DeMisty D. Bellinger

Associate Professor, Fitchburg State University
DeMisty D. Bellinger is the author of the poetry chapbook Rubbing Elbows, the full-length poetry collection Peculiar Heritage, and the novel New to Liberty. DeMisty has an MFA from Southampton College and a PhD from the University of Nebraska. She lives in Massachusetts, where... Read More →
avatar for Lesléa Newman

Lesléa Newman

I am a poet, novelist, short story writer, and children's book author.My most recent poetry collections are a pair of memoirs-in-verse, I CARRY MY MOTHER and I WISH MY FATHER. I have also written a novel-in-verse called OCTOBER MOURNING: A SONG FOR MATTHEW SHEPARD. My most well-known... Read More →

Saturday May 5, 2018 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Sophia Room
  Group Reading

11:00am EDT

Satellites, Adoptees, and Undocumented Immigrants: Kundiman and UndocuPoets Present Underrepresented Asian American Narratives
Limited Capacity seats available
Kundiman and UndocuPoets presents a reading and discussion by poets whose perspectives resist and are therefore often excluded from traditional and expected Asian American immigrant narratives. The panelists will read work drawn from their experiences as transracial adoptees, “satellite babies,” and undocumented immigrants for whom migration and citizenship in the U.S. were not a choice. The presentation will conclude with a moderated conversation about how these authors choose to situate their identities as Asian American poets who are marginalized within an already marginalized community.
Moderators
avatar for Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello

Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello

Program Manager, Miami Book Fair
Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello is the author of Hour of the Ox (Pittsburgh, 2016), winner of the Donald Hall Prize for Poetry. She co-translated Yi Won’s The World’s Lightest Motorcycle (Zephyr Press, 2021), which won the 2022 Translation Grand Prize from the Literature Translation... Read More →

Speakers
avatar for Janine Joseph

Janine Joseph

Associate Professor/Dean's Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Virginia Tech
Janine Joseph is a poet and librettist from the Philippines. She is the author of Decade of the Brain: Poems (Alice James Books, 2023) and Driving Without a License (2016), winner of the Kundiman Poetry Prize. Her poetry, essays, and critical writings have appeared in The Nation... Read More →
avatar for E. J. Koh

E. J. Koh

Researcher, University of Washington
E. J. Koh is the author of A Lesser Love, winner of the Pleiades Press Editors Prize (Louisiana State University). Her work appears in Boston Review, Columbia Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. She was a fellow for the American Literary Translators Association, Kundiman... Read More →
avatar for Anni Liu

Anni Liu

Anni Liu is a writer from Xi'an, Shaanxi, and Bowling Green, Ohio. ​Her honors include an Undocupoets Fellowship and a Katherine Bakeless Nason Scholarship to Bread Loaf Environmental Conference. Her work is published or forthcoming in The Margins, Third Coast, The Arkansas International... Read More →
AM

Saturday May 5, 2018 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
PEM Connect BLDG
  Group Reading

11:00am EDT

Street Cred: Four Massachusetts Barrow Street Press Poets
Limited Capacity seats available
Four Massachusetts poets will read from their books published by Barrow Street Press.
Moderators
avatar for Richard Hoffman

Richard Hoffman

Richard Hoffman has published four previous books of poetry: Without Paradise; Gold Star Road, winner of The Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize and the Sheila Motton Book Award from The New England Poetry Club; Emblem; and Noon until Night, which received the 2018 Massachusetts Book... Read More →

Speakers
avatar for Doug Anderson
avatar for Danielle Georges

Danielle Georges

Professor, Lesley University
Danielle Legros Georges is the former Poet Laureate of Boston; a professor of creative writing at Lesley University; the creative editor of six salon, a digital forum for explorations of Caribbean literature; and a contributing editor to the literary magazines Salamander and Consequence... Read More →
avatar for Kevin McLellan

Kevin McLellan

Kevin McLellan is the author of Hemispheres (Fact-Simile Editions, forthcoming), Ornitheology (The Word Works, 2018), [box] (Letter [r] Press, 2016), Tributary (Barrow Street, 2015), and Round Trip (Seven Kitchens, 2010). He won the 2015 Third Coast Poetry Prize and Gival Press... Read More →

Saturday May 5, 2018 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
The Bridge at 211
  Group Reading

11:00am EDT

Critical Collaboration: Poets and Editors
Limited Capacity filling up
Whether at literary magazines or at publishing houses, very few editors actually edit these days. They choose what matches their taste, and rarely choose poems or manuscripts that need work. Many poets, especially those having trouble publishing, have chosen to work with freelance editors. What kind of dynamic is created in this working relationship? In what ways can editing be helpful, and lead to publication? Can it also be harmful? Wyn Cooper, a poet and freelance editor of poetry manuscripts, will lead a discussion with poets whose manuscripts he edited, which led to book publication.
Moderators
avatar for Wyn Cooper

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 →

Speakers
avatar for Tina Cane

Tina Cane

Tina Cane currently serves as the Poet Laureate of Rhode Island, where she lives with her husband and their three children. She is the founder and director of Writers-in- the-Schools, RI and is an instructor with the writing community, Frequency Providence. Her poems and translations... Read More →
KG
avatar for Gregg LeStage

Gregg LeStage

Consultant, McKinsey & Co.
For more than 20 years, Gregg has been a management consultant specializing in leadership development and organizational change. As a Boston-based partner in McKinsey & Co and other consulting firms, he has worked with executives across a wide range of industries. He earned his BA... Read More →

Saturday May 5, 2018 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
Salem Waterfront Hotel, Compass Room
  Panel Discussion

11:00am EDT

Performers and Professors
Limited Capacity filling up
With 854 creative writing programs in the US and hundreds of performance competitions many poets come to writing from listening to others while many of them come to poetry via academic study. But few come to poetry via both pathways. Panelists have experience with both and have varying opinions about the values of each. Expect tangled discussion.
Moderators
MB

Speakers
avatar for Richard Cambridge

Richard Cambridge

writer
I'm looking for an agent for my novel, RIDE (61K words) — a coming of age story, set in the Nineties—an odyssey through fifty years of American culture. Think “My Generation” with a radical twist.Two days before a scheduled reading more than a thousand miles away, a poet’s... Read More →
avatar for Regie Gibson

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 →
avatar for Melissa Guillet

Melissa Guillet

Consultant, 15 Minute Field Trips
Former member of Doc Brown's Traveling Poetry Troop, Melissa Guillet is a published author and Pushcart nominee. She teaches STEM to STEAM, focusing on environmental issues through the arts.
avatar for Valerie Lawson

Valerie Lawson

Editor/Publisher, Resolute Bear Press
Valerie Lawson’s work has been published in Main Street Rag, BigCityLit, About Place Journal, The Catch, and Ibbetson Street. Lawson’s first book, Dog Watch, was released in 2007. Her work has won awards for Best Narrative Poem and Spoken Word at the Cambridge Poetry Awards and... Read More →

Saturday May 5, 2018 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Skylark Room
  Panel Discussion

11:00am EDT

To Carry Across: Poetry in Translation
Limited Capacity seats available
What makes a successful translation? The English word "translate" comes from the Latin "translatus," which means "carried over," or "carried across." In this panel, three celebrated poets and translators will read from their recent works in translation and discuss their individual processes for carrying the words of poets who write in other languages into English as the target language. Dominican American poet Rhina Espaillat will read from and discuss her translations from the Spanish of Miguel Hernandez; Irish poet Aidan Rooney will read from and discuss his recent translations from the French; American poet Daniel Tobin will read from and discuss his newly published versions from the German of Paul Celan.
Moderators
avatar for Daniel Tobin

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 →

Speakers
avatar for Rhina P. Espaillat

Rhina P. Espaillat

Rhina P. Espaillat has published ten full-length books and three chapbooks, comprising poetry, essays and short stories, in both English and her native Spanish, and translations from and into both languages. Her work appears in many journals, anthologies, and websites, and has earned... Read More →
avatar for Aidan Rooney

Aidan Rooney

Winner of the Hennessy Literary Award for New Irish Poet in 1997, and the Daniel Varoujan Award from the New England Poetry Club in 2013, Aidan Rooney lives in Hingham MA and teaches at Thayer Academy. His collections are Day Release (The Gallery Press, 2000), Tightrope (The Gallery... Read More →

Saturday May 5, 2018 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
Salem Waterfront Hotel, Ballroom 1
  Panel Discussion

11:00am EDT

Poems out of Music
Limited Capacity full
How can you write a poem that honors music? Participants will learn how to create a poem that not only can stand independently but that enhances one's hearing of a short piece of music. We will use Chopin Nocturnes, but the technique can be used for almost any music.  Bring pen and paper.
Moderators
avatar for Christopher Nye

Christopher Nye

Chair, Orion Magazine
Thirty-six years ago Chris Nye helped start the magazine, Orion. Now retired from a career in higher education, he serves as Chair of the Orion board. His work appears in journals and anthologies, and his most recent book is Poems Out of Thin Air.

Saturday May 5, 2018 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
New Liberty Charter School, Room 3 1 Museum Place Mall Salem, MA 01970
  Workshop

11:00am EDT

Political/Civic Poetry
Limited Capacity filling up
Political/Civic Poetry will include a brief overview of what political American poetry has historically included. Subjects such as environmental concerns, oppression, policing policies and practices, speaking truth to power, and agitation for change will be explored. Attendees will have the opportunity to experience examples of political poetry, but the emphasis will be on writing poetry based on visual and oral prompts. Those attending will be encouraged to share their poems with opportunities for discussion with the entire group.

In our age of instant communication and the prevalence of social media in our society, information, much of which is not fact checked, can be disseminated on a global scale.  Poets now have the ability to question executive orders, Tweets, and the ramifications of policies almost immediately, but they must be aware of their power to do so wherever they are on the political spectrum. Also, our political climate of “them” vs. “us” requires dialogue, and poetry can provide the opening to begin much needed discussions.
Moderators
avatar for Paul Saint-Amand

Paul Saint-Amand

Northern Essex CC
I have developed and coordinated Peace Poetry Contests and Readings for over 20 years and am an Associate Professor Emeritus of English at SUNY-Potsdam. For the past 11 years, I have been a Professor of English at Northern Essex Community College, where I have instituted this type... Read More →

Speakers
avatar for Gayle C. Heney

Gayle C. Heney

Gayle C. Heney is a former North Andover 2-term Poet Laureate. She is the award winning producer and host of the TV series "Write Now". She is the editor of the poetry anthology "Songs from the Castle’s Remains", "Leaf Sorrow Tree Strong", and co-editor of "Soulmates" that will... Read More →
avatar for C. J. Morse

C. J. Morse

CJ Morse has been a poet and performer throughout the Merrimack Valley for the last 5 years; his work has been published in numerous student anthologies by the Lawrence Student Writer's Workshop and as a writing leader, he's worked with dozens of students to hone their own style and... Read More →

Saturday May 5, 2018 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
New Liberty Charter School, Room 1 1 Museum Place Mall Salem, MA 01970
  Workshop

11:00am EDT

Small Press Fair and Literary Fair
Visit exhibitors at the Small Press and Literary Fair outside of the Peabody Essex Museum along the
pedestrian mall. More than 25 presses will be in attendance, including

Aforementioned Productions
Barrow Street Press
bottle rockets press
Brooklyn Arts Press
Cape Cod Poetry Review
Cervena Barva Press
Common Ground Review
Denise Moyo
Every Other Thursday Poets
Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown
FunDead Publications
Indolent Books
Lesley University
Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site
Loom Press
Manchester by the Book
Naugatuck River Review
New England Poetry Club
Nixes Mate
Paper Nautilus
Perugia Press
Resolute Bear Press
Rocky Arts Unfolded
Sahya Publishing
Salamander
Slate Roof Press
Soundings East
Swamp Press
The Massachusetts Review
The Word Works
Tom Daley, Poetry & Workshops
Tupelo Press
Turtle's Thought Press
Zephyr Press

Saturday May 5, 2018 11:00am - 4:00pm EDT
Pedestrian Walkway
  Featured Event

12:15pm EDT

3 Nations Anthology Reading: Native, Canadian & New England Writers
Limited Capacity seats available
While much attention focuses on the border between Mexico and the United States, this book looks at the northeast, where Canada and New England share borders, boundaries, blood, and heritage. The land is disputed in places, in others the US and Canada share responsibility, and Tribal Lands reside as sovereign nations within their borders. The poems, essays, and short stories in this anthology explore the things that divide, the bridges between, and the intense love of this rugged region the people hold in common.

“...like pulling a deep, revivifying breath into the body." Patricia Smith, author of Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah

"...a book pulsing with the heartbeat of the land.” Chris Benjamin, Managing Editor of Atlantic Books Today

“...a refreshing change from the literary and cultural barriers that we all too often allow to come between us.” Joseph Bruchac, winner, Native Writers Circle of the Americas Writer of the Year
Moderators
avatar for Valerie Lawson

Valerie Lawson

Editor/Publisher, Resolute Bear Press
Valerie Lawson’s work has been published in Main Street Rag, BigCityLit, About Place Journal, The Catch, and Ibbetson Street. Lawson’s first book, Dog Watch, was released in 2007. Her work has won awards for Best Narrative Poem and Spoken Word at the Cambridge Poetry Awards and... Read More →

Speakers
avatar for Carol Hobbs
PH
avatar for Sonja Johanson

Sonja Johanson

Sonja Johanson is the author of Impossible Dovetail (IDES, Silver Birch Press), all those ragged scars (Choose the Sword Press), and Trees in Our Dooryards (Redbird Chapbooks). She has recent work appearing in the McNeese Review, the Mid-American Review, Ninth Letter, and Poet Lore... Read More →
avatar for Cheryl Savageau

Cheryl Savageau

Cheryl Savageau is the author of three collections of poetry, Mother/Land, Dirt Road Home, which was a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize and nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and Home Country. She has won Fellowships in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts... Read More →
DS

Saturday May 5, 2018 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Library Room
  Group Reading

12:15pm EDT

KabuMerikanas: Women in Cape Verdean American Culture
Limited Capacity seats available
While exploring Cape Verdean poetry and music, this program will speak directly to the impact of Cape Verdean culture and heritage on the lives of three women of Cape Verdean descent.  One was born in Cabo Verde with strong transnational ties to her homeland, having traveled to Cabo Verde many times with her parents since her arrival in the U.S. at age 5.  Her upbringing in both cultures has affected her artistry in significant ways.  The other two presenters are 2nd generation American-born and were raised experiencing various degrees of Cape Verdean culture in their households and communities. These three perspectives of Cape Verdean cultural background come together to help paint a picture of Cape Verdean sensibility from varied experiences.  The presentation will draw on original poetry and song by the participants, as well as works by other Cape Verdean poets, vocal artists, and composers (focusing on women).
Moderators
avatar for Candida Rose Baptista

Candida Rose Baptista

Vocalist/Educator, Golden Rose Music
I am a 2nd generation, American-born, Cape Verdean. I am a vocalist/entertainer and educator. I am a 2017 graduate from UMASS Boston with a Master’s Degree in Transnational, Cultural, and Community Studies. It is my mission to share my cultural heritage and experience with as many... Read More →

Speakers
avatar for Iva Brito
avatar for Jarita Davis

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 →

Saturday May 5, 2018 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Skylark Room
  Group Reading

12:15pm EDT

Love's Executive Order Reading
Limited Capacity seats available
Love's Executive Order Reading--A group of poets will read poems from Love's Executive Order, a web based project that is dedicated to publishing a poem a week on the Trump Presidency.
Moderators
avatar for Matthew Lippman

Matthew Lippman

Beaver Country Day School
Matthew Lippman is the author of four poetry collections—The New Year of Yellow (winner of the Kathryn A. Morton Prize, Sarabande Books), Monkey Bars, Salami Jew, and American Chew (winner of the Burnside Review of Books Poetry Prize). He is the Editor and Founder of the web based... Read More →

Speakers
avatar for Tina Cane

Tina Cane

Tina Cane currently serves as the Poet Laureate of Rhode Island, where she lives with her husband and their three children. She is the founder and director of Writers-in- the-Schools, RI and is an instructor with the writing community, Frequency Providence. Her poems and translations... Read More →
avatar for Kerrin McCadden

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 →
avatar for Jill McDonough

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 →
avatar for Daniel Nester

Daniel Nester

Associate Professor, The College of Saint Rose
Daniel Nester is the author most recently of the memoir Shader: 99 Notes on Car Washes, Making Out in Church, Grief, and Other Unlearnable Subjects. As a journalist and essayist, his writing has appeared in a variety of places, such as American Poetry Review, Salon, New York Times... Read More →
avatar for Elizabeth Powell

Saturday May 5, 2018 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT
PEM Create Spaces
  Group Reading

12:15pm EDT

Through Barbed Wire Presents: Invisible Voices
Limited Capacity seats available
Through Barbed Wire, a program created by Arnie King to bring the voices of human beings held in chains in Massachusetts, out of captivity and into our shared communities. It is a sustained effort to help nurture and maintain the flow of healthy relationships across nocuous barriers during the incarceration period. Prisoners’ poetry reveals the truth about the practice of locking folks away for their mistakes and illnesses, how they struggle to remain human during the incarceration period, and that humanistic change is long overdue to make our communities safer. We will read a selection of 5-7 works of poetry written by folks in Massachusetts prison cells. Then we'll distribute index cards and pencils so that listeners may write responses to poems. We'll read a few responses and ask to keep them to send to the corresponding writers, but we'll also return responses if a listener prefers.
Moderators
avatar for Dianne Zimbabwe

Dianne Zimbabwe

Coordinator, Through Barbed Wire
I'm a visual artist and educator. Since 2010, I have coordinated Through Barbed Wire events and projects for my friend Arnie King, who created and directs this and other programs from inside Norfolk state prison. Seeing prisoners as intelligent, loving human beings, through their... Read More →

Speakers
avatar for Zella Brown

Zella Brown

As a professional actress and activist, I volunteered for fifteen years as a facilitator in a group called Growing Together, located at Bay State Correctional, in Norfolk, MA. At monthly meetings, inmates shared their life-altering experiences through their writings. As a co-founder... Read More →
KT

Saturday May 5, 2018 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT
Salem Waterfront Hotel, Ballroom 2 225 Derby St, Salem, MA 01970
  Group Reading

12:15pm EDT

Headline Reading-Kaveh Akbar and Nicole Sealey
Limited Capacity filling up
Join us for an afternoon reading with two of the most engaging poets writing today, Kaveh Akbar and Nicole Sealey, with an opening reading by Mass Poetry 2018 Festival Reading Contest winner Hannah Larrabee.
Speakers
avatar for Kaveh Akbar

Kaveh Akbar

Kaveh Akbar's poems appear recently in The New Yorker, Poetry, The New York Times, The Nation, and elsewhere. His first book, Calling a Wolf a Wolf, is just out with Alice James in the US and Penguin in the UK. He is also the author of the chapbook Portrait of the Alcoholic. The recipient... Read More →
avatar for Hannah Larrabee
avatar for Nicole Sealey

Nicole Sealey

Born in St. Thomas, U.S.V.I. and raised in Apopka, Florida, Nicole Sealey is the author of Ordinary Beast and The Animal After Whom Other Animals Are Named, winner of the 2015 Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize. Her other honors include an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant, the Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize from The American Poetry Review, a Daniel Varoujan Award and the Poetry International Prize, as well as fellowships from Cant... Read More →

Saturday May 5, 2018 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT
PEM Morse Auditorium
  Headline Event

12:15pm EDT

Labor & Delivery: Emerging Poets on Notions of Literary Success
Limited Capacity seats available
What constitutes the success of a poet, and to what extent is this notion collective, rather than individual? Are the parameters of success fixed, or malleable? How might we reconfigure success outside of or against institutional norms? Panelists will explore these topics from a range of positions and experiences—academic and non-academic; journal and book publications; reading series and editorial work; community-building and resource-sharing. What does it mean for each of us to be “emerging"? What could it mean in the future? We will discuss paths, strategies, dreams, and the sociopolitical ways in which our subject positions as people affect our choices as poets in the world. Drawing on our own journeys as well as those of our models and mentors, we invite festival attendees to participate in a lively conversation on what it means to succeed as a contemporary writer.
Moderators
avatar for Chen Chen

Chen Chen

Chen Chen is the author of two books of poetry, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency (BOA Editions, 2022) and When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (BOA Editions, 2017), which was longlisted for the National Book Award and won the Thom Gunn Award... Read More →

Speakers
avatar for Cassandra de Alba
KA

Kimberly Alidio

Kimberly Alidio wrote After projects the resound (Black Radish, 2016). She received a doctorate from the University of Michigan, held and left a tenure-track position at the University of Texas’ History Department/ Center for Asian American Studies, and currently studies poetry... Read More →
avatar for Mag Gabbert

Mag Gabbert

Hi, folks! Here's some info about me: Mag Gabbert holds a Ph.D. in creative writing from Texas Tech University and an MFA in creative writing from The University of California at Riverside. Her nonfiction essays and poems have been published in journals including 32 Poems, The Rumpus... Read More →
avatar for Keegan Lester

Saturday May 5, 2018 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT
The Bridge at 211
  Panel Discussion

12:15pm EDT

Poetry as Social Action: Panel Discussion, Hopeful Prompts
Limited Capacity filling up
Can art change the world? Where do we draw the line between investigation and activism, intervention and witness, persuasion and propaganda? Who gets to claim personal and communal narratives, and what are the implications of breaking silence versus forgetting history?  Post-election, poetry has emerged as a way to channel the uncertainty that comes with regime change. Poets share their thoughts and work that focuses on justice, resistance, and/or ways to bolster spirits and protect the disenfranchised in uncertain times. They also will offer prompts to quell the disquiet and awaken our spirit of resistance.  . Poems of social action not only challenge and change us but help us feel more hopeful and less alone. As the late June Jordan wrote, “We are the ones we have been waiting for.”
Moderators
avatar for Elisabeth Weiss

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
avatar for Danielle Georges

Danielle Georges

Professor, Lesley University
Danielle Legros Georges is the former Poet Laureate of Boston; a professor of creative writing at Lesley University; the creative editor of six salon, a digital forum for explorations of Caribbean literature; and a contributing editor to the literary magazines Salamander and Consequence... Read More →
avatar for Krysten Hill

Krysten Hill

Krysten Hill is the author of How Her Spirit Got Out (Aforementioned Productions, 2016), which received the 2017 Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize. Her work has been featured in The Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day Series, POETRY, Up the Staircase Quarterly, PANK, Winter Tangerine... Read More →
avatar for Fred Marchant

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 →
avatar for Gloria Mindock

Gloria Mindock

Gloria Mindock is the founding editor of Cervena Barva Press and one of the USA editors for Levure Litteraire (France). She is the author of I Wish Francisco Franco Would Love Me (Nixes Mate Books), Whiteness of Bone (Glass Lyre Press), La Portile Raiului (Ars Longa Press, Romania... Read More →

Saturday May 5, 2018 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT
Salem Waterfront Hotel, Ballroom 1
  Panel Discussion

12:15pm EDT

Poets on Autism: Hope in the Helicopter Rain
Limited Capacity seats available
We must admit it is difficult to write about children without falling into the maudlin. How much harder when they are disabled? As poets, we face the double danger of the sentimental and the exoticization of their disability. This panel will address how do poets negotiate the topic and portraiture of autism. Each panelist will read a small selection of poems that they have written about their own autistic children or siblings, and speak to the difficulties of writing these poems. We will then open the panel for discussion. What is at stake for our children, our readers? What strategies do we entail to capture the ontological complexity of our most vulnerable citizens, during a time when they are too often categorized as less than? How do we speak our joys, fears, love in language whose intent is to nurture, to elevate, to challenge, and to sing.
Moderators
avatar for Sean Thomas Dougherty

Sean Thomas Dougherty

Sean Thomas Dougherty has worked in a newspaper plant, as a security guard, a poet in the schools, a preacher to parolees, and as an untenured college lecturer.  He’s also worked in a pool hall, as a caregiver and medical technician for people recovering from traumatic brain injuries... Read More →

Speakers
avatar for Susan Elmslie

Susan Elmslie

Professor (poet & teacher), Dawson College
Susan Elmslie’s latest poetry collection, Museum of Kindness (Brick, 2017), has just been shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award. Her first collection, I, Nadja, and Other Poems (Brick, 2006), won the A.M. Klein Poetry Prize and was shortlisted for the McAuslan First Book... Read More →
KA
avatar for Oliver De La Paz

Oliver De La Paz

Associate Professor, College of the Holy Cross
Oliver de la Paz is the Poet Laureate of Worcester, MA for 2023-2025. He is the author and editor ofseven books: Names Above Houses, Furious Lullaby, Requiem for the Orchard, Post Subject: A Fable, andThe Boy in the Labyrinth, a finalist for the Massachusetts Book Award in Poetry... Read More →

Saturday May 5, 2018 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT
PEM Connect BLDG
  Panel Discussion

12:15pm EDT

Room 222: Boston University Poets & the Lineage of the Confessional Poem
Limited Capacity seats available
Over the decades, generations of poets have taught and learned in Room 222 of 236 Bay State Road, at Boston University: from Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath to Robert Pinsky, Rosanna Warren, and Louise Gluck. Our panel of poets and writers, who are also graduates of the BU Creative Writing Program (from the same class of 2000), will trace the lines of the so-called "confessional" style of poetry, to illuminate its origins in that small writing room all those years ago, as well as explore its various branches and departures through time, while seeking to answer these two, overarching questions: how has the confessional style evolved, and is it still relevant today?
Moderators
avatar for Frederick Speers

Frederick Speers

Frederick Speers’ first book of poems, So Far Afield (from Nomadic Press 2017) is a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award in the category of gay poetry. He is the founding editor of Jam Tarts Literary Magazine, and the first recipient of the Thoreau Fellowship from the Vermont Studio... Read More →

Speakers
avatar for Rachel E DeWoskin

Rachel E DeWoskin

Prof/Novelist, University of Chicago
Rachel DeWoskin’s fifth book, the novel Second Circus, will be published by Penguin in Spring, 2018. Her critically acclaimed novel, Blind, was published by Penguin in 2014 and is a Library Guild and an Illinois Reads selection. Her novel Big Girl Small (FSG, 2011), received the... Read More →
avatar for Kirun Kapur

Kirun Kapur

Kirun Kapur's collections include Women in the Waiting Room, a finalist for the National Poetry Series, and Visiting Indira Gandhi's Palmist, which won the Antivenom Poetry Award. Her work’s appeared in Ploughshares, AGNI, and Prairie Schooner. She’s an editor for the Beloit Poetry... Read More →
avatar for Jacob Strautmann

Jacob Strautmann

Jacob Strautmann's first book of poems The Land of the Dead is Open for Business is forthcoming in Spring 2020 from Four Way Books, and he was awarded a 2018 Massachusetts Poetry Fellowship by the Massachusetts Cultural Council. His poems have appeared in Forklift, Ohio, The Harlequin... Read More →

Saturday May 5, 2018 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT
Salem Waterfront Hotel, Compass Room
  Panel Discussion

12:15pm EDT

The Poetry of Predation: Women Poets On Writing the Poetry of Misogyny, Abuse, and Violence
Limited Capacity seats available
Three women poets discuss and read from their own work centering around abuse, violence against women and girls, inherited trauma and survival. The poets use a combination of myth, fairy tale, pop culture and personal history as metaphor and through which to view an ages' old cultural disease. Panelists will read from their work and discuss the ways in which misogyny, abuse, and violence against women and girls manifests in their poetry. They will touch on how they approach personal subject matter, how they navigate the terrain of secret and taboo, especially when telling stories not exclusively their own, what it means to inherit trauma and a lineage of abuse, and how claiming a poetic voice with which to tell these stories, whether personal or ancestral, shatters the traditional role of secret keeper.
Moderators
avatar for Sarah Sousa

Sarah Sousa

Sarah Sousa is the author of the poetry collections See the Wolf (2018): Split the Crow (2015) and Church of Needles (2014) She also edited and transcribed The Diary of Esther Small, 1886 (2014) which won the New England Book Festival Award for Regional Literature. Her poems have... Read More →

Speakers
avatar for Joyce Hayden

Joyce Hayden

Artist/ Owner, Blue Angel Studio
Joyce Hayden is a writer, teacher, and visual artist. She is the author of the chapbook Lost Handprint. A former English instructor at Westfield State University, Joyce has led Amherst Writers and Artists (AWAI) formatted workshops for under-served populations since 1996. She has... Read More →
avatar for Sonja Johanson

Sonja Johanson

Sonja Johanson is the author of Impossible Dovetail (IDES, Silver Birch Press), all those ragged scars (Choose the Sword Press), and Trees in Our Dooryards (Redbird Chapbooks). She has recent work appearing in the McNeese Review, the Mid-American Review, Ninth Letter, and Poet Lore... Read More →

Saturday May 5, 2018 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Sophia Room
  Panel Discussion

12:15pm EDT

Memory and Redemption
Limited Capacity filling up
Stanley Kunitz said, ‟Poetry is for the sake of the life,” and wrote of receiving a gift, a blessing—which seems to be, in some poems, a blaze of memory. Polly Brown, poet, teacher and naturalist, will lead writers through two poems related to Kunitz’s boyhood home and his experience there, to ask how those poems work ‟for the sake of the life.” Participants will examine both betrayal and redemption in their own lives and explore related memories through their writing, bearing in mind some useful aspects of Kunitz’s craft.
Moderators
avatar for Polly Brown

Polly Brown

Every Other Thursday Poets
Polly Brown taught at Touchstone Community School in Grafton for 25 innovative, exhilarating years. A member of Every Other Thursday Poets, she has organized outdoor poetry events on her Hopkinton hillside, and written about war and peace at UMass Boston's Joiner Institute. She has... Read More →

Saturday May 5, 2018 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT
New Liberty Charter School, Room 3 1 Museum Place Mall Salem, MA 01970
  Workshop

12:15pm EDT

Verbing: Writing Poetry from the Body
Limited Capacity filling up
Participants will experience writing authentically from their bodies instead of their brains by looking at experiential poems as models and by seeing where an awareness of actions such as breathing, walking and dancing can take them.  Contemporary poems are often written from a cerebral, analytic stance; we will approach writing in a fresher, more visceral way, grounding ourselves with simple activities in breath and movement. Everyone will leave having shared at least one poem from the body.
Moderators
avatar for Cathie Desjardins

Cathie Desjardins

Poet Laureate Emerita of Arlington, MA. A lifelong educator, poet, and journalist, author of two books of poems, With Child and  Buddha in the Garden. Teaches independently and with Grub Street.  

Saturday May 5, 2018 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT
New Liberty Charter School, Room 2 1 Museum Place Mall Salem, MA 01970
  Workshop

2:00pm EDT

Cave Canem
Limited Capacity seats available
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 400. 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.
Speakers
avatar for Lillian-Yvonne Bertram

Lillian-Yvonne Bertram

Director, MFA in Creative Writing
Lillian-Yvonne Bertram is an Associate Professor of English, Africana Studies, and Art & Design at Northeastern University. Previously they directed the MFA in Creative Writing at UMASS Boston. They have previously taught at St. Lawrence University, Ithaca College, and Williams College... Read More →
CC
avatar for Jarita Davis

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 →
avatar for nicole terez dutton
avatar for Chanda Feldman

Chanda Feldman

Visiting Professor of Creative Writing, Oberlin College
Chanda Feldman is the author of Approaching the Fields (LSU Press, forthcoming Spring 2018). Her poems have appeared in numerous journals including Cincinnati Review, Ecotone, New South, Prairie Schooner, The Southern Review, and Virginia Quarterly Review.Chanda has received awards... Read More →

Saturday May 5, 2018 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
PEM Connect BLDG
  Group Reading

2:00pm EDT

We're Here, We're Queer: New Poetry Books by LGBTQ Writers
Limited Capacity seats available
A reading to celebrate recently published books by award-winning Massachusetts LGBTQ poets including "Girls Like You" by Margot Douaihy, "Fireworks in the Graveyard" and "The Future Is Trying To Tell Us Something: New and Selected Poems" by Joy Ladin, "Fellow Odd Fellow" by Steven Riel, and "I Carry My Mother" and "Lovely" by Lesléa Newman.
Moderators
avatar for Lesléa Newman

Lesléa Newman

I am a poet, novelist, short story writer, and children's book author.My most recent poetry collections are a pair of memoirs-in-verse, I CARRY MY MOTHER and I WISH MY FATHER. I have also written a novel-in-verse called OCTOBER MOURNING: A SONG FOR MATTHEW SHEPARD. My most well-known... Read More →

Speakers
avatar for Margot Douaihy

Margot Douaihy

Franklin Pierce University
Margot Douaihy's books include "Scranton Lace" and "Girls Like You" (Clemson University Press). She is the Editor of the Northern New England Review and a founding member of the Creative Writing Studies Organization. Her writings have been featured in PBS NewsHour, Colorado Review... Read More →
avatar for Joy Ladin

Joy Ladin

Joy Ladin is the author of ten books of poetry, including 2022's Shekhinah Speaks, National Jewish Book Award winner The Book of Anna, and Lambda Literary Award finalists Impersonation and Transmigration. She has also published a memoir of gender transition, Through the Door of Life... Read More →
avatar for Steven Riel

Steven Riel

I am the author of one full-length book of poetry (Fellow Odd Fellow, published by Trio House Press) as well as three chapbooks, with the most recent, Postcard from P-town, selected as runner-up for the inaugural Robin Becker Chapbook Prize and published by Seven Kitchens Press. My... Read More →

Saturday May 5, 2018 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Library Room
  Group Reading

2:00pm EDT

Headline Reading - Duy Doan, Jeffery Harrison, and Erika Meitner
Limited Capacity seats available
Join us for an afternoon headline event with Duy Doan, Jeffery Harrison, and Erika Meitner
Speakers
avatar for Duy Doan

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.
avatar for Jeffrey Harrison

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 →
avatar for Erika Meitner

Erika Meitner

Erika Meitner is the author of Inventory at the All-Night Drugstore (Anhinga Press, 2003), Makeshift Instructions for Vigilant Girls (Anhinga Press, 2011), and Ideal Cities (Harper Perennial, 2010), which was a 2009 National Poetry series winner. Her fourth book of poems, Copia, was... Read More →

Saturday May 5, 2018 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
PEM Morse Auditorium
  Headline Event

2:00pm EDT

Fathers, Present and Absent: Encounters, Enigmas, and Elegies
Limited Capacity filling up
What can poems teach us about what it means to have a father, or to lose a father, or not to ever have one be an important figure in one's life? How might a poem help us understand what our fathers did provide and what they were incapable of? As fathers seem at times enigmatic, how might a poem help identify key moments when we came to understand them better, perhaps pointing toward re-considerations and re-evaluations of the relationship? In sum, how might poems help us take the measure of the long-lasting impact of our fathers on our lives? Five poets, four on the Suffolk University creative writing faculty and one Suffolk student-writer, will read their own poems that address these questions, and discuss briefly how poetic insight and form can yield surprising insights and new ways of knowing and/or not knowing what a father is.
Moderators
avatar for Fred Marchant

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
avatar for Jennifer Barber

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 →
avatar for David Ferry
GK
RR

Saturday May 5, 2018 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Sophia Room
  Panel Discussion

2:00pm EDT

Salamander 25th Anniversary Reading
Limited Capacity seats available
Ben Berman, Danielle Legros Georges, and Kelle Groom, whose poetry appears in recent issues of SALAMANDER, will read from their new and recent work, in honor of SALAMANDER’s 25th anniversary. Ben Berman’s new collection, FIGURING IN THE FIGURE, was published in 2017 by Able Muse Press. Danielle Georges’s recent volume, THE DEAR REMOTE NEARNESS OF YOU, came out in 2016 from Barrow Street Press. Kelle Groom’s new collection SPILL was published in 2017 by Anhinga Press. Each poet will read for 12 minutes, followed by an informal question-and-answer session focused on how each thinks about the poetic line, including the metrical and free verse line, pauses and fragmentation within the line, and the various reasons for deploying the prose poem.
Moderators
avatar for Jennifer Barber

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 →

Speakers
avatar for Ben Berman

Ben Berman

Author
Ben Berman is the author of three books of poems and the new book of essays, Writing While Parenting. He has won the Peace Corps Award for the Best Book of Poetry, has twice been shortlisted twice for the Massachusetts Book Awards and has received awards from the Massachusetts Cultural... Read More →
avatar for Danielle Georges

Danielle Georges

Professor, Lesley University
Danielle Legros Georges is the former Poet Laureate of Boston; a professor of creative writing at Lesley University; the creative editor of six salon, a digital forum for explorations of Caribbean literature; and a contributing editor to the literary magazines Salamander and Consequence... Read More →
avatar for Kelle Groom

Kelle Groom

Low-residency MFA Faculty, Sierra Nevada College, Lake Tahoe
Kelle Groom is a poet and memoirist. Her memoir, I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl (Simon & Schuster), is a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick, New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice selection, a Library Journal Best Memoir, Oprah O Magazine selection, and Oxford... Read More →

Saturday May 5, 2018 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
The Bridge at 211
  Panel Discussion

2:00pm EDT

Story Retold/Renewed: Women Retelling History
Limited Capacity seats available
Women poets are actively addressing patriarchal history and myths, retelling the stories, and righting the truth of women who have been rendered either pariah or icon, creating and publishing vital, well-crafted work. Facilitated by poets Antoinette Brim, Kimberly Collins, and Georgia A. Popoff, this conversation, which continues from the 2017 roundtable, will center on the theme of women owning both voice and history in ways that empower and inform, with a particular focus on persona poetry as an extension of personal voice. Following our lineage, in spite of many challenges, women continue to write, compelling critical thought through language. The facilitators will share from works in progress to initiate the discussion, then will open to participants to discuss their own work, and the work of women who inspire them to address issues of race, class, gender, and accepted norms within the poetic canon and ways to change and expand them.
Moderators
avatar for Georgia Popoff

Georgia Popoff

Workshops Coordinator, Downtown Writers Center
I am a community poet living and teaching in Syracuse, NY. Three collections of poetry and one coauthored book for teachers on poetry in public education. Senior editor of the Comstock Review.

Speakers
avatar for Antoinette Brim

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 →
avatar for Kimberly A. Collins

Kimberly A. Collins

Kimberly A. Collins teaches English at Morgan State University and facilitates Writing for Healing workshops through her organization SOAR (So Others Ascend Righteously). Her book, Choose You Wednesday Wisdom to Wake Your Soul (2017) is a composite of essays from her Wednesday Wisdom... Read More →

Saturday May 5, 2018 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
Salem Waterfront Hotel, Ballroom 1
  Panel Discussion

2:00pm EDT

You Are Here: Writing From Your Place in History
Limited Capacity filling up
You Are Here: Writing From Your Place in History  "The Machine is the Other; each glimpse of the human face, rising out of it, is the counter."   -Nomi Stone  

Three poets who write about America's ongoing colonialism and systemic brutality (both at home and abroad) will read their work and discuss the difficulties of disentangling themselves from their history, the prescribed parameters and limitations of inheritance, in order to disturb the power of empire. How does one challenge the constructs of whiteness, without appropriating other voices, or denying privilege? How does one write about violence, without reenacting it? How do we push ourselves past the fixed boundaries of our own imaginations?
Moderators
avatar for Danielle Jones

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 →

Speakers
avatar for Jill McDonough

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 →
avatar for Nomi Stone

Nomi Stone

Nomi Stone’s second collection of poems, Kill Class is forthcoming from Tupelo Press in 2019. Poems appear recently or will soon in POETRY, American Poetry Review, The New Republic, The Academy of American Poets’ “Poem-a-Day” series, Bettering American Poetry 2017, The Best... Read More →

Saturday May 5, 2018 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
Salem Waterfront Hotel, Compass Room
  Panel Discussion

2:00pm EDT

Salvage & Adventure: Poetic Play, Remix, Erase, Collage and Assemble!
Limited Capacity filling up
You may think of a poem as a monster of its own making, but poems are often many-headed conversations with others. This generative poetry workshop will utilize the historical and artistic space of the Peabody Essex Museum as a site of inquiry. We will respond to what can be found in the environs (ekphrastic, historic, story) and explore what we can uncover when we use remix, erasure, collage and assemblage in our work as creative strategies. We will write and risk together in community!
Moderators
avatar for Ching-In Chen

Ching-In Chen

University of Washington Bothell
Descended from ocean dwellers, Ching-In Chen is a genderqueer Chinese American writer, community organizer and teacher. They are author of The Heart's Traffic: a novel in poems (Arktoi Books/Red Hen Press, 2009) and recombinant (Kelsey Street Press, 2018 Lambda Literary Award... Read More →

Saturday May 5, 2018 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
PEM Create Spaces
  Workshop

2:00pm EDT

Start Right: Writing First Lines
Limited Capacity filling up
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways What happens to a dream deferred?   Do not go gentle into that good night  These first lines from poems by Browning, Hughes and Thomas have become part of the American lexicon. Such is the enduring power of an evocative first line. What is the work of a poem’s opening lines? How do you make your poems issue an invitation, a provocation or a challenge to a reader? In this generative workshop, we will explore memorable first lines and identify the true first line in rearranged poems. We will generate our own first lines and see where they lead us. You will leave this workshop with a new poem and the start of many more.
Moderators
avatar for Dawn Paul

Dawn Paul

Writing/Interdisciplinary Faculty, Montserrat College of Art
Dawn Paul is the author of the novel The Country of Loneliness and What We Still Don’t Know, poems on the life and work of scientist Carl Linnaeus. She has also published poetry, fiction and science/nature articles in a variety of journals and magazines, including Orion, Comstock... Read More →

Saturday May 5, 2018 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
New Liberty Charter School, Room 1 1 Museum Place Mall Salem, MA 01970
  Workshop

2:00pm EDT

What Big Words You Have: Using Fairy Tales in Your Poetry
Limited Capacity full
Experiment with taking your personal experience from, “This one time…” to, “Once upon a time…” through the use of fairy tales in your writing. By subordinating the objective facts of experience, fairy tales prioritize subjectivity and provide writers an opportunity to reveal an amplified emotional truth. Fairy tale can also help us evade the illusion of "real life," allowing us to approach social, political, or personal topics through the lens of fantasy. Join this workshop for magical writing exercises and spellbinding readings!
Moderators
avatar for Mollie Chandler

Mollie Chandler

Associate Editor, Macmillan Learning
I'm a poet and sometimes-fantasy writer with work published or forthcoming in The Fairy Tale Review, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, The Charles River Journal, Hollow, and Light, to name a few. My interests include fairy tales, baking, existential philosophy, vintage fashion, and... Read More →

Saturday May 5, 2018 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Skylark Room
  Workshop

2:00pm EDT

Blackout Poetry Creative Studio--Drop-in Session!
Limited Capacity seats available
Blackout Poetry is the art of redacting words from an existing piece of text until a poem emerges. Many Blackout Poems become art pieces, whether they are simple and abstract, or more complex to create an illustration of the words on the page. Come create your own Blackout Poems in the Blackout Poetry Creative Studio! Examples will be on hand and for sale, as well as art supplies and "retired" books to inspire visitors to make inventive pieces that combine poetry and visual art. This is a drop-in activity.
Moderators
avatar for Casey Roland

Casey Roland

Casey Lynn Roland grew up on the North Shore of Massachusetts and currently resides in Beverly. Casey began writing poetry in high school, but didn’t take it seriously until working towards a BA in English at Salem State University, where she became the first graduate with a concentration... Read More →


Saturday May 5, 2018 2:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
New Liberty Charter School, Room 3 1 Museum Place Mall Salem, MA 01970
  Poetry with Visual Art

3:15pm EDT

10th Anniversary of the UMass Boston MFA Program
Limited Capacity filling up
This year marks the first decade of the UMass Boston MFA Program. A new poet has joined the faculty, all three faculty poets have had new books this year, and two of our graduates have published their first books. We'd like to celebrate this landmark with a reading and discussion of the program by our diverse faculty poets--Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, Jill McDonough, and Lloyd Schwartz--and our talented students.
Moderators
avatar for Lloyd Schwartz

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 →

Speakers
avatar for Lillian-Yvonne Bertram
avatar for Jill McDonough

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 May 5, 2018 3:15pm - 4:15pm EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Library Room
  Group Reading

3:15pm EDT

Celebrating Our 25th: Four Way Books Reading
Limited Capacity seats available
Join us for a reading to celebrate our 25th anniversary! There will be readings by five of our authors: Andrea Cohen (Unfathoming 2017), Miranda Field (Imaginary Royalty 2017), Vincent Guerra (When Hollywood Comes to You 2017), Margaree Little (Rest 2018), and Kamilah Aisha Moon (Starshine & Clay 2017).
Moderators
VG

Speakers
avatar for Andrea Cohen

Andrea Cohen

Andrea Cohen’s poems and stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The Threepenny Review, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, Glimmer Train, The Hudson Review, etc. A new book of poems, The Sorrow Apartments, is forthcoming from Four Way Books. Other collections include... Read More →
MF
avatar for Margaree Little
KA

Saturday May 5, 2018 3:15pm - 4:15pm EDT
The Bridge at 211
  Group Reading

3:15pm EDT

Common Threads
Limited Capacity filling up
Join us as Alan Feldman leads a discussion on this year's Common Thread poems. This year’s theme, Born to Be Lonely: Massachusetts Poets on Connection and Disconnection.

Read more about the 2018 Common Threads selections:
http://www.masspoetry.org/commonthreads/
Moderators
avatar for Alan Feldman

Speakers
avatar for Kathleen Aguero

Kathleen Aguero

Writer: "Self Portrait as Geranium"Dancer: Betsy Miller
LB
EF
avatar for Jeffrey Harrison

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 →
EM

Saturday May 5, 2018 3:15pm - 4:15pm EDT
PEM Connect BLDG
  Panel Discussion

3:15pm EDT

A Furious Din: Poetry of Survival
Limited Capacity full
Bring your most courageous writing self to this workshop.

“...come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.”
—Lucille Clifton

Today the believers of white nationalism—that racist patriarchal ideology that threatens our country—have been emboldened by Trump and his ilk. More than ever, we need Lucille Clifton’s famous poem and the spirit of survival it embodies. We need even more poems in that spirit by those who are people of color, queer, immigrant, living with disability, and anyone who inhabits an identity detested by white nationalists and supremacists. To that end, this workshop is intended to raise our voices in a time when many would not only silence us, but also wipe us out entirely.

Led by experienced facilitators, the workshop will invite participants to engage with poetry of survival and to respond through an innovative writing prompt.
Moderators
avatar for Tamiko Beyer

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 →

Speakers
avatar for Duy Doan

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.
avatar for Joseph O. Legaspi

Joseph O. Legaspi

Kundiman
Joseph O. Legaspi is the author of the poetry collections Threshold and Imago, both from CavanKerry Press; and three chapbooks: Postcards (Ghost Bird Press), Aviary, Bestiary (Organic Weapon Arts), and Subways (Thrush Press). Recent works have appeared in POETRY, New England Review... Read More →

Saturday May 5, 2018 3:15pm - 4:15pm EDT
PEM Create Spaces
  Workshop

3:15pm EDT

The Poetic Obsession
Limited Capacity filling up
Through a series of prompts, exercises, and examples I will demonstrate ways writers can reinvigorate their own writing by looking closer at singular obsessions. Our job, out of all this, will be simple.  Our plan will be to find the secret door to our experience and open it.  Perhaps it's a door you've passed everyday and were afraid to open.  Perhaps it's an empty storefront you've seen as you've driven through your neighborhood.  Yet you've imagined yourself opening that door.  You've seen yourself taking a step and walking in and that image of yourself in relation to that door has obsessed you.  We will not be looking for ways out, but for ways in.
Moderators
avatar for Oliver De La Paz

Oliver De La Paz

Associate Professor, College of the Holy Cross
Oliver de la Paz is the Poet Laureate of Worcester, MA for 2023-2025. He is the author and editor ofseven books: Names Above Houses, Furious Lullaby, Requiem for the Orchard, Post Subject: A Fable, andThe Boy in the Labyrinth, a finalist for the Massachusetts Book Award in Poetry... Read More →

Saturday May 5, 2018 3:15pm - 4:15pm EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Sophia Room
  Workshop, Subtype1

3:15pm EDT

State of Poetry
Limited Capacity full
The theme for this year's "State of Poetry" panel is: "The Poet and the Poem." This topic will cover recent trends  regarding the relationship between the poet and the poem. Readers, teachers, students, writers, writing program directors, and prize-givers are - more than ever - asking "Should/Can/Will I separate the poet and the poem?" - especially in light of the #MeToo movement. Panelists will share prepare a brief statement on the topic and be ready for a generous Q&A. Hosted by Jennifer Jean.
Speakers
avatar for Simeon Berry

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 →
avatar for Amy Dryansky

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 →
avatar for Jennifer Jean

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 →
avatar for Jennifer Militello

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 →
avatar for Nomi Stone

Nomi Stone

Nomi Stone’s second collection of poems, Kill Class is forthcoming from Tupelo Press in 2019. Poems appear recently or will soon in POETRY, American Poetry Review, The New Republic, The Academy of American Poets’ “Poem-a-Day” series, Bettering American Poetry 2017, The Best... Read More →

Saturday May 5, 2018 3:15pm - 4:30pm EDT
Salem Waterfront Hotel, Compass Room
  Panel Discussion

7:30pm EDT

Headline Reading -Sonia Sanchez
Limited Capacity full
Join us for a one-of-a-kind event featuring acclaimed poet and author Sonia Sanchez. Helen Creeley Student Poetry Prize winner Jocelyn Shen will open.
Speakers
avatar for Sonia Sanchez

Sonia Sanchez

Sonia Sanchez is the author of over twenty books including Homecoming, We a BaddDDD People, Love Poems, I’ve Been a Woman, A Sound Investment and Other Stories, Homegirls and Handgrenades, Under a Soprano Sky, and most recently, Morning Haiku. In addition to being a contributing... Read More →
avatar for Jocelyn Shen

Jocelyn Shen

Jocelyn Shen, winner of the Helen Creeley Student Poetry Prize, is a senior at Phillips Academy hailing from Los Angeles. Aside from writing poetry, she is an avid painter, roboticist, and fiction writer.

Saturday May 5, 2018 7:30pm - 9:00pm EDT
The Bridge at 211
  Headline Event

9:30pm EDT

What Poetry Means to Me: Stories about Poems, Poets, & Poetry
Limited Capacity full
Come hear poets and readers of poetry tell stories about how poetry changed their lives. Modeled after The Moth storytelling events, speakers will tell true stories, live, without notes.

Moderators
avatar for J.D. Scrimgeour

J.D. Scrimgeour

A long-time professor at Salem State, J.D. Scrimgeour lives in Salem and has written extensively about sports, especially baseball and basketball. His five books include the basketball memoir, Spin Moves. He also appears in the anthology Fast Break to Line Break: Poets on the Art... Read More →

Speakers
avatar for Michael Ansara
avatar for Sean Thomas Dougherty

Sean Thomas Dougherty

Sean Thomas Dougherty has worked in a newspaper plant, as a security guard, a poet in the schools, a preacher to parolees, and as an untenured college lecturer.  He’s also worked in a pool hall, as a caregiver and medical technician for people recovering from traumatic brain injuries... Read More →
avatar for Krysten Hill

Krysten Hill

Krysten Hill is the author of How Her Spirit Got Out (Aforementioned Productions, 2016), which received the 2017 Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize. Her work has been featured in The Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day Series, POETRY, Up the Staircase Quarterly, PANK, Winter Tangerine... Read More →
avatar for Alice Kociemba

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 →
LM

Saturday May 5, 2018 9:30pm - 11:00pm EDT
Salem Waterfront Hotel, Ballroom 1
  Featured Event
 
Sunday, May 6
 

9:00am EDT

Poetry Taboos and You: How and Why to Break the Rules (craft talk)
Limited Capacity filling up
How do your communities--literary and otherwise--shape the subject material of your poems? How can we learn to stop worrying about offending readers of our work? In this interactive craft talk, we'll be exploring taboos in poetry, and ways to break common writing blocks around difficult subjects. We'll be learning about various American rebel poets and poetic movements, and reading invectives, sex poems, emoji poems, and other scandalous forms of verse
Speakers
avatar for Erika Meitner

Erika Meitner

Erika Meitner is the author of Inventory at the All-Night Drugstore (Anhinga Press, 2003), Makeshift Instructions for Vigilant Girls (Anhinga Press, 2011), and Ideal Cities (Harper Perennial, 2010), which was a 2009 National Poetry series winner. Her fourth book of poems, Copia, was... Read More →

Sunday May 6, 2018 9:00am - 10:00am EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Sophia Room
  Craft Talk

9:00am EDT

HER STORY IS: American & Iraqi Women Artists Collaborate in Dubai
Limited Capacity seats available
Women poets, playwrights, painters, and film-makers from America and from Iraq gathered in Dubai in December 2017 to collaborate, share ideas, and form lasting friendships across cultural borders. Panelists will each share their experiences in Dubai with the HER STORY IS project and will present creative works (poems, film clips, paintings, and brief scenes) which resulted from the amazing time they spent with their Iraqi colleagues. 
Moderators
avatar for Jennifer Jean

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 →

Speakers
AL

Anne Loyer

Anne Loyer has been involved in visual storytelling throughout her career. As part of the Odysseus Project, and while an artist-in-residence at UMass Boston's Joiner Institute for the Study of War and Social Consequences, she co-led and helped conceive Tamziq: Scattered and Connected... Read More →
avatar for Amy Merrill

Amy Merrill

Amy is a playwright, producer, and author of many plays. She is pleased to be part of Mass Poetry's Report from Dubai and invites everyone to come to upcoming Her Story Is events : June 15 at Atlantic Wharf, Boston; June 24 at Arts at the Armory, Somerville. Go to Fort Point Theatre... Read More →
LP

Sunday May 6, 2018 9:00am - 10:00am EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Library Room
  Panel Discussion

10:15am EDT

Bared: Poetry on Bras and Breasts
Limited Capacity filling up
Join us for a reading from Bared: Contemporary Poetry on Bras and Breasts to hear poems that investigate and challenge traditional attitudes towards the female body and, in particular, the often fetischized female breast.  The poems are by turns serious, comical, irreverent and cover a wide range of issues including first bras, nursing and medical treatment.
Moderators
avatar for Kathleen Aguero

Kathleen Aguero

Writer: "Self Portrait as Geranium"Dancer: Betsy Miller

Speakers
avatar for Barbara Helfgott Hyett

Barbara Helfgott Hyett

Director, PoemWorks
Their poems, my poems, our poems.
avatar for Jill McDonough

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 →
avatar for Julie Danho O'Connell

Julie Danho O'Connell

My chapbook, Six Portraits, won the 2013 Slapering Hol Press Chapbook Competition, and my poems have appeared in New Ohio Review, Barrow Street, Southern Poetry Review, West Branch, and Blackbird, among others. I love art museums, serial commas, and taking more books out of the library... Read More →

Sunday May 6, 2018 10:15am - 11:15am EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Sophia Room
  Group Reading

10:15am EDT

Building an Online Writing Community: Lessons from the Poetry Cleanse
Limited Capacity filling up
All writers need community. For the last two years, a group of 20+ poets from Massachusetts and beyond have participated in a monthly online Poetry Cleanse: a week-long sprint where each member commits to writing something (a new poem, a revision, even just a line) and sharing it with the group each day. Poems from the Cleanse have been widely published and the exchange has provided inspiration and the opportunity to practice and take risks in a safe and supportive environment. Five participants read work that arose from the Cleanse, discuss how the community and the accountability it fosters has affected their poetry practice, and share lessons learned in order to help participants create their own online writing communities.
Moderators
avatar for K. T. Landon

K. T. Landon

K. T. Landon is the author of Orange, Dreaming (Five Oaks Press, 2017) and received her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her poems have appeared in The Sun, The Southern Review, New Ohio Review, Nimrod, Spillway, North American Review, Narrative, and Best New Poets. She is... Read More →

Speakers
JP
avatar for Jennifer Martelli

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 →
JO
avatar for Rebecca Hart Olander

Rebecca Hart Olander

Writing Teacher / Editor & Director, Perugia Press
Rebecca Hart Olander’s poetry has appeared recently in Bracken, Crab Creek Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Jet Fuel Review, The Massachusetts Review, and others, and her collaborative visual and written work has been published in multiple venues in print and online and in They... Read More →

Sunday May 6, 2018 10:15am - 11:15am EDT
PEM Connect BLDG
  Panel Discussion

10:15am EDT

On Our Own Terms: Underrepresented Voices in Poetry
Limited Capacity seats available
Poetic language can empower and lend authority to voices that are otherwise often marginalized. The LGBTQ community, encompassing the wide spectrum of gender and sexual "other," is one representation of this, and our experiences with class, ethnicity, employment, and socio-politics often combine in creating our sense of "otherness." For those of us whose experience of life is different from the mainstream, all of those things are inextricably tied.

Four LGBTQ poets (Dominique Cyprès, Pilar Quintana, James St. Vincent, Nate Vaccaro) will read from our work and discuss how we use poetic forms to define, realize and express our unique life experiences, creating a voice not only for ourselves as individuals, but for our community.
Moderators
avatar for Pilar Quintana

Pilar Quintana

poet, artist, musician, actor, Grey Court Poets
Pilar Quintana is a queer and genderqueer poet, currently working on a book of poems dealing with the roles that family, religion, and society play in our acceptance of gender and sexual identities. A member of the Grey Court Poets, Pilar's poems can be found in their anthology Songs... Read More →

Speakers
avatar for Dominique Cyprès

Dominique Cyprès

Dominique Cyprès lives in the Merrimack Valley and has authored two collections of poetry, Dead Monochrome Doggerel and Dogs From Your Childhood & Other Unrealities.
avatar for Nate Vaccaro

Nate Vaccaro

Nate Vaccaro is a non-binary queer poet currently studying at the University of Rhode Island.
avatar for James St. Vincent

James St. Vincent

James St. Vincent is a poet with a profound love for the 18th and 19th century. He has tried to model his own scripture work after his own experiences and his literary hero's like Hawthorne and Emerson. He studies the historic wonders of Massachusetts and the literary homes residing... Read More →

Sunday May 6, 2018 10:15am - 11:15am EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Library Room
  Panel Discussion

10:15am EDT

The Poet, The Artist, The Printer: Book Arts and the Small Press
Limited Capacity filling up
What are the choices that go into producing the physical book—the first thing a reader sees? How do the choices of physical object and artwork guide and enhance the text within to make a book more than the sum of its parts? Artist Carlyn Marcus Ekstrom joins members of Slate Roof Press to discuss the opportunities and constraints that come when poets, artists, and printers work together on a project. What do authors contribute, and learn in the process? What technical restraints does a bookmaker face? We will discuss overall book design along with printing options, cover choices, papers, bindings, typeface, artwork, die cuts, etc. Slate Roof poets are fully involved in their own book design, and each chapbook uniquely reflects its author, while showcasing the work of local artists and bookmakers.
Moderators
avatar for Janet MacFadyen

Janet MacFadyen

Managing Editor, Slate Roof Press
Janet MacFadyen is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Adrift in the House of Rocks (photo-poetry collaboration from New Feral Press 2019) and Waiting to Be Born (Dos Madres 2017); with a new collection, State of Grass, forthcoming from Salmon Poetry 2023. Her work... Read More →

Speakers
CM
avatar for Ed Rayher
CS
avatar for Anna M. Warrock

Anna M. Warrock

Slate Roof Press
Anna M. Warrock’s publications include From the Other Room, Slate Roof Press Chapbook Award winner, and the chapbooks Horizon and Smoke and Stone. Besides appearing in Visual Verse, Conduit, Harvard Review, The Sun, The Madison Review, Poiesis, and other journals, her work is anthologized... Read More →

Sunday May 6, 2018 10:15am - 11:15am EDT
PEM Create Spaces
  Panel Discussion

10:15am EDT

"all the Witchcraft that we need Around us, every Day—": Emily Dickinson and the botanical world
Limited Capacity filling up
"The absence of the Witch does not Invalidate the spell - "

As students of her poetry, green thumb, and times, we’ll explore Emily Dickinson’s familiarity with the plant world and the concept of witchcraft in tandem with 17th and 19th century New England history. We’ll trace the lineage and uses of several plants and herbs that Dickinson was familiar with - in literature, witchcraft, and medicine - revealing and teasing out the magic of this enigmatic individual and her poetic and botanical legacy amidst the backdrop of America's most notorious witch trials.
Moderators
avatar for Michael Medeiros

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
avatar for Lucy Abbott

Lucy Abbott

Intuitive Reader, Heart of Mirrors Tarot
Lucy Abbott is a writer, intuitive Tarot reader, and budding plant-witch living in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts. Lucy was a guide at the Emily Dickinson Museum from 2012-2016, and plans to continue her independent research in all things Emily for as long as the poet's... Read More →

Sunday May 6, 2018 10:15am - 11:15am EDT
Salem Witch Trials Memorial
  Workshop

10:15am EDT

Reading and Writing Poetry as a Spiritual Practice
Limited Capacity full
In this workshop we'll look closely at poems from different spiritual traditions (Rumi, Hopkins, Oliver, Gay) and discuss poetry as a spiritual practice. We'll also write poetry after short meditations and from prompts and share and discuss our work .

In a world so often out of alignment, poetry can help us come back to our center, speak the truth and expand our perspective. We will explore the way poetry asks asks us to listen deeply; step into the silence; slow down; acknowledge our not-knowing and our knowing; and come back to a state of reverence.

Nadia Colburn holds a PhD in English from Columbia, is a founding editor of Anchor Magazine: where Spirituality and Social Justice Meet, a yoga teacher, a life and writing coach, and teacher at Align Your Story. Her poetry has been published in more than 50 publications including The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, Boston Review, and Harvard Review. See more at nadiacolburn.com
Moderators
avatar for Nadia Colburn

Nadia Colburn

Poetry and Nonfiction Writer, Align Your Story
Nadia Colburn is the author of poetry book The HighShelf (The Word Works 2019), and her second book, I Say the Sky isforthcoming from the University Press of Kentucky's New Poetry and Prose series. Her writing has appeared in more than 80 publications, including The New Yorker, American... Read More →

Sunday May 6, 2018 10:15am - 11:15am EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Skylark Room
  Workshop

11:30am EDT

Lesley MFA Poetry Faculty Reading
Limited Capacity filling up
A reading demonstrating the aesthetic range of the poetry faculty in the Lesley MFA Creative Writing Program: Joan Houlihan, Steven Cramer, and Stephen Haven.
Moderators
avatar for Stephen Haven

Stephen Haven

Stephen Haven is the author of The Last Sacred Place in North America (New American Press, 2012), selected by T.R. Hummer as winner of the New American Prize. He has two previous collections of poetry, Dust and Bread (Turning Point, 2008), for which he was named 2009 Ohio Poet of... Read More →

Speakers
avatar for Steven Cramer

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 →
avatar for Joan Houlihan

Joan Houlihan

Joan Houlihan’s most recent book of poetry is Shadow-feast (Four Way Books, March, 2018). Her four previous books of poetry include The Mending Worm (2006), winner of the Green Rose Award from New Issues Press; The Us (Tupelo Press, 2009), named a 2009 must-read by the Massachusetts... Read More →

Sunday May 6, 2018 11:30am - 12:30pm EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Sophia Room
  Group Reading

11:30am EDT

The Low-Residency MFA: Is It Right for You?
Limited Capacity seats available
Low-residency programs give writers the flexibility to earn an MFA without giving up their day job or moving to a new city. In this panel, five recent graduates share the view from the trenches. We’ll talk about the pros and cons of low-residency programs, why we decided on it, how we balanced work on our MFAs with the rest of our lives (or not!), our advisors, and, of course, we’ll talk about money: how we paid—or are still paying—for our degrees. Panelists include poets at all stages of life (from parents of young children to nearing retirement), poets of color, an LGBT poet, poets with demanding day jobs, and poets with a variety of poetic interests, including conceptual and hip hop poetry, and one poet now pursuing a PhD. We’ll talk about our experiences during our programs and afterwards, and we’ll leave plenty of time for your questions.
Moderators
avatar for K. T. Landon

K. T. Landon

K. T. Landon is the author of Orange, Dreaming (Five Oaks Press, 2017) and received her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her poems have appeared in The Sun, The Southern Review, New Ohio Review, Nimrod, Spillway, North American Review, Narrative, and Best New Poets. She is... Read More →

Speakers
VR
avatar for Greg Hill

Greg Hill

*Panel: "Low-Residency MFA: Is It Right For You?" - Sunday, May 6 at 11:30 am. *Conceptual and experimental poetry *Adjunct Professor (English, Community College)
LB
avatar for Pamela Taylor

Pamela Taylor

Pamela L. Taylor lives and works in the Boston area, chronicling her experiences as a poet with a non-literary career on her blog (www.poetsdoublelife.com). Pam’s recent work has appeared in The Adirondack Review, Atlas+Alice, and JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association... Read More →

Sunday May 6, 2018 11:30am - 12:30pm EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Library Room
  Panel Discussion

11:30am EDT

Writing While Sober
Limited Capacity filling up
Personal reflections on addiction and recovery are often written by people in the first few years of sobriety, sharing their escape from the fog and despair of drugs and alcohol. Early sobriety is fraught with internal shifts. The poems and memoirs from that time can help both writer and reader to understand this process. But what about the poets and writers who have done the hard work of staying sober long-term, what are their thoughts on recovery and how it shows up in their writing? Our panel includes poets at different ages and stages of life and writing who share the one commonality of being clean and sober for ten years or more. We will read from our work and reflect on the long view of recovery beyond the fireworks of early sobriety.
Moderators
avatar for Kali Lightfoot

Kali Lightfoot

Poet
Retired Executive Director of the National Resource Center for Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes, Kali Lightfoot earned an MFA in Poetry at Vermont College of Fine Arts in July 2015. She lives an LGBTQ life in Salem, MA. Her poems and reviews of poetry books have been published in... Read More →

Speakers
avatar for Richard Hoffman

Richard Hoffman

Richard Hoffman has published four previous books of poetry: Without Paradise; Gold Star Road, winner of The Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize and the Sheila Motton Book Award from The New England Poetry Club; Emblem; and Noon until Night, which received the 2018 Massachusetts Book... Read More →
avatar for Jennifer Martelli

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 →

Sunday May 6, 2018 11:30am - 12:30pm EDT
PEM Connect BLDG
  Panel Discussion

11:30am EDT

The Edna Project
Limited Capacity seats available
The words of poet Edna St. Vincent Millay find new life in an eclectic, sublimely musical melding of folk, bluegrass, rock and jazz.  The brainchild of singer/songwriter Liz Queler (guitar/mandolin) and her pianist/husband Seth Farber, this musical team boasts eight Grammy nominations between them. Rounding out the trio on bass, cajon and vocals, is their 18 year old son, Berklee College of Music freshman, Joey.   With individual credits including appearances at Newport Folk Festival and Carnegie Hall (Liz), Saturday Night Live (Joey) and the conducting podium of numerous Broadway shows (Seth) - their family band presents a truly unique sound and soul. Heavy on harmonies with influences from Appalachia, bluegrass and gospel, their music is infused with a rock sensibility, creating a soulful cross between Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Emmylou Harris and John Mayer.  https://soundcloud.com/liz-queler/sets/the-edna-project
Speakers
JF
avatar for Liz Queler

Liz Queler

Liz QUeler / The Edna Project
I'm a singer/songwriter from NYC. Looking for some inspiration to break a spell of songwriter's block, I reached for a book of poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Two CDs and a theater piece later, her words have taken me from the Newport Folk Festival to Lincoln Center.

Sunday May 6, 2018 11:30am - 12:30pm EDT
PEM Morse Auditorium
  Poetry with Music

11:30am EDT

Collaborative Writing: Solidarity, Strategy & Spark
Limited Capacity full
Writing is often a solitary act. Writing in collaboration with a partner or group can build community and infuse a spirit of experimentation and play into one’s creative process. We’ve found that it’s brought growth, flexibility, surprise, stability, and a heightened sense of audience to our work, and we’re excited to share that with others! In this workshop, participants will hear, discuss, and create collaborative writing. Instructors will present models of collaborative writing from their three collaborative projects and introduce different ways of thinking about collaborative writing, such as creating in concert with art (ekphrastic writing), with the environment (place-based writing), and with other writers (writing in community). Participants will also have the opportunity to generate a collaborative piece. Takeaways will include ideas for collaborative projects, strategies for success in forging collaborative partnerships, and information about places to submit collaborative writing for publication.
Moderators
avatar for Rebecca Hart Olander

Rebecca Hart Olander

Writing Teacher / Editor & Director, Perugia Press
Rebecca Hart Olander’s poetry has appeared recently in Bracken, Crab Creek Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Jet Fuel Review, The Massachusetts Review, and others, and her collaborative visual and written work has been published in multiple venues in print and online and in They... Read More →

Speakers
avatar for Elizabeth Paul

Elizabeth Paul

INTO Mason Graduate Pathway Instructor, George Mason University
Elizabeth Paul has an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and her work has appeared in Cold Mountain Review, Carolina Quarterly, Cider Press Review, and elsewhere. Her chapbook Reading Girl is a collection of ekphrastic prose poems based on paintings by Henri Matisse. Liz's collaborations... Read More →

Sunday May 6, 2018 11:30am - 12:30pm EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Skylark Room
  Workshop

11:30am EDT

Poetry From The Heart: Writing Poems as a Means to Heal in the Era of Trump
Limited Capacity filling up
In an age of a constant stream of news and headlines about Trump's tweets and White House and Washington drama, it is easy to become fearful and angry.  Yet, all the arts are a means of rest and reflection, if we remember to turn away from our frantic, frenetic viewing of our phone screens.  This workshop is for those budding and experienced poets who feel this dilemma and want to spend time reading poems and writing some poems as a way of moving into the space "in between" reacting and responding. Poetic forms utilized will be the Haiku, the Ode, and Free Verse. Participants will explore tapping into their own peaceful center, which is there if we take the time to pause and reflect. The workshop will be co-led led by two Liberal Arts professors from Berklee College of Music.
Moderators
EF

Speakers
avatar for Beth Platow

Sunday May 6, 2018 11:30am - 12:30pm EDT
PEM Create Spaces
  Workshop

1:00pm EDT

Reading with Martha Collins, Joan Houlihan, and Ellen Dore Watson
Limited Capacity seats available
You won't  want to miss this reading featuring poets Martha Collins, Joan Houlihan, and Ellen Dore Watson.
Moderators
avatar for Joan Houlihan

Joan Houlihan

Joan Houlihan’s most recent book of poetry is Shadow-feast (Four Way Books, March, 2018). Her four previous books of poetry include The Mending Worm (2006), winner of the Green Rose Award from New Issues Press; The Us (Tupelo Press, 2009), named a 2009 must-read by the Massachusetts... Read More →

Sunday May 6, 2018 1:00pm - 2:00pm EDT
PEM Morse Auditorium
  Group Reading

1:00pm EDT

The Word Works
Limited Capacity filling up
The Word Works has published several Massachusetts poets and all of the poets listed above are residents of Massachusetts and will be available to read.  The Word Works accepted six! books during their May open reading period.   The President of The Word Works, Nancy White, indicated that she would attend, and be available for questions.
Moderators
avatar for Kevin McLellan

Kevin McLellan

Kevin McLellan is the author of Hemispheres (Fact-Simile Editions, forthcoming), Ornitheology (The Word Works, 2018), [box] (Letter [r] Press, 2016), Tributary (Barrow Street, 2015), and Round Trip (Seven Kitchens, 2010). He won the 2015 Third Coast Poetry Prize and Gival Press... Read More →

Speakers
avatar for Jennifer Barber

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 →
avatar for Carrie Bennett

Carrie Bennett

Boston University
Carrie Bennett is a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellow and author of three poetry books— biography of water, The Land Is a Painted Thing, Lost Letters and Other Animals—and several chapbooks from dancing girl press. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals including... Read More →
avatar for Frannie Lindsay
avatar for Fred Marchant

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 →

Sunday May 6, 2018 1:00pm - 2:00pm EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Sophia Room
  Group Reading

1:00pm EDT

To the Bone: Poems of Work and Manual Labor
Limited Capacity filling up
A reading by four poets who have worked on New England hill farms, West Coast wildfires, and in Rustbelt pool halls and nursing facilities. These are poets who have woven the daily rhythms, connections, and necessities of physical labor into their own poems and poetic practices. Rejecting poetic traditions that romanticize labor in favor of an unflinching poetry that braids hardship with beauty, their muscled and harrowed lyrics bear witness to the poems found in our landscapes and bodies. In a society where poetry is increasingly situated within the confines of academia and work is increasingly mechanized at the expense of compassion, these are the poems we need to survive—poems born of bending and hauling, of felling trees and splitting firewood, of planting seeds and slaughtering animals, of sweeping up broken beer bottles from bar-room floors, and of caring for the creatures and world around us however we must.
Moderators
avatar for Julia Bouwsma

Julia Bouwsma

Julia Bouwsma is the author of MIDDEN (Fordham University Press, forthcoming 2018) and Work by Bloodlight (Cider Press Review, 2017). Her poems and book reviews appear in Bellingham Review, Colorado Review, Muzzle, Salamander, RHINO, River Styx, and others. She is the recipient of... Read More →

Speakers
avatar for Kimberly Burwick
avatar for Sean Thomas Dougherty

Sean Thomas Dougherty

Sean Thomas Dougherty has worked in a newspaper plant, as a security guard, a poet in the schools, a preacher to parolees, and as an untenured college lecturer.  He’s also worked in a pool hall, as a caregiver and medical technician for people recovering from traumatic brain injuries... Read More →
avatar for Kevin Goodan

Kevin Goodan

Raised on the Flathead Indian Reservation, Kevin Goodan has worked in a slaughterhouse, fought wildfires, and lived on small sustainable farms.

Sunday May 6, 2018 1:00pm - 2:00pm EDT
PEM Connect BLDG
  Group Reading

1:00pm EDT

Lesser Heard Voices East and West: Poetry in Translation
Limited Capacity seats available
This session will showcase poets and translators reading their translations into English of poetry written in of some of the lesser-heard languages in North America.  Works in Bengali, Catalan, Chinese, Hindi, Persian, Sanskrit, Sicilian, Swahili, Telugu, Yiddish et al. will be read in their original language and in their English translation.  By hearing both languages, the public will have a rare opportunity to hear the musicality of both languages.  Cultures nuances will be explored through the universal and specific themes that are at the heart of poetry worldwide.  The participating poet-translators will be able to reveal their approaches to the texts and highlight certain stylistic devices that may or may not be common to both the original and the translation.
Moderators
avatar for Kristine Doll

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
avatar for Hassanal Abdullah

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 →
avatar for Stanley Barkan

Stanley Barkan

Stanley  H.  Barkan, born in Brooklyn in 1936, is the editor/publisher of the Cross-Cultural Review Series of World Literature and Art in Sound, Print, and Motion, which has, to date, published more than 400 titles in 58 different languages.  Barkan’s original poetry has been... Read More →
avatar for Srinivas Reddy

Srinivas Reddy

Visiting Assistant Professor, Brown University
Srinivas is a scholar, translator and musician. He studied classical sitar in the traditional guru-shishya style with Sri Partha Chatterjee, a direct disciple of the late sitar maestro Pandit Nikhil Banerjee. Srinivas also trained in classical South Asian languages and literatures... Read More →
avatar for William Wolak

William Wolak

Adjunct Professor, William Paterson University
William Wolak is a poet who lives in New Jersey and teaches Creative Writing at William Paterson University. His most recent collection of poetry is entitled The Nakedness Defense published by Ekstasis Editions. His poetry has appeared in over a hundred magazines. His most recent... Read More →

Sunday May 6, 2018 1:00pm - 2:00pm EDT
PEM Create Spaces
  Panel Discussion

1:00pm EDT

The Vocabulary of Place: Finding the Right Words for a Particular Setting. Learning from Sylvia Plath’s “Point Shirley”—A Generative Workshop
Limited Capacity filling up
Are there particular words that seem more effective when writing about a particular setting? D. H. Lawrence once wrote, “All creative art must rise out of a specific soil and flicker with the spirit of place.” In her poem, “Point Shirley,” Sylvia Plath creates a densely sonic evocation of the specific soil (in this case sand and rocks) of her grandparents’ home on a “shingle” (a stony beach) in Winthrop, Massachusetts. In this workshop, we’ll study the associative power and musical effects (including assonance, alliteration, and onomatopoeia) of the word choices Plath uses to recreate the sounds and textures of the land-and-seascape of Point Shirley. Participants will choose a place, real or imagined, and be prompted to come up with a vocabulary that might inform, texturally and sonically, that location. Participants will then compose a draft of a poem located in that setting that uses the chosen words.
Moderators
avatar for Tom Daley

Tom Daley

Instructor, Tom Daley Workshops
I lead workshops in poetry and memoir writing at community and adult education venues in the Boston area (including Boston Center for Adult Education and Lexington Community Education) and at my house in Cambridge. I am also a member of the faculty of the Online School of Poetry.I... Read More →

Sunday May 6, 2018 1:00pm - 2:00pm EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Skylark Room
  Workshop

1:30pm EDT

MASTER CLASS WITH LLOYD SCHWARTZ: Experimenting with Form
Limited Capacity seats available
This master class is a $50 ticketed session that is not included in festival button prices. Please secure your spot by registering at www.masspoetry.org/masterclass/#schwartz.

This workshop will focus on form. Please bring a poem of yours either in a traditional form or in a new and experimental version of a traditional form. Also bring along a poem by another poet in that form. You might enjoy looking at Elizabeth Bishop’s “Sonnet” (the one beginning “Caught, the bubble”) or her villanelle “One Art” to see how a great poet responds to and changes a familiar form. If there’s time, we might try writing a poem in a different form from the one you first brought.
Speakers
avatar for Lloyd Schwartz

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 →

Sunday May 6, 2018 1:30pm - 3:30pm EDT
Old Town Hall, 2nd floor
  Workshop, Master Class

2:30pm EDT

The Shakespeare Time-Traveling Speakeasy
Limited Capacity seats available
Close out the 2018 festival with Shakespeare's Speakeasy!

The Shakespeare Time-Traveling Speakeasy is a musical and literary concert focusing on the background, mysteries, works and impact of William Shakespeare. The Speakeasy uses American musical forms (blues, jazz, hiphop, country, etc…) as backdrop for stories, poems, songs and humor relating to “the Cat from Strat” (Stratford upon Avon, that is). Imagine a walking-tour through 16th century London narrated in “beat poet” style. Or, an Elizabethan sonnet liberated from the cage of its page and soulfully sang. Or, picture a verbal smackdown between characters from Shakespeare’s plays that you, as a member of the audience, will get to judge! Whether you are scholar or novice, student or teacher, Shakespeare lover or loather, the Shakespeare Time-Traveling Speakeasy will engage you and give you a new appreciation for “The Bard.”
Speakers
avatar for Regie Gibson

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 →


Sunday May 6, 2018 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT
PEM Morse Auditorium
  Featured Event

2:30pm EDT

MASTER CLASS WITH GAIL MAZUR: Writing Out of Grief and Loss
Limited Capacity seats available
This master class is a $35 ticketed session that is not included in festival button prices. Please secure your spot by registering at www.masspoetry.org/masterclass/#mazur.

In this workshop, we will look at how poets have made strong poems dealing with grief. I’d like participants to each bring a poem they’ve been struggling with for discussion. We’ll talk about ways to make art, beyond the cry of pain, from the subject. Please bring 16 copies of your poem.
Speakers
avatar for Gail Mazur

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 →

Sunday May 6, 2018 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Skylark Room
  Workshop, Master Class
 
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