2018 Massachusetts Poetry Festival: Full Schedule

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

Purchase your button today at masspoetry.org/festival2018!

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

Deborah Leipziger

Founder, The Lexicon of Change

Deborah Leipziger is an author, advisor on sustainability, change maker, and poet. Born in Brazil, she is the author of several books on sustainability and human rights issues. In 2024, she launched The Lexicon of Change, a guide to new ways of thinking and acting and addressing the UN Global Goals. Deborah is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Social Innovation at Babson College. She advises organizations around the world on social and environmental issues. Her poems have been published in nine countries an... Read More →

Speakers

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 →

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 →

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 →

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

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

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 →

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 →

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 →

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

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

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

Holly St. John Bergon

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 →

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

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

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

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 →

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 →

Jennifer Freed

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

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

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

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 →

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 →

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

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

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 →

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 →

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 →

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

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

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 →

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 →

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 →

Ansley Moon

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

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

Doug Anderson

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 →

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

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

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

Carol Hobbs

Paul Hostovsky

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 →

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 →

David Surette

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

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

Iva Brito

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

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

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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

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

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 →

Kazi Toure

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

Group Reading

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

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 →

Curtis Crisler

Jarita Davis

nicole terez dutton

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

Lesléa Newman

Speakers

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 →

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 →

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

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

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

Lillian-Yvonne Bertram

Jill McDonough

Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts, Boston

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

Vincent Guerra

Speakers

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 →

Miranda Field

Margaree Little

Kamilah Aisha Moon

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

Group Reading

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

Kathleen Aguero

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

Speakers

Barbara Helfgott Hyett

Director, PoemWorks

Their poems, my poems, our poems.

Jill McDonough

Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts, Boston

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

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

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

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 →

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

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

Joan Houlihan

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

Kevin McLellan

Speakers

Jennifer Barber

Scholar in Residence/Editor, Suffolk/Salamander

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

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 →

Frannie Lindsay

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

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

Kimberly Burwick

WSU

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 →

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