Loading…
Thursday, May 13
 

12:15pm EDT

All Day Event - Improbable Places Audio Tour
An audio tour highlighting some of the most memorable stops on The Improbable Places Poetry Tour has been made for your listening pleasure.  The Improbable Places Poetry Tour, a reading series organized by Colleen Michaels of Montserrat College of Art, has run for over a decade around Beverly, Salem, and the North Shore bringing poetry and the community together in unexpected places. Yes, even in a swimming pool. This audio tour version will feature stops around the Massachusetts North Shore and can be enjoyed either with a day trip or virtually.  

Listen to the Tour 

Speakers
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 →
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 →
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 →
avatar for Colleen Michaels

Colleen Michaels

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

Ariella Ruth

Ariella Ruth is the author of the chapbook REMNANTS (Gesture Press, 2019), and a full-length version of that manuscript was a finalist for the Two Sylvias Press 2017 Full-Length Poetry Manuscript Prize. She has a poem published on a sandstone monolith as part of the City of Boulder... Read More →
avatar for Eileen Cleary

Eileen Cleary

Eileen Cleary is the author of 'Child ward of the Commonwealth' (2019), which received an honorable mention for the Sheila Margaret Motton Book Prize and ' 2 a.m. with Keats' (Nixes Mate, 2021). In addition, she co-edited the anthology ' Voices Amidst the Virus', the featured text... Read More →
avatar for Catherine Fahey

Catherine Fahey

Catherine Fahey is a poet and librarian from Salem, Massachusetts. When she’s not reading and writing, she’s knitting or dancing. Her chapbook _The Roses that Bloom at the End of the World_ is available from Boston Accent Lit. You can read more of her work at www.magpiepoems... Read More →
HP

Hugo Pellinen

Hugo Pellinen is a visual artist and writer. His creative projects take images and ideas out of traditional contexts and ask audiences to make new meanings.  His recent explorations include:  The Type Liberation Project (letterpress projects from reclaimed type), The Essex Natural... Read More →
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 Shari Caplan

Shari Caplan

Shari Caplan is the author of “Advice from a Siren” (Dancing Girl Press, 2016). Her work appears in Zoetic Press, Drunk Monkeys, and Deluge and is forthcoming from Blue Lyra Review and The Rhylsing Anthology, a publication of Rhylsing Award nominees. A graduate of Lesley University’s... Read More →


Thursday May 13, 2021 12:15pm - 12:30pm EDT
Online

12:15pm EDT

All Day Event - Online Ekphrastic Gallery Premiere
Don't forget to check out the Festival website (https://festival.masspoetry.org/ekphrastic-gallery) where you will find work by twelve amazingly gifted student artists from Montserrat College of Art, paired with bespoke poems by the winners of our Ekphrastic Gallery contest.  This gallery was created thanks to the amazing work of Montserrat Faculty Members Colleen Michaels and Dawn Paul.  You can also buy broadsides of the winning pieces, designed by talented Montserrat student Leslie Dami.  


Thursday May 13, 2021 12:15pm - 12:30pm EDT
Online

12:15pm EDT

All Day Event - Salem Poem Walk
There is nothing quite like spring in New England: blossoming trees, beautiful weather, and, of course, the Massachusetts Poetry Festival! Come celebrate the arrival of spring, and the return of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival by taking an immersive poetry walk through Salem. Trees will be hung with poetry written by MassPoetry headliners, Montserrat and Salem State University faculty and students, and other beloved poets. Enjoy your walk with an iced coffee from one of Salem’s incredible coffee shops, or with lunch from one of our many wonderful restaurants! This event is free, public, and family-friendly. It will run the weekend prior to the Massachusetts Poetry Festival (05/08), leading up to the festival. This event was created by Jude Nixon and Meghan Miraglia of the Salem State University English Honors Society, in partnership with the Massachusetts Poetry Festival and the City of Salem.
The Salem Poem Walk features a mapped route, as well as “bonus locations” for residents familiar with Salem. These “bonus locations” are featured along the route and are not included on the map to create a “treasure hunt” feel! 
 
The route is as follows: 
  • Begin at the Salem Commons Gazebo 
  • Walk via Hawthorne Blvd to the Charlotte Forten Park 
  • Walk to Artists’ Row 
  • Take the pedestrian walkway on Essex Street 
  • Walk to Salem Armory Park 
  • End at the Salem Commons 



Thursday May 13, 2021 12:15pm - 11:30pm EDT
Online

12:15pm EDT

All Day Event - Small Press Fair
The Small Press Fair returns to the 2021 Mass Poetry Festival! In these trying times, the small presses that help elevate unique voices in the Massachusetts Poetry Community need your support more than ever. This year's Small Press Fair is dedicated to helping connect these essential businesses with those who most need and appreciate their work. Please come out to support the local publishers who help keep our community unique, vibrant, and alive!

https://festival.masspoetry.org/smallpressfair/


Thursday May 13, 2021 12:15pm - 11:30pm EDT
Online

7:00pm EDT

Headline Reading with Victoria Chang and Khadijah Queen
Join us for the kickoff event of the 2021 Massachusetts Poetry Festival, featuring Khadijah Queen and Victoria Chang. This reading will open with a reading by the winners of our First Poem Contest: Samn Stockwell, Samantha DeFlitch, and Emily Joan Cooper.

Link to recording: https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/WpinIUlaN9l-9sTkfymM-yoE5rpJGHlWe_n6Yruqp6gfpomVT4Sh0A1hKMwQWzBZ.ooICVTqtmgmuIl-s?startTime=1620946572000

Khadijah Queen is the author of five books of poetry, most recently I'm So Fine: A List of Famous Men & What I Had On (YesYes Books, 2017), a finalist for the National Poetry Series, which was praised in O Magazine, The New Yorker, Los Angeles Review, and elsewhere as “quietly devastating,” and “a portrait of defiance that turns the male gaze inside out.” Earlier poetry collections include Conduit (Akashic/Black Goat, 2008), Black Peculiar (Noemi Press, 2011), and Fearful Beloved (Argos Books, 2015). Her forthcoming collection, Anodyne, will be published by Tin House Books in August 2020. Her verse play Non-Sequitur (Litmus Press, 2015) won the Leslie Scalapino Award for Innovative Women's Performance Writing. The prize included a full staged production of the play at Theaterlab NYC from December 10 - 20, 2015 by Fiona Templeton's The Relationship theater company. Individual poems and prose appear in Poetry, Fence, Tin House, American Poetry Review, Buzzfeed, Gulf Coast, Poor Claudia, The Offing, jubilat, Memoir, Tupelo Quarterly, DIAGRAM, LitHub, New Delta Review, The Force of What's Possible, and elsewhere. Her 2019 op-ed on poetry and disability, co-edited with Jillian Weise, appeared in The New York Times.

When asked about perceptions of her work as experimental, she responded, “Labels don’t disturb me as much perhaps as they should, mostly because I know they don’t truly define me or my work, just aspects. My 13-year-old son says to call it experimental could cause the work to not be treated as legitimately as it should. Black Peculiar, I feel, does experiment with form/genre, just as my first book, Conduit, experiments with language. But no one could successfully argue that the work isn’t poetry or isn’t literature, or that the intellectual and emotional undercurrents don’t come through.”
Queen received her Ph.D. in English from the University of Denver, and her MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University. She is an assistant professor of creative writing at University of Colorado, Boulder, and serves as core faculty for the Mile-High MFA in creative writing at Regis University.


Victoria Chang’s new book of poetry, OBIT, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2020 and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, longlisted for a National Book Award, as well as longlisted for a PEN-Voeckler Award. OBIT was also named a TIME Magazine, Publishers Weekly, NPR, Boston Globe Best Book of the Year, and a New York Times Notable Book.
Other poetry books are Barbie Chang, The Boss, Salvinia Molesta, and Circle. She also edited an anthology, Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation.

She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Katherine Min MacDowell Fellowship, a Sustainable Arts Foundation Fellowship, a Poetry Society of America Alice Fay di Castagnola Award, a Pushcart, a Lannan Residency Fellowship, and other awards. Her poems have been published in Best American Poetry.

Her children’s picture book Is Mommy? (Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster, 2015), was illustrated by Marla Frazee and was named a NYT Notable Book. Her middle-grade verse novel, Love, Love was published by Sterling Publishing in 2020.

She is a contributing editor at Copper Nickel, Tupelo Quarterly, and On the Seawall.

She is the Program Chair of Antioch University’s low-residency MFA Program.

She lives in Los Angeles with her family and her weiner dogs, Mustard and Ketchup.

Learn more at victoriachangpoet.com


Speakers
avatar for Samantha DeFlitch

Samantha DeFlitch

Samantha DeFlitch is the author of Confluence (Broadstone Books, 2021). She is the Associate Director of the Connors Writing Center at the University of New Hampshire, where she completed her MFA. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Colorado Review, The Missouri Review... Read More →
avatar for Khadijah Queen

Khadijah Queen

Khadijah Queen is the author of six books, including Anodyne (TinHouse Books, 2020), and I'm So Fine: A List of Famous Men & What I Had On (YesYes Books, 2017), a finalist for the National Poetry Series, which was praised in O Magazine, the New Yorker, Los Angeles Review, and elsewhere... Read More →
avatar for Emily Cooper

Emily Cooper

Writer, Musician, Child at Heart
Emily Cooper is a Midwest ex-pat, volunteer farmer, and board member at Newhall Fields Community Farm, a Rotarian, and a community activist who enjoys bringing people together. She is currently a working author, artist, and musician. In 2019 she published her first book—a sele... Read More →
avatar for Victoria Chang

Victoria Chang

Victoria Chang’s new book of poetry, OBIT, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2020 and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, longlisted for a National Book Award, as well as longlisted for a PEN-Voeckler Award. OBIT was also named a TIME Magazine, Publishers... Read More →
avatar for Samn Stockwell

Samn Stockwell

Samn Stockwell has published in Agni, Ploughshares, and the New Yorker, among others. Her two books, Theater of Animals, and Recital, won the National Poetry Series (USA) and the Editor’s Prize at Elixir, respectively. Recent poems are in On the Seawall & Sugar House Review and... Read More →


Thursday May 13, 2021 7:00pm - 8:30pm EDT
Online
 
Friday, May 14
 

12:15pm EDT

All Day Event - Improbable Places Audio Tour
An audio tour highlighting some of the most memorable stops on The Improbable Places Poetry Tour has been made for your listening pleasure. The Improbable Places Poetry Tour, a reading series organized by Colleen Michaels of Montserrat College of Art, has run for over a decade around Beverly, Salem, and the North Shore bringing poetry and the community together in unexpected places. Yes, even in a swimming pool. This audio tour version will feature stops around the Massachusetts North Shore and can be enjoyed either with a day trip or virtually.

Listen to the Tour

Speakers
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 →
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 →
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 →
avatar for Eileen Cleary

Eileen Cleary

Eileen Cleary is the author of 'Child ward of the Commonwealth' (2019), which received an honorable mention for the Sheila Margaret Motton Book Prize and ' 2 a.m. with Keats' (Nixes Mate, 2021). In addition, she co-edited the anthology ' Voices Amidst the Virus', the featured text... Read More →
avatar for Catherine Fahey

Catherine Fahey

Catherine Fahey is a poet and librarian from Salem, Massachusetts. When she’s not reading and writing, she’s knitting or dancing. Her chapbook _The Roses that Bloom at the End of the World_ is available from Boston Accent Lit. You can read more of her work at www.magpiepoems... Read More →
HP

Hugo Pellinen

Hugo Pellinen is a visual artist and writer. His creative projects take images and ideas out of traditional contexts and ask audiences to make new meanings.  His recent explorations include:  The Type Liberation Project (letterpress projects from reclaimed type), The Essex Natural... Read More →
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 Shari Caplan

Shari Caplan

Shari Caplan is the author of “Advice from a Siren” (Dancing Girl Press, 2016). Her work appears in Zoetic Press, Drunk Monkeys, and Deluge and is forthcoming from Blue Lyra Review and The Rhylsing Anthology, a publication of Rhylsing Award nominees. A graduate of Lesley University’s... Read More →
avatar for Ariella Ruth

Ariella Ruth

Ariella Ruth is the author of the chapbook REMNANTS (Gesture Press, 2019), and a full-length version of that manuscript was a finalist for the Two Sylvias Press 2017 Full-Length Poetry Manuscript Prize. She has a poem published on a sandstone monolith as part of the City of Boulder... Read More →
avatar for Colleen Michaels

Colleen Michaels

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


Friday May 14, 2021 12:15pm - 12:30pm EDT
Online

12:15pm EDT

All Day Event - Online Ekphrastic Gallery Premiere
Don't forget to check out the Festival website (https://festival.masspoetry.org/ekphrastic-gallery) where you will find work by twelve amazingly gifted student artists from Montserrat College of Art, paired with bespoke poems by the winners of our Ekphrastic Gallery contest. This gallery was created thanks to the amazing work of Montserrat Faculty Members Colleen Michaels and Dawn Paul. You can also buy broadsides of the winning pieces, designed by talented Montserrat student Leslie Dami.


Friday May 14, 2021 12:15pm - 11:30pm EDT
Online

12:15pm EDT

All Day Event - Salem Poem Walk
There is nothing quite like spring in New England: blossoming trees, beautiful weather, and, of course, the Massachusetts Poetry Festival! Come celebrate the arrival of spring, and the return of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival by taking an immersive poetry walk through Salem. Trees will be hung with poetry written by MassPoetry headliners, Montserrat and Salem State University faculty and students, and other beloved poets. Enjoy your walk with an iced coffee from one of Salem’s incredible coffee shops, or with lunch from one of our many wonderful restaurants! This event is free, public, and family-friendly. It will run the weekend prior to the Massachusetts Poetry Festival (05/08), leading up to the festival. This event was created by Jude Nixon and Meghan Miraglia of the Salem State University English Honors Society, in partnership with the Massachusetts Poetry Festival and the City of Salem.
The Salem Poem Walk features a mapped route, as well as “bonus locations” for residents familiar with Salem. These “bonus locations” are featured along the route and are not included on the map to create a “treasure hunt” feel! 
 
The route is as follows: 
  • Begin at the Salem Commons Gazebo 
  • Walk via Hawthorne Blvd to the Charlotte Forten Park 
  • Walk to Artists’ Row 
  • Take the pedestrian walkway on Essex Street 
  • Walk to Salem Armory Park 
  • End at the Salem Commons 



Friday May 14, 2021 12:15pm - 11:30pm EDT
Online

12:15pm EDT

All Day Event - Small Press Fair
The Small Press Fair returns to the 2021 Mass Poetry Festival! In these trying times, the small presses that help elevate unique voices in the Massachusetts Poetry Community need your support more than ever. This year's Small Press Fair is dedicated to helping connect these essential businesses with those who most need and appreciate their work. Please come out to support the local publishers who help keep our community unique, vibrant, and alive!

https://festival.masspoetry.org/smallpressfair/

Friday May 14, 2021 12:15pm - 11:30pm EDT
Online

12:30pm EDT

New Elegies
How do we turn grief into song? Four poets read from new collections that wrestle with the bounds and opportunities of the American elegy. A father’s illness and loss are relived through lyrics that draw vividly from the everyday landscapes of the kitchen, the hospital, and the surrounding Florida that a family of Cuban exiles calls home in Jessica Guzman’s Adelante. Sumita Chakraborty’s Arrow uses the long poem as a means for making meaning out of mourning for the premature death of her sister. An elegiac landscape of poor women and girls of the South is built across Erin Carlyle’s Southern-Gothic-infused Magnolia Canopy Underworld, as she excavates the forgotten and lost in the world of trailer parks and pain clinics, while Rebecca Morgan Frank’s Oh You Robot Saints! explores mortality through the figure of the automaton in the wake of her mother’s death.

Link to recording: https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/zf95D8krWMr5T2tq5XP-E3IoiFS03dkc6jPIm2JArXJfS3ZNE-kF-_6gatMeZ_Jf.R-k-ACH06oL6YcNb

Speakers
avatar for Sumita Chakraborty

Sumita Chakraborty

Helen Zell Visiting Professor in Poetry, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
Sumita Chakraborty is a poet, essayist, and scholar who teaches at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. She is the author of Arrow (Alice James Books/Carcanet Press, 2020), which has received coverage in the New York Times, NPR, and The Guardian. Find her at sumitachakraborty.co... Read More →
avatar for Rebecca Morgan Frank

Rebecca Morgan Frank

Rebecca Morgan Frank's fourth collection of poems is, Oh You Robot Saints! (Carnegie Mellon, 2021). Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. She teaches in Northwestern University’s MFA Program in Prose... Read More →
avatar for Erin Carlyle

Erin Carlyle

Erin Carlyle's poetry can be found in journals such as New South, Bateau Press, and Prairie Schooner. She holds an MFA in poetry from Bowling Green State University, and her debut full-length collection, Magnolia Canopy Otherworld, is out now on Driftwood Press.
avatar for Jessica Guzman

Jessica Guzman

Jessica Guzman is the author of Adelante (Switchback Books, 2020), selected by Patricia Smith as the winner of the 2019 Gatewood Prize. Her poems have appeared in Shenandoah, Ecotone, The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, and elsewhere. She teaches at Widener University and... Read More →


Friday May 14, 2021 12:30pm - 1:30pm EDT
Online

12:30pm EDT

Verse Novels: Gateway to Poetry
Novels in verse are becoming more popular among both publishers and readers. Shorter than their prose counterparts, verse novels can be a bridge for reluctant readers, capable of telling emotionally resonant stories and tackling difficult subjects in a way that is accessible rather than overwhelming, especially for children and young adults. For those who find poetry intimidating, novels in verse offer the perfect gateway, encouraging readers to explore other poetic forms, collections, and poets. The verse novelists on this panel will discuss their unique paths to writing in verse, their creative process, and how verse novels can engage and inspire readers and writers. Panelists will also share helpful craft tips, and a list of mentor texts and resources.


Link to recording: https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/KSCLY3YKGJj_9vCrgs4kDv0L8zS8EnmrgQp39kNpMVqXXM5amAs_Jt-km0bLCSe2.sAr1qnMjlSMmQ5OK?startTime=1621009956000

Speakers
avatar for Rajani LaRocca

Rajani LaRocca

Author, Simon and Schuster, Abrams Books
Rajani LaRocca was born in India, raised in Kentucky, and now lives in the Boston area, where she practices medicine and writes award-winning novels and picture books. She’s always been an omnivorous reader, and now she is an omnivorous writer of fiction and nonfiction, novels and... Read More →
avatar for Kip Wilson

Kip Wilson

Kip Wilson is the author of young adult verse novels White Rose (2019, Versify), about anti-Nazi political activist Sophie Scholl, The Most Dazzling Girl in Berlin (2022, Versify), set in a queer club in Berlin during the last days of the Weimar Republic, and One Last Shot (2023... Read More →
avatar for Margarita Engle

Margarita Engle

Margarita Engle is the Cuban-American author of many verse novels, memoirs, and picture books, including The Surrender Tree, Enchanted Air, Drum Dream Girl, and Dancing Hands. Awards include a Newbery Honor, Pura Belpré, Golden Kite, Walter, Jane Addams, and NSK Neustadt. Margarita... Read More →
avatar for Rebecca Caprara

Rebecca Caprara

Rebecca Caprara’s debut middle-grade novel, The Magic of Melwick Orchard, was a Massachusetts Book Awards ‘Must Read’ selection. Her forthcoming verse novels include Worst-Case Collin (Charlesbridge, 2021), and Spin (Atheneum/S&S, 2023). She is the recipient of the SCBWI’s... Read More →


Friday May 14, 2021 12:30pm - 1:30pm EDT
Online

12:30pm EDT

Master Class: Reading Your Own Work Aloud
In the literary world today, writers often reach a wider audience through readings and live performances than through publication. Yet most writers are not trained to read their work aloud. Even well known writers may read mechanically, monotonously, with too little—or too much—expression. In this master-class/workshop, participants discuss what makes a good reading and explore the wide range of successful reading styles. They each read one of their own poems or a passage of prose as if they were giving a public presentation, then get feedback from the class under the guidance of the instructor (who is an experienced actor, director, and radio commentator as well as a poet and Pulitzer Prize-winning critic). In an unthreatening and helpful atmosphere, the readers “work through” to a livelier, more effective presentation as they deepen their understanding of their own work.

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/SfmunaGMI2CKBsyEzDn0TUGnjQpEjHbHxidKjyFitmP8KASSud2VTJCLj1Dycywy.56-9MebqQjSLgwsz

Speakers
avatar for Lloyd Schwartz

Lloyd Schwartz

Lloyd Schwartz is the Poet Laureate of Somerville, MA, the Frederick S. Troy Professor of English Emeritus at UMass Boston, the longtime music and art critic for NPR’s Fresh Air and WBUR, and an editor of the poetry and prose of Elizabeth Bishop. His awards include the Pulitzer... Read More →


Friday May 14, 2021 12:30pm - 1:30pm EDT
Online

1:45pm EDT

Beyond “Girlpower”: Poetry, Identity, and Coming of Age
You Don’t Have to Be Everything is a new anthology for teen girls, just out with Workman Publishing. Four poets from the book will read their poems and discuss how poetry has been a path for self-discovery and self-acceptance, and how poems can facilitate empathy for self and others.

Link to recording: https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/5DLtATA1P7BFa-T9dKC0G413-T09oYJFOW_szCg1nunujf_qo1puUZc6cShYb2gA.IQhlGRDqE_cMVkeP

Speakers
avatar for Diana Whitney

Diana Whitney

Diana Whitney writes across the genres in Vermont with a focus on feminism, motherhood, and sexuality. Her first book, Wanting It, became an indie poetry bestseller. For years she was the poetry critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, where she featured women and LGBTQ voices in her... 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 Angélica María Aguilera

Angélica María Aguilera

Angélica María Aguilera is an internationally touring Chicana artist and entrepreneur from Los Angeles. Her work has brought her across the country as a TEDx speaker, a workshop facilitator for the National Poetry Slam of Mexico, and a finalist for the National Poetry Slam 2018... Read More →
avatar for Crystal Williams

Crystal Williams

A poet and essayist, Crystal Williams is the author of four collections of poems, most recently Detroit as Barn. She is Vice President and Associate Provost for Community and Inclusion at Boston University where she is also Professor of English. crystalannwilliams.com... Read More →


Friday May 14, 2021 1:45pm - 2:45pm EDT
Online

1:45pm EDT

Hand in Hand: The Poet, The Independent Bookstore, and The Place
What would the poet be without the independent bookstore, and what the indie bookstore without its poets? Unlike a virtual bookstore—with "no there there"--what they are both grounded in is a particular place. But especially in a pandemic, in-store readings, browsings, and book signings that keep poet and store thriving may be impossible.

In this session, a conversation sprinkled with poetry and personal anecdotes, poets Hilde Weisert and Charles Coe will talk about their favorite indies from each end of the state (Hilde, The Bookstore in Lenox, and Charles, Porter Square Books in Cambridge) and what they have meant to their work. Bookstore owners Josh Cook (Porter Square Books) and Matt Tannenbaum (The Bookstore) will share their own experiences with poetry readings and favorite poetry books. Also, Josh and Matt will each select two of their favorite poetry books to be sent to people attending the session (online “drawing”). Hilde and Charles will read several “place” poems to illustrate the richness of the local, and the literary discovery that real bookstores afford.

We’ll end with some practical tips to help writers avoid the oft-assumed choice between Amazon ratings and supporting their local bookseller.

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/i8-pHL0VUjg0U0uauRJlWNCUbB-KJqrHRu2XtZpVmtiV0DzdP1w26FgbzYhLM146.GYJ2ndThkcj3wy2G

Speakers
JC

Josh Cook

Porter Square Books
Josh Cook is a co-owner, marketing director, and bookseller at Porter Square Books where he has worked since 2004. He participated in Mass Poetry's U35 Poetry reading series, hosted hundreds of poetry readings for Porter Square Books, and has published poetry and poetry reviews and... Read More →
avatar for Hilde Weisert

Hilde Weisert

Hilde Weisert is the author of The Scheme of Things (poetry), 2015, and co-editor of the anthology, Animal Companions, Animal Doctors, Animal People, 2012. Awards include the 2017 Gretchen Warren Award (New England Poetry Club), the 2016 Tiferet Journal Poetry Award, and 2009, 2016... 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 →
MT

Matt Tannenbaum

Owner, The Bookstore, Lenox, MA. bookstoreinlenox.com. Author of My Years at the Gotham Book Mart with Frances Steloff. Proprietor.


Friday May 14, 2021 1:45pm - 2:45pm EDT
Online

1:45pm EDT

Writers Worktable: Poets on Research and Fellowships, Sponsored by Cave Canem
Poet/Scholars Joshua Bennett (Owed) and Bettina Judd (patient.) speak with Cave Canem’s Poetry Coalition Fellow Christopher J. Greggs about applying to fellowships and developing poetry projects that require in-depth research.

About Cave Canem
Founded by Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady in 1996 to remedy the under-representation and isolation of African American poets in the literary landscape, Cave Canem is a home for the many voices of Black poetry and is committed to cultivating the artistic and professional growth of Black poets. It has grown from a gathering of 26 writers to an influential movement with a renowned faculty and an international fellowship of over 500. Cave Canem’s programs and publications enlarge the American literary canon; democratize archives; and expand for students, poets, and readers the notion of what’s possible and valuable in poetry. Its programs include an annual retreat, community workshops, lectures, and reading and panel series. Its three book prizes, delivered in collaboration with five prestigious presses, have launched the careers of several poets, including former U.S. Poet Laureates Natasha Trethewey and Tracey K. Smith.

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/rRMhZ45tNKB8mJ2RU9gAqYwfQOo-68-uPFTOHBjfspq3IR6Wx9j_RnhRfeS0Waqg.nRJBdiie1PjAw3Tk

Speakers
avatar for Joshua Bennet

Joshua Bennet

Joshua Bennett is the Mellon Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth. He is the author of four books of poetry, criticism, and nonfiction: The Sobbing School (Penguin, 2016), winner of the National Poetry Series, and a finalist for an NAACP Image Award; Being... Read More →
avatar for Bettina Judd

Bettina Judd

Bettina Judd, assistant professor of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle, is an interdisciplinary writer, artist, and performer whose forthcoming book, Feelin: Creative Practice, Pleasure Politics and Black Feminist Thought, is on Black women's... Read More →
avatar for Christopher Greggs

Christopher Greggs

Poetry Coalition Fellow, Cave Canem Foundation, Inc.
Christopher J. Greggs is a poet, designer, and recording artist living in Jersey City, NJ. He is a Cave Canem, Tin House, Callaloo, and Watering Hole Poetry fellow and is the recipient of the 2020-2021 Cave Canem Poetry Coalition Fellowship. His work has appeared or is forthcoming... Read More →


Friday May 14, 2021 1:45pm - 2:45pm EDT
Online

1:45pm EDT

How Pictures Heal: Writing Poetry From Your Personal Photos
In the midst of our shifting daily realities, I believe this one experience remains a constant: We all take and treasure photographs of the people, places and things that bring meaning and beauty into our lives. If we have access to a cell phone or a camera, we are snapping images that inspire, comfort, stimulate mystify and delight us. We store archives of countless images that evoke memories and mysteries. Your personal photos are whispering to you–they have deeper stories to tell. Your photos hold the stories only you can write. In this workshop, you will approach your photos with an artist’s perception and awareness of powerful hidden meanings worthy of development into poetry. Writing from your photos allows you to express the truth of what you feel - and know - and haven’t said, as you capture the beauty and deeper meaning of an image. Bring a photo from which to write.

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/play/55kEryGoZAwo_TRRDhvOZTdreil9rezxr8O35pOPUK0b_6a0IetYc1PWo4KaFZ3Ww1Z001dhYrFODl2r.JO9YQ0akhehYHt3u?continueMode=true&_x_zm_rtaid=qzR9L_sWS-S-bcf64VFuTg.1621958442322.15b17ae5be4a2d75890780d7db387743&_x_zm_rhtaid=928

Speakers
avatar for Kelly DuMar

Kelly DuMar

Kelly DuMar is a poet, playwright, and workshop facilitator from Boston. She’s the author of three poetry chapbooks, and her poems and photos are published in many literary journals. She serves on the Board of the International Women’s Writing Guild and produces the Bi-Monthly... Read More →


Friday May 14, 2021 1:45pm - 2:45pm EDT
Online

3:00pm EDT

Celebrate the Fifth Anniversary of the Undocupoets!
To celebrate the 5th year of Undocupoets, this reading and conversation features four recipients of the Undocupoets Fellowship, an annual grant awarded to poets who are currently or who were formerly undocumented in the U.S. The panelists will share a more complex and nuanced narrative of the undocumented experience through the reading of their work and discuss how their statuses have informed their craft and the particular aesthetic concerns of writing about, through, and in spite of documentation. This event will highlight the diversity of undocumented poets and explore their challenges of moving through the literary world—from the deeply internal work of writing from a self whose very presence is contested, to applying or submitting to institutions that demand proof of residency in order to participate in the poetic discourse.

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/otxVE5z4kbSQB3qg3SN6yeXN_-yvbEi86i1CchuFiUnsxewA1e30FkhkXIc2HWJ1.3oJQ0GEhqQkikFXVV

Speakers
avatar for Aline Mello

Aline Mello

Aline Mello is a Brazilian immigrant poet who grew up in Atlanta. Her debut collection of poetry, More Salt Than Diamond, will be published in Spring 2022 by Andrews McMeel. Her work can be found in various journals such as The Rumpus, The Georgia Review, The Indiana Review, and... Read More →
avatar for Laurel Chen

Laurel Chen

Laurel Chen is a queer/trans/migrant writer from Taiwan. A fellow of Kundiman, Undocupoets, and Pink Door, they co-curate @shoutingpoems on Twitter. They are an abolitionist... Read More →
avatar for Esther Lin

Esther Lin

Co-organizer, Undocupoets
Esther Lin was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and lived in the United States as an undocumented immigrant for 21 years. She was a 2020 Writing Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, 2017–19 Wallace Stegner Fellow, and author of The Ghost Wife (PSA, 2017).
avatar for Yosimar Reyes

Yosimar Reyes

Yosimar Reyes is a nationally acclaimed poet and public speaker. Born in Guerrero, Mexico, and raised in Eastside San Jose, Reyes explores the themes of migration and sexuality in his work. The Advocate named Reyes one of "13 LGBT Latinos Changing the World" and Remezcla included... Read More →


Friday May 14, 2021 3:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
Online

3:00pm EDT

The Thing With Feathers: Poetry of Witness to Serious Illness and Trauma
How might a poet respond to a serious illness or trauma in oneself or a loved one? Whether the poet is ill, or is witness to the sufferings of another, the harsh, immutable facts of illness often generate fear, anger, despair. Sometimes, however, the poet finds hope, even in a factually hopeless situation. What is it in us that persists in singing, regardless of how dire the facts? Five contemporary poets discuss their own poems dealing with serious illness and what they reveal about hope, what Emily Dickinson called "the thing with feathers".

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/9VsPPNIpspCHThpeD2j7FoQ1fFXCHTC_xQpKZmj7Dj16DF8YLGPlGNx0StbzW7NV.ki7t4DVlU_Yamlbk

Speakers
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 →
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 →


Friday May 14, 2021 3:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
Online

3:00pm EDT

Beyond the First Book, a Conversation with Jay Deshpande and Kundiman
A poet's first book is often seen as a launching pad for their future body of work. But what happens after a poet's first book? How do poets continue to develop and explore, on and off the page? Jay Deshpande is the author of The Umbrian Sonnets (PANK Books) and Love the Stranger (YesYes Books). His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, New England Review, and elsewhere. He is the recipient of a Wallace Stegner Fellowship, a Kundiman fellowship, and residencies at Civitella Ranieri and the Saltonstall Arts Colony. He teaches for Brooklyn Poets and in the MFA Program at Columbia University. Jay will read a selection of poems from across his book length and chapbook length projects and will discuss what it means to lead a creative life. There will be a discussion with Q&A to follow.


KUNDIMAN IS DEDICATED TO NURTURING GENERATIONS OF WRITERS AND READERS OF ASIAN AMERICAN LITERATURE

Kundiman creates an affirming and rigorous space where Asian American writers can explore, through art, the unique challenges that face the new and ever changing diaspora. We see the arts as a tool of empowerment, of education and liberation, of addressing proactively the legacy we will leave for our future. For more information: www.kundiman.org.

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/play/Pnz9V2baY2cERiIp_pn9arF7MsAWyvySssi9_zJJr4cfFSOZ_rj_ga12C---It5JpnSrMV-9NqN-O7z0.BsujVIh3e2a6m--m?continueMode=true&_x_zm_rtaid=zbTPXOqdQtmLhFYz2VoDTA.1621022905289.6bb175973c6b1b24b030d3e691560d63&_x_zm_rhtaid=251

Speakers
avatar for Jay Deshpande

Jay Deshpande

Jay Deshpande is the author of The Umbrian Sonnets (PANK Books) and Love the Stranger (YesYes Books). His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, New England Review, and elsewhere. He is the recipient of a Wallace Stegner Fellowship, a Kundiman fellowship, and residencies... Read More →
avatar for Megan Pinto

Megan Pinto

Megan Pinto's poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Lit Hub, and elsewhere. She has received scholarships from Bread Loaf and the Port Townsend Writers' Conference, and an Amy Award from Poets & Writers. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson.


Friday May 14, 2021 3:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
Online

3:00pm EDT

The World as Muse: Documentary Poetry
Capacity for this workshop has been expanded!  If you registered separately on Eventbrite you will get an email with the link, or you can find it here.

Documentary poetry creates an opportunity for poets to engage with a larger world outside of their private experience. In this workshop, participants will explore poetry that begins with a collection of material (political, cultural, historical) to create their own documentary poems. We will look at the ways primary source material (articles, letters, visual art, diaries, court transcripts, tweets, or even shopping lists) can be used to create a series of poems. Participants will have the opportunity to create a draft of a documentary poem during this workshop and will leave with a small collection of examples.

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/GoGRL66mmDGDIvBmmPGdtAHfmyeni6A03r4gL7mnTJNuAAxzYJ2agN5qy_uz3ZyO.FdZOOb-fdcmuH-6O

Speakers
avatar for Colleen Michaels

Colleen Michaels

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


Friday May 14, 2021 3:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
Online

4:15pm EDT

Her Story Is: in English and Arabic
Hear beautiful poems in English and Arabic, celebrate contemporary women's stories from across the Arabic speaking world, learn about cross-cultural collaboration, and explore how poetry-in-translation brings writers together across the boundaries of nations in this lively, dynamic, group reading. Members of the Her Story Is collective will share poems from their exciting anthology project and will share key lessons from the translation process which transformed and improved their own creative work. Q&A to follow.

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/bbrK7rCmpI7yb-Rd0mFP_DO3Q76RC5qKkIYP5CIbwUJMj28VZARY0dq4C1doGWTU.6bwEYmOZPuPkKDXMM

Speakers
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 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 Dima AlBasha

Dima AlBasha

Insurance, Coveyres
Dima AlBasha is from Aleppo, Syria. Since coming to the United States, she has become a promoter of interfaith dialogue and intercultural understanding; and, she’s given a TEDx talk which bridges gaps between people of different cultures and perspectives. Dima is a translator for... Read More →


Friday May 14, 2021 4:15pm - 5:15pm EDT
Online

4:15pm EDT

A Four Way Books Panel: Writing, Working, and Wellness in a Time of Calamity
Panelists will talk about how in times of extreme agitation, what they/we can do to help ourselves, our students, our families, friends, colleagues, and neighbors through the practice of writing, reading, learning, sharing.

Link to recording: https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/DNbQkzaLVq4xHSgOIA827mp3gv8empy_a74gafGxs4JY0xtWy4v7V7vlHyYMuBxN.Lqc2NtI020Yvd-Yz

Speakers
avatar for John Murillo

John Murillo

John Murillo is the author of the poetry collection, Up Jump the Boogie (Cypher 2010, Four Way Books 2020), a finalist for both the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and the Pen Open Book Award, and Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry (Four Way 2020). His honors include two Larry Neal Writers Awards... Read More →
avatar for Angela Narciso Torres

Angela Narciso Torres

Angela Narciso Torres is the author of Blood Orange (Willow Books Literature Award for Poetry, 2013), To the Bone (Sundress Publications, 2020), and What Happens Is Neither (Four Way Books, 2021). Recent work appears in Poetry, Missouri Review, and Quarterly West. A graduate of Warren... Read More →
avatar for Yona Harvey

Yona Harvey

Yona Harvey’s first poetry book, Hemming the Water, won the Kate Tufts Discovery Award from Claremont Graduate University. She is among the first Black women writers for Marvel Comics and earned an Eisner Award for her contribution to World of Wakanda. She co-authored Black Panther... Read More →
avatar for Julia Guez

Julia Guez

I am a fan of books and children; I have two of each. I am half-Tunisian, half-Texan and entirely queer. I am typically based in Brooklyn, but soon as I was healthy and strong enough to travel, after getting sick in the city last spring, I have been spending time on the Gulf Coast... Read More →


Friday May 14, 2021 4:15pm - 5:15pm EDT
Online

4:15pm EDT

If I Were a Bird: Writing Poetry for Children, Sponsored by The Boston Book Festival
Children are natural poets and use metaphor to make sense of their world. When we write poetry for young readers, we speak to that wonder-filled child within us. Using several poetry ideas, we’ll dive into various ways to trigger imaginative and sensory language, while reaching for deeper wisdom. Come ready to play and dream.

Link to recording: https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/DhW2YuhaUWQEvvPf0ke_MfFsGZKzagA5IjsDUuw8JZICjJE6N22An4C0RSWK1Yya.v0dvOkZQ1PU7FhWQ

Speakers
avatar for Joyce Sidman

Joyce Sidman

Joyce Sidman’s poetry books for young readers have won numerous awards, includinga Newbery Honor for Dark Emperor & Other Poems of the Night. Her book What theHeart Knows was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and she received NCTE's2013 Award for Excellence in Poetry... Read More →


Friday May 14, 2021 4:15pm - 5:15pm EDT
Online

4:15pm EDT

Pulling It All Together: From Poems to Publishable Book
As poets with a total of 16 published poetry books between us, we are uniquely prepared to lead participants through the process of compiling a poetry chapbook or full-length collection, to submit to publishers or writing contests, or to self-publish. In this past year of quarantine and vibrant and intense political protests, many who have been writing poetry privately for years in a journal or notebook are now motivated to share their work with a wider audience. But where to begin, when it comes to assembling a coherent manuscript with a unified theme?

Organizing poems into chapbooks and books is an art, much like designing a garden or practicing origami or flower arranging. Each poem draws more --and different-- meaning based on its adjacency to other poems. T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Tracy K. Smith, Layli Long Soldier, Kevin Young, and Natasha Trethewey all labored over the order of their poems in each collection, rearranging poems depending on how they read in juxtaposition. A poetry book can be organized in a number of ways, by place, time/era, events, people, dreams/nightmares, memory, or history. And this is by no means an exhaustive list.

A poet designing a book must resolve several questions in the manuscript process:
What should the dominant theme of the book be?
Which poem should come first? Which should come last?
How does the last line of each poem connect in some way to the first line of the one that follows it?
Does the poem designated as “last” work best at the end of the book, creating a sense of closure for the reader?
What possible titles are there for the chapbook?

Using examples from our recent publications, in this combination workshop and poetry reading, we will share our techniques for choosing poems for the collection overall, then deciding on first and last poems and title poems.

We’ll also show examples of refrain poems—like motifs in music that recur and sound different based on their placement in a volume. And we’ll suggest practical approaches to placing refrain poems throughout the collection.

Lastly, we will give practical guidance on where participants might submit their polished manuscripts, including small literary presses, chapbook contests, and non-vanity press self-publishing platforms.

This session is designed to be interactive, with full use of Zoom’s Q&A feature, and an opportunity for a free-flowing discussion among speakers and attendees at the end of our presentation.

Link to recording: https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/play/ewpL5IDYWYZtp1Al59PpD3DEVYXJdJ_dTlbkXMlkoeT-K6vNsIOW8IvGYmcduvergzPtgcsVWNpaL5t7.GBXshk-5-g7Skd-W?continueMode=true

Speakers
avatar for Lynne Viti

Lynne Viti

lecturer emerita, The Writing Program, Wellesley College
Lynne Viti,  Poet Laureate of Westwood, Massachusetts and a lecturer emerita at Wellesley College, is the author of The Walk to Cefalù (Cornerstone Press, 2022)  Dancing at Lake Montebello: Poems  (Apprentice House), and two poetry chapbooks: Baltimore Girls (2017) and The Glamorganshire... Read More →
avatar for Heather Bryant

Heather Bryant

Heather Corbally Bryant teaches in the Writing Program at Wellesley College; her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has won honorable mention in The Finishing Line Press Open Chapbook Competition. Her published works include: How Will the Heart Endure: Elizabeth Bowen... Read More →


Friday May 14, 2021 4:15pm - 5:15pm EDT
Online

5:30pm EDT

Bridging the Atlantic
A poetry reading by Chekwube Danladi, winner of the 2019 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, and Logan February, winner of the 2020 Future Awards Africa Prize for Literature from their award-winning debut poetry collections, respectively. The reading will be followed by a conversation around the current state and future of African poetry, a genre bubbling with exciting and brilliant new voices. Chibuihe Obi Achimba, the 2019-2020 Harvard University Scholar-at-Risk fellow and currently an M.F.A. candidate at Brown University, will moderate this session.

Link to recording: https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/NrD_pV7a1BvLPY2PpuFAjnp805WWGmlqssIdsueszWe9GOywXHGnj6v703q7tYY-.MrKR3eW0FmmySXML

Speakers
avatar for Chibuihe Obi Achimba

Chibuihe Obi Achimba

Chibuihe Obi Achimba is a poet, essayist, and LGBTQ+ activist. He was the 2019 Harvard University Scholar-at-Risk fellow and a visiting poet in the Department of English. His writings have been published or featured in the New York Times, Guernica Magazine, Harvard Review, Arrowsmith... Read More →
avatar for Chekwube Danladi

Chekwube Danladi

Chekwube Danladi is a writer and a reformed punk. The author of Semiotics, and Winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, she has received support from Callaloo, Kimbilio, Hedgebrook, the Lambda Literary Foundation, the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, and the Vermont Studio... Read More →
avatar for Logan February

Logan February

Logan February is a non-binary Nigerian poet, songwriter, and graduate student at Purdue University's MFA program in Creative Writing. They and their work have been featured in The Guardian Life, Dazed, The Rumpus, Lambda Literary, Washington Square Review, Africa In Dialogue... Read More →


Friday May 14, 2021 5:30pm - 6:30pm EDT
Online

5:30pm EDT

Open Mic hosted by Alison Murchie
Come share something at our Open Mic, hosted by Alison Murchie, founder and host of the Unbuttoned Reading Series in Easthampton, MA.

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/rWUBc4kVjHL9rXgA4maikiiwEafCKN7N4wrXqqjl2OURYKtpxpqySPvjkp4cqt4p.pyOy4GKUFe7i4_wY

Speakers
avatar for Alison Murchie

Alison Murchie

Alison Murchie began her writing path in the early 1990's as a poet and spoken word performer. She performed with Exene Cervenka, Lydia Lunch and Jello Biafra among others. She performed at the spoken word stage at Lollapalooza. She currently lives in Easthampton Mass. where she is... Read More →


Friday May 14, 2021 5:30pm - 6:30pm EDT
Online

5:30pm EDT

Youth Poet Laureate Legacy Event
In partnership with Urban Word NYC and The Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture Boston, this unforgettable event centers the work of our country's Youth Poet Laureates. The National Youth Poet Laureate Program's mission is to celebrate our nation’s top youth poets that are committed to artistic excellence, civic engagement, and social justice. We will be joined by the current National Youth Poet Laureate, Meera Dasgupta; the current Boston Youth Poet Laureate, Alondra Bobadilla; and the current Sacramento Youth Poet Laureate, Alexandra Huynh. The event will be hosted by New York City's former Youth Poet Laureate, Crystal Valentine.

A recording for this event is not available.

Speakers
avatar for Crystal Valentine

Crystal Valentine

Crystal Valentine is a queer, Black woman from the Bronx now residing in Boston, Massachusetts. She is a Callaloo fellow, a former NYC Youth Poet Laureate, and a two-time winner of the College Union Poetry Slam Invitational. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Academy of... Read More →
avatar for Meera Dasgupta

Meera Dasgupta

Meera Dasgupta is the youngest United States Youth Poet Laureate appointed in the history of the country. She is also the first U.S. Youth Poet Laureate to have been appointed from New York (as well as the Northeastern region) and the first Asian-American Youth Poet Laureate of the... Read More →
avatar for Alondra Bobadilla

Alondra Bobadilla

Born and raised in Boston, MA for most of her life, Alondra Bobadilla found and nurtured her love for writing since she learned her first letters. Besides writing, she has participated in multiple performance art forms since she was a little girl, finding ways to express herself beyond... Read More →
avatar for Alexandra Huynh

Alexandra Huynh

Alexandra Huynh is an 18-year-old Vietnamese American poet from Sacramento, CA. She is a 2020 Sacramento Youth Poet Laureate, a program of Sacramento Area Youth Speaks, and is a Western Regional Ambassador and finalist for the 2021 National Youth Poet Laureate.As a second-generation... Read More →


Friday May 14, 2021 5:30pm - 6:30pm EDT
Online

5:30pm EDT

Art in Plain Sight: Writing in Response to Massachusetts Murals
In this engaging virtual poetry workshop facilitated by the multilingual Boricua poet María Luisa Arroyo Cruzado, participants will become inspired by evocative Massachusetts murals to generate new writing! Using curated images of murals in Boston, Lynn, Worcester, Springfield and other cities and sharing writing prompts, María will encourage participants to ponder and wonder about art in plain sight.

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/play/XORwNvHjIuutxD0hRenhtrUDFXXMkp3D8SJ3tfWO4MI8pDL5MS-PbpgvNqa_Ibd3LNb7ik_70XeOSooO.DF4Hy0VZW4O7DNRC?continueMode=true&_x_zm_rtaid=AAu-7aGdTraMp_-e7Ur8Qw.1621033762806.c7bec1dacef0a2fd3cd4cc3649ae448c&_x_zm_rhtaid=466

Speakers
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 14, 2021 5:30pm - 6:30pm EDT
Online

7:00pm EDT

Headline Reading with Meera Dasgupta, Lang Leav and Dara Wier, sponsored by Arklein Insurance Agency and Mapfre Insurance
Join us for our second headline reading of the Festival, featuring Lang Leav and Dara Wier, with an opening reading by National Youth Poet Laureate Meera Dasgupta.  

Link to recording: https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/Sd3tK17J_SReWufeOxKKB_yDl9rMxYwflxl_52cfWxs7_04mPjELflcxA_amtj5v.y51fmueFpSzx7fCH?startTime=1621033339000

Meera Dasgupta is the youngest United States Youth Poet Laureate appointed in the history of the country. She is also the first U.S. Youth Poet Laureate to have been appointed from New York (as well as the Northeastern region) and the first Asian-American Youth Poet Laureate of the United States, a program pioneered by Urban Word NYC.

Born in Queens, she is a fierce advocate for student voice and gender equality, having worked throughout the city on various projects in order to empower young women and to increase civic engagement within other students her age. A Van Lier Fellow, Federal Hall Fellow, Climate Speaks Winner, & Scholastic Arts and Writing Winner, she has performed at the Appollo Theater, the Rotary Peace Fellowship Alumni Association’s inaugural Global Cyber Peace Conference, the United State of Young Women, and more. Meera has facilitated poetry workshops for Apple, been featured in Poets & Writers Magazine, and has been profiled in a New York City ad campaign for her work around climate advocacy. Meera is presently a senior at Stuyvesant High School and hopes to continue to utilize the intersection between social justice and poetry to uplift the voices of historically underrepresented communities.


Novelist and poet Lang Leav was born in a refugee camp when her family were fleeing the Khmer Rouge Regime. She spent her formative years in Sydney, Australia, in the predominantly migrant town of Cabramatta. Among her many achievements, Lang is the winner of a Qantas Spirit of Youth Award, Churchill Fellowship and Goodreads Reader’s Choice Award.

Her first book, Love & Misadventure (2013) was a breakout success, and her subsequent poetry books have all been international bestsellers. In 2016, Lang turned her attention to fiction, and her debut novel Sad Girls shot to #1 on the Straits Times and other bestseller charts internationally.
Lang actively participates in international writers' festivals and her tours consistently draw massive crowds. With a combined social media following of two million, Lang’s message of love, loss, and female empowerment continues to resonate with her multitude of readers.
Lang has been featured on CNN, SBS Australia, Intelligence Squared UK, Radio New Zealand, and in various publications, including Vogue, Newsweek, the Straits Times, the Guardian, and the New York Times. She currently resides in New Zealand with her partner and fellow author, Michael Faudet.


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), and Voyages in English (Carnegie Mellon, 2001). Among her works are limited editions THRU (Scram, 2020), (X In Fix) in Rain Taxi’s Brainstorm Series, Fly on the Wall (Oat City Press), and The Lost Epic, co-written with James Tate (Waiting for Godot Books, 1999). Fellowships and awards from the Lannan Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Massachusetts Cultural Council, American Poetry Review, The Poetry Center have supported her poems. Her editing work includes publishing limited edition chapbooks and broadsides for Factory Hollow Press. Forthcoming is Tolstoy Killed Anna Karenina from Wave Books.


About the sponsors:
MAPFRE is the largest private passenger automobile insurer, homeowners’ insurer, and commercial automobile insurer in Massachusetts, and the 21st largest auto insurer in the United States. MAPFRE Insurance partners with only the best, local independent agents to find customers the best insurance solutions for their needs. MAPFRE delivers on the trusted promise to policyholders with industry-leading customer service and highly-rated claims programs. MAPFRE believes in helping build stronger communities locally and around the globe through Fundacíon MAPFRE and encouraging employee volunteerism. Fundacíon MAPFRE donates more than $1 million to local nonprofits annually. MAPFRE also sponsors the Pan-Mass Challenge and the Massachusetts DOT Highway Assistance Patrol.


Speakers
avatar for Meera Dasgupta

Meera Dasgupta

Meera Dasgupta is the youngest United States Youth Poet Laureate appointed in the history of the country. She is also the first U.S. Youth Poet Laureate to have been appointed from New York (as well as the Northeastern region) and the first Asian-American Youth Poet Laureate of the... Read More →
avatar for Lang Leav

Lang Leav

Novelist and poet Lang Leav was born in a refugee camp when her family were fleeing the Khmer Rouge Regime. She spent her formative years in Sydney, Australia, in the predominantly migrant town of Cabramatta. Among her many achievements, Lang is the winner of a Qantas Spirit of Youth... Read More →
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 →


Friday May 14, 2021 7:00pm - 8:30pm EDT
Online

8:30pm EDT

College Slam

Speakers
avatar for Hannah Parker

Hannah Parker

Parker is a Liberian American Artist currently working in the realms of Spoken Word Poetry, Singing, Songwriting as well as visual artistry. Parker sees art as a way to uplift her listeners and highlight the limitlessness of all human beings. Through her art, Parker's goal is to encourage people... Read More →
avatar for Legacy Thornton

Legacy Thornton

Legacy Thornton is a Boston-bred writer, poet, singer, and natural hair enthusiast. They currently work at a local learning pod to help minority students (from 2nd graders to HS freshman) with their online learning. In their spare time, Thornton likes to make tik toks, play in makeup... Read More →
avatar for Justice Ameer

Justice Ameer

Justice Ameer is a poet and organizer based in Providence, RI. Xyr work explores the experience of being a Black trans woman in an apocalyptic America. Xe is a Pink Door fellow, FEM Slam Champion, and a co-writer of the theatrical production ANTHEM. Xyr work can be found on POETRY... Read More →


Friday May 14, 2021 8:30pm - 10:00pm EDT
Online

9:00pm EDT

The Poetry Brothel, hosted by The Poetry Society of New York
Ring in spring at a moonlit literary cabaret! On May 14, join The Poetry Brothel as we bathe in the wisdom of poets and mystics, celebrate the body with poetry of the flesh, and cocoon in private break out rooms for intimate readings! This special late night event will benefit Butterfly, an organization founded by sex workers dedicated to supporting Asian and Migrant Sex Workers with legal assistance, health resources, education, advocacy, support network building, and more. Admission is Pay-What-You-Can and 30% of proceeds will be donated to Butterfly, while the other 70% will be split between performers. Poets include Stephanie Burt as Emma Fraught, Christian Perfas as Kid Rexx, and Kailey Tedesco as Hortensia Celeste among many more. It is time to break down, rebuild & begin the transformation, lovelies. Purchase tickets to the magic or find out more through Eventbrite*.

*This event is host by the Poetry Society of New York and requires a separate registration.



Speakers
avatar for Shari Caplan

Shari Caplan

Shari Caplan is the author of “Advice from a Siren” (Dancing Girl Press, 2016). Her work appears in Zoetic Press, Drunk Monkeys, and Deluge and is forthcoming from Blue Lyra Review and The Rhylsing Anthology, a publication of Rhylsing Award nominees. A graduate of Lesley University’s... Read More →
avatar for Kailey Tedesco

Kailey Tedesco

Kailey Tedesco is the author of She Used to be on a Milk Carton (April Gloaming Publishing), Lizzie, Speak, and FOREVERHAUS (both White Stag Publishing). She is a senior editor for Luna Luna Magazine, and she teaches an ongoing course on the witch in literature in Bethlehem, PA. You... Read More →
avatar for Stephanie Burt

Stephanie Burt

Stephanie Burt is a professor of English at Harvard. Her books of poetry include Advice from the Lights (2017), Belmont (2013), and Parallel Play (2006), all from Graywolf Press, and Popular Music (1999). Her books of literary criticism include Don’t Read Poetry: A Book About... Read More →
avatar for Christian Perfas

Christian Perfas

Christian Perfas is a second-generation Filipino-American spoken word poet who speaks on the Song, Truth Universal, and Flow of his own wandering spirit. Originally trained in the art of hip-hop and improv, Christian has learned from legendary spaces such as The Spoken Literature... Read More →



Friday May 14, 2021 9:00pm - 11:00pm EDT
Online
 
Saturday, May 15
 

12:15am EDT

All Day Event - Improbable Places Audio Tour
An audio tour highlighting some of the most memorable stops on The Improbable Places Poetry Tour has been made for your listening pleasure. The Improbable Places Poetry Tour, a reading series organized by Colleen Michaels of Montserrat College of Art, has run for over a decade around Beverly, Salem, and the North Shore bringing poetry and the community together in unexpected places. Yes, even in a swimming pool. This audio tour version will feature stops around the Massachusetts North Shore and can be enjoyed either with a day trip or virtually.

Listen to the Tour

Speakers
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 →
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 →
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 →
avatar for Eileen Cleary

Eileen Cleary

Eileen Cleary is the author of 'Child ward of the Commonwealth' (2019), which received an honorable mention for the Sheila Margaret Motton Book Prize and ' 2 a.m. with Keats' (Nixes Mate, 2021). In addition, she co-edited the anthology ' Voices Amidst the Virus', the featured text... Read More →
avatar for Catherine Fahey

Catherine Fahey

Catherine Fahey is a poet and librarian from Salem, Massachusetts. When she’s not reading and writing, she’s knitting or dancing. Her chapbook _The Roses that Bloom at the End of the World_ is available from Boston Accent Lit. You can read more of her work at www.magpiepoems... Read More →
HP

Hugo Pellinen

Hugo Pellinen is a visual artist and writer. His creative projects take images and ideas out of traditional contexts and ask audiences to make new meanings.  His recent explorations include:  The Type Liberation Project (letterpress projects from reclaimed type), The Essex Natural... Read More →
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 Shari Caplan

Shari Caplan

Shari Caplan is the author of “Advice from a Siren” (Dancing Girl Press, 2016). Her work appears in Zoetic Press, Drunk Monkeys, and Deluge and is forthcoming from Blue Lyra Review and The Rhylsing Anthology, a publication of Rhylsing Award nominees. A graduate of Lesley University’s... Read More →
avatar for Ariella Ruth

Ariella Ruth

Ariella Ruth is the author of the chapbook REMNANTS (Gesture Press, 2019), and a full-length version of that manuscript was a finalist for the Two Sylvias Press 2017 Full-Length Poetry Manuscript Prize. She has a poem published on a sandstone monolith as part of the City of Boulder... Read More →
avatar for Colleen Michaels

Colleen Michaels

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


Saturday May 15, 2021 12:15am - 11:30pm EDT
Online

12:15am EDT

All Day Event - Online Ekphrastic Gallery Premiere
Don't forget to check out the Festival website (https://festival.masspoetry.org) where you will find work by twelve amazingly gifted student artists from Montserrat College of Art, paired with bespoke poems by the winners of our Ekphrastic Gallery contest.  This gallery was created thanks to the amazing work of Montserrat Faculty Members Colleen Michaels and Dawn Paul.  You can also buy broadsides of the winning pieces, designed by talented Montserrat student Leslie Dami.  


Saturday May 15, 2021 12:15am - 11:30pm EDT
Online

12:15am EDT

All Day Event - Salem Poem Walk
There is nothing quite like spring in New England: blossoming trees, beautiful weather, and, of course, the Massachusetts Poetry Festival! Come celebrate the arrival of spring, and the return of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival by taking an immersive poetry walk through Salem. Trees will be hung with poetry written by MassPoetry headliners, Montserrat and Salem State University faculty and students, and other beloved poets. Enjoy your walk with an iced coffee from one of Salem’s incredible coffee shops, or with lunch from one of our many wonderful restaurants! This event is free, public, and family-friendly. It will run the weekend prior to the Massachusetts Poetry Festival (05/08), leading up to the festival. This event was created by Jude Nixon and Meghan Miraglia of the Salem State University English Honors Society, in partnership with the Massachusetts Poetry Festival and the City of Salem.
The Salem Poem Walk features a mapped route, as well as “bonus locations” for residents familiar with Salem. These “bonus locations” are featured along the route and are not included on the map to create a “treasure hunt” feel! 
 
The route is as follows: 
  • Begin at the Salem Commons Gazebo 
  • Walk via Hawthorne Blvd to the Charlotte Forten Park 
  • Walk to Artists’ Row 
  • Take the pedestrian walkway on Essex Street 
  • Walk to Salem Armory Park 
  • End at the Salem Commons


Saturday May 15, 2021 12:15am - 11:30pm EDT
Online

12:15am EDT

All Day Event - Small Press Fair
The Small Press Fair returns to the 2021 Mass Poetry Festival! In these trying times, the small presses that help elevate unique voices in the Massachusetts Poetry Community need your support more than ever. This year's Small Press Fair is dedicated to helping connect these essential businesses with those who most need and appreciate their work. Please come out to support the local publishers who help keep our community unique, vibrant, and alive!

https://festival.masspoetry.org/smallpressfair/

Saturday May 15, 2021 12:15am - 11:30pm EDT
Online

9:00am EDT

Exploring Poetry Through Yoga with Linda Spolidoro
Poetry’s ability to engage, move, and dig deep, along with yoga’s ability to appreciate the present moment, make them perfect companions. This workshop will explore the intersection of breath, movement, stillness, and mindfulness to create a new way of experiencing both poetry and yoga. All that’s required is a mat, a body, and a willing spirit.

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/7oVK_10BbeuORI-nRDCtBCKyfTldCVRA7zyOZHtOchmKMNqLgZF5ScsOpXnU_lFS.qKRJzxSnx4c_xuos

Speakers
avatar for Linda Spolidoro

Linda Spolidoro

Manager/Instructor/Disruptor, LPY Yoga
Linda Spolidoro is a poet and a 500 hour certified yoga instructor. She has been teaching Yoga full-time since 2011 and has been on the Teacher Training Staff at Lexington Power Yoga since 2015. Her first book, Eat the Damn Pie, was published by Yes/No Press in 2020. Her poetry, like... Read More →


Saturday May 15, 2021 9:00am - 10:00am EDT
Online

9:00am EDT

Found in Translation: Back and Forth between English and Mandarin
Join this virtual poem translation workshop and build a bridge between poetry in different cultures! Featuring Rodger Martin and his book For All the Tea in Zhongguo, there will be a brief reading on selected poems originally in Mandarin or English along with their translations, followed by a discussion on the process of translation of contemporary poems. Experienced or amateur translators or anyone simply interested in translated poems are all invited to have a taste of the excitement and hard work in the process of poetry translation.

Link to recording: https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/aKrOuKCQfk6dHzFE5pqIVDMlLpXQtq-HBsTzEk-ZiA0FU-5kZF_6A1ldJQFivEjb.-9fEOt1P4_OcTuO7

Speakers
avatar for Rodger Martin

Rodger Martin

Rodger Martin, artist for the New England States Touring Foundation, has received an Appalachia poetry award, a NHSCA fiction fellowship, and fellowships from NEH to study Eliot and Hardy at Oxford University and Milton at Duquesne University. His work has appeared in journals and... Read More →
avatar for Xinrui Jiang

Xinrui Jiang

Xinrui Jiang (she/her/hers) is currently an undergraduate English major and education minor at Salem State University. As an international student from China, she employs her bilingual advantage to attempt some translation in poetry. She also currently works for a Chinese subtitle translation group to do some subtitle translation of film and television works... Read More →


Saturday May 15, 2021 9:00am - 10:00am EDT
Online

10:15am EDT

Ecopoetry: Words in Balance
As the rainforest burns and wildfires rage, as climate change threatens our world, poets can bear witness, reflecting on the intricate interconnectedness of humanity, our planet, and nature. We are nature. EcoPoetry offers us a lifeline to hidden worlds and reminds us of our shared reliance on nature. This session explores the role of the poet as activist, as chronicler of destruction, as truth teller. In this reading, poets Fred Marchant, Jennifer Barber, Deborah Leipziger and Myronn Hardy share their ecopoems and reflect on the power of EcoPoetry to transform and heal our world and ourselves.

Link to recording: https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/1U8gQvtw_8CMzdjsDU4eMkg3I99sOzcERf3jO_2HA6gu4fK_fp0PCC6NmIvO9-4W.wkEbMEW2ueEAwoPk

Speakers
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 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 →
avatar for Jennifer Barber

Jennifer Barber

Jennifer Barber’s fourth poetry collection, The Sliding Boat Our Bodies Made, came out in 2022 from The Word Works. Her collection Works on Paper received the 2015 Tenth Gate Prize from The Word Works and was published in 2016. She is the current poet laureate of Brookline and the... Read More →
avatar for Myronn Hardy

Myronn Hardy

Myronn Hardy is the author of five books of poems, most recently, Radioactive Starlings, published by Princeton University Press (2017). His poems have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Virginia Quarterly Review, the Baffler, Rhino, and elsewhere. He teaches at Bates C... Read More →


Saturday May 15, 2021 10:15am - 11:15am EDT
Online

10:15am EDT

Veteran Poets Reading Veteran Poets
From Walt Whitman to Khadijah Queen, poets who have served in the military have illuminated the complex and ambiguous experiences of service to country while recording damages of war. In this panel discussion, four veterans: Rodger Martin (U.S. Army, Vietnam), Karen Skolfield (U.S. Army, Panama), Terry Farish (Red Cross, Vietnam) and Jimmy Pappas (U.S. Air Force, Vietnam) will witness the spoken word of veteran poets from the Civil War to present day including Whitman (Civil War); Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon (WWI); Donald Baker and Randall Jarrell (WWII); Etheridge Knight (Korea); Bruce Weigl and Yusef Komunyakaa (Vietnam); and Brian Turner and Khadijah Queen (Iraq/Afghanistan). In addition, the poets will share their own work.

Event Recording: Check back! We hope to make this event available by Friday 5/28.

Speakers
avatar for Karen Skolfield

Karen Skolfield

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

Terry Farish

Terry Farish's books include the novel in verse, The Good Braider, an American Library Association Best Book; Flower Shadows, “a female addition to the Vietnam genre that is as moving as it is wise,”(Kirkus); and Either the Beginning or the End of the World, a Maine Literary... Read More →
avatar for Jimmy Pappas

Jimmy Pappas

Jimmy Pappas taught English as a second language to South Vietnamese soldiers preparing to work with American helicopter pilots. He was the winner of the Rattle Chapbook Prize and the Rattle Readers' Choice Award. He is the Vice President of the Poetry Society of New Hampshire.
avatar for Rodger Martin

Rodger Martin

Rodger Martin, artist for the New England States Touring Foundation, has received an Appalachia poetry award, a NHSCA fiction fellowship, and fellowships from NEH to study Eliot and Hardy at Oxford University and Milton at Duquesne University. His work has appeared in journals and... Read More →


Saturday May 15, 2021 10:15am - 11:15am EDT
Online

10:15am EDT

TEACHER TRACK: Teaching Anti-Racist Poetry
In this workshop, participants will explore anti-racist pedagogy through poetry. After defining terms, the time will be spent reading poetry from a variety of sources (mostly living BIPOC authors) and participating in analysis and discussion activities geared towards high school language arts classrooms. This workshop targets high school language arts teachers looking for ways to engage their classroom communities with honesty, vulnerability, and bravery. Participants will leave with a governing philosophy (“if not my class, then where?”),a classroom-ready packet of poems, and instructional ideas.

The Teacher Track is a special series of four sessions specifically targeting teachers and poet-educators interested in learning more about poetry pedagogy. These sessions will serve as the first part of Mass Poetry’s annual teacher training programming. To participate in the Teacher Track, Festival ticket holders must attend all four sessions. Participation accrues four hours towards PDPs by the MA Department of Education or a Mass Poetry certificate—the remaining six hours of training required to award PDPs or certificates will be offered this summer at a mutually agreed-upon time.

Link to recording: https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/play/K85wWDoqDrvsG8NvcGpyO20ZBFQboFEwGFEcG6Ka76wPcPh_wH1KrVNdD_zEZqWI8qSgY7izAhJ1tPqO.6lAZI9BLCysJuQHu?continueMode=true&_x_zm_rtaid=3g7xqCGXTgKVqmfWNtj7Ag.1621092852562.7a25a697a7365be2f015dbd2f341948e&_x_zm_rhtaid=100

Speakers
avatar for Matthew E. Henry

Matthew E. Henry

Matthew E. Henry (MEH) is the author of the chapbooks Teaching While Black (Main Street Rag, 2020) and Dust and Ashes (Californios Press, 2020), and his full-length collection, the Colored page, is forthcoming from Sundress Publications in 2022. The editor-in-chief of The Weight... Read More →


Saturday May 15, 2021 10:15am - 11:15am EDT
Online

10:15am EDT

The Muse of the Cards: Tarot and Poetry
In this workshop, attendees will learn how to use tarot cards as inspiration to write their own poems. We will hear examples of how other poets have used tarot and other divination systems for poetic inspiration (Teofilo Folengo, Rachel Pollack, Juan Felipe Herrera, and others). We will explore different poetic techniques and forms to connect with tarot. We will also look at how the structures and symbolism within the tarot can lend themselves to poetry. Participants will be prompted to write their own tarot poems, and will leave this workshop with a reading list and prompt list. Familiarity with tarot is not necessary.

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/uPSr6iDQMlZKTmyY8PG0YKu6A0kLhD8LykjkwQDWCs-IxC3uGNUe-Pc-esP58M-7.6Q3cFW1OrDDTSrnt

Speakers
avatar for Catherine Fahey

Catherine Fahey

Catherine Fahey is a poet and librarian from Salem, Massachusetts. When she’s not reading and writing, she’s knitting or dancing. Her chapbook _The Roses that Bloom at the End of the World_ is available from Boston Accent Lit. You can read more of her work at www.magpiepoems... Read More →


Saturday May 15, 2021 10:15am - 11:15am EDT
Online

11:30am EDT

Translating Haiti
Link to recording: https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/play/8LOMi3x_qtRl67gxNlu_jPUHKnk9MGUO0svZScQ5Gyex7FO1y_6vgEaTOcRwpAJ698GZvx3oGHMMX_4.irWFyoker6F9ZYFz?continueMode=true

“Translating Haiti” is a group reading (with elements of panel discussion and Q&A) by regional poets who write in and translate through Haitian Kreyòl, French and English. Poets in the Haitian diaspora translate their distance from motherland and mother-tongue into poetry compelling for its engagement with Haiti's socio-political past and present, for the voice it gives to immigrant experience in the US, and for the wrestle with three languages to get there. Reading and discussion in English, French, Haitian Kreyòl.


Speakers
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 →
avatar for Emmelie Prophète

Emmelie Prophète

Born in Port-au-Prince, Emmelie Prophète is a poet, novelist, journalist and diplomat. Her literary work is published with Mémoire d’Encrier, notably Le testament des solitudes, which took the Grand Prix littéraire de l’Association des écrivains de langue française (ADELF... Read More →
avatar for Eddy Toussaint Tontongi

Eddy Toussaint Tontongi

Eddy Toussaint Tontongi was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Poet, critic, and essayist, he writes in Haitian, French, and English. The author's published books include:  Sèl pou dezonbifye Bouki  (Essays in Haitian, Trilingual Press, Cambridge, MA,  2016); La Parole indomptée... Read More →
avatar for Doumafis Lafontan

Doumafis Lafontan

Playwright
Doumafis is a playwright, striving to make justice work in American society. Beyond social justice, he shares his praxis with like-minded individuals to find solutions to the issues that hamper human development and quality of life. During his leisure time, he enjoys photography... Read More →


Saturday May 15, 2021 11:30am - 12:30pm EDT
Online

11:30am EDT

TEACHER TRACK: Poetry Like Bread: Using Poetry to Enhance Critical Skills
Following Roque Dalton's dictum that "poetry, like bread, is for everyone," this teaching workshop will demonstrate how to use poetry as a tool to transition developmental readers from Literal Comprehension to higher levels of reading, including Inferential and Applied Reading Comprehension.

The Teacher Track is a special series of four sessions specifically targeting teachers and poet-educators interested in learning more about poetry pedagogy. These sessions will serve as the first part of Mass Poetry’s annual teacher training programming. To participate in the Teacher Track, Festival ticket holders must attend all four sessions. Participation accrues four hours towards PDPs by the MA Department of Education or a Mass Poetry certificate—the remaining six hours of training required to award PDPs or certificates will be offered this summer at a mutually agreed-upon time.

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/vIn-9F-3lWBQezRJq4emdtHEtcd2A6RVfWnmg1KwQyQSGlHYxJ0UgSYNt4BHfOk0.IFDB8X3SPJC5jMpW

Speakers
avatar for Lauren Marie Schmidt

Lauren Marie Schmidt

Lauren Marie Schmidt is the author of three previous collections of poetry: Two Black Eyes and a Patch of Hair Missing; The Voodoo Doll Parade, selected for the Main Street Rag Author’s Choice Chapbook Series; and Psalms of The Dining Room, a sequence of poems about her volunteer... Read More →


Saturday May 15, 2021 11:30am - 12:30pm EDT
Online

11:30am EDT

To Play is to Collaborate is to Queer: A Workshop
Event Recording:  A recording for this event is not available.

We believe that play interrogates world-building while being a key component of queer bonding and collaboration. Think of all the games that shaped our upbringings: board games, outdoor games, imagination games. And what are poems if not individual worlds that we construct? In this workshop, we will engage with these worlds through group forms of play. We will do a series of activities testing out our poems in unusual scenarios while supporting each other to share in ways that will bring laughter, joy, pain, and anger to the surface. We will explore how engaging in play collectively is also an essential aspect of companionship and friendship. We will be vulnerable with one another, with glimpses into each other's imaginations, then generate new work collaboratively using the models of play from the activities. This is open to all but will center LGBTQ individuals. Please bring 1-2 poems for the activities.

Speakers
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 →
avatar for Sam Herschel Wein

Sam Herschel Wein

Sam Herschel Wein (he/they) is a lollygagging plum of a poet who specializes in perpetual frolicking. A 2022 Pushcart Prize winner, their third chapbook, Butt Stuff Flower Bush, is forthcoming from Porkbelly Press. He co-founded and edits Underblong and is poetry co-editor for Grist... Read More →


Saturday May 15, 2021 11:30am - 12:30pm EDT
Online

11:30am EDT

"Called Back": A Virtual Emily Dickinson Poetry Walk
Event Recording: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=176000197747012
More on the Emily Dickinson Museum: https://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/

Days before her death in 1886, Emily Dickinson wrote her final letter, “Little Cousins, / Called Back. / Emily”. On May 15, the 135th anniversary of the poet’s death, join the Emily Dickinson Museum for an engaging virtual poetry reading and “walk” through Amherst, the town she called “paradise.” At each stop, we will see historical and contemporary images of sites of meaning for Dickinson including her garden and conservatory at the Homestead, The Evergreens -- home to the poet’s brother and sister-in-law; the town common; Amherst College; and more. Not a lecture, this program infuses place with poetry. At each stop contemporary poets share their Dickinson-inspired poems and volunteers read Dickinson’s own words aloud. The final stop is Dickinson’s grave in West Cemetery where we will share reflections and a light-hearted virtual toast!


Speakers
EB

Elizabeth Bolton

Elizabeth Bolton has a Ph.D. in Literacy Education from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. She writes articles, essays, and poems about the connection between writing and mental health. She grew up in northern California and now lives in Niagara Falls, Ontario with her... Read More →
avatar for Lee Desrosiers

Lee Desrosiers

Publisher, Naugatuck River Review
Lori Desrosiers’ poetry books are The Philosopher’s Daughter, Sometimes I Hear the Clock Speak, and Keeping Planes in the Air, all from Salmon Poetry. Two chapbooks, Inner Sky, and Typing with e.e. cummings, are from Glass Lyre Press. She edits Naugatuck River Review, a journal... Read More →
HB

Hannah Baker Saltmarsh

Hannah Baker Saltmarsh is the author of the poetry collection, Hysterical Water, published by The University of Georgia Press in March 2021. She has written a book of poetry criticism, entitled Male Poets and the Agon of the Mother: Contexts in Confessional and Post-confessional... Read More →
KG

Kate Godin

Kate Godin lives in Western Massachusetts, where she tends to the writing needs of a small liberal arts college, a tween and a teen, a vigorous anxiety, and her poetry (which can be found at kategodin.com). She is a graduate of Bates College and the New School for Social Research... Read More →
BL

Bonnie Larson Staiger

Bonnie Larson Staiger is a North Dakota Associate Poet Laureate; the recipient of the Poetry of the Plains and Prairies Prize (NDSU Press, 2018); and the Independent Press Award: Distinguished Favorite (2019) for her collection, Destiny Manifested. Her second book In Plains Sight... Read More →
RL

Robin Long

Robin Long (@theotherdickinson) is a queer poet and writer from Austin. She is expanding her fiction thesis on Emily Dickinson, The Other Dickinson, and can be found at theotherdickinson.com. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, 2020 National Poetry Month Editor’s Pick, and a digital poetry performer with FEELS Zine... Read More →
SP

Siri Palreddy

Siri Palreddy is a first-year at Amherst College, hoping to study both English and neuroscience. An avid reader, she first discovered Emily Dickinson in high school and has loved her work ever since. Apart from poetry, Siri enjoys writing creative nonfiction and is compelled by stories... Read More →
PS

Peter Schmitt

Peter Schmitt is the author of six books of poems. “Emily Dickinson and the Boston Red Sox” appears in his new collection, Goodbye, Apostrophe (Regal House). A graduate of Amherst and The Iowa Writers Workshop, he lives and teaches in his hometown of Miami, Florida.
RS

Rebecca Starks

Rebecca Starks is the author of the poetry collections Time Is Always Now, a finalist for the 2019 Able Muse Book Award, and Fetch, Muse (forthcoming from Able Muse Press), and is the recipient of Rattle’s 2018 Neil Postman Award for Metaphor. She lives in Richmond, Vermont. re... Read More →


Saturday May 15, 2021 11:30am - 12:45pm EDT
Online

12:45pm EDT

2020 Re-Do Celebration Ceremony
We invite poets who were winners or finalists of 2020 literary awards but did not have the opportunity to properly celebrate their accomplishments to receive a toast and a round of applause at this unforgettable ceremony.

The theme for this amazing event is "Poetry Awards Ceremony Meets Grammys." Therefore, please feel free to come dressed in a way that makes you feel special. This can include (but is not limited to) gowns, suits, glitter, extravagant furs, etc. There might even be an opportunity for you to take a photo on our virtual red carpet!

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/GPw63ggy7Sl78AHBAGKiGSq3Lr2JuJyt4vYMHtR3yzV3CxTCLfjYoSO8dvkf3npZ.7bcxMXDchAsAh64h

Speakers
avatar for Toni Bee

Toni Bee

Poet / Curator/ Event Host/ Founder / StoryTeller, tonibee.org
Toni Bee is a poet, educator, and photographer raised in Boston, MA, educated in Roxbury. She was elected as Poet Populist of Cambridge, MA - the first woman to grace that position. In 2016, Toni was selected as the Cambridge Inaugural Poetry Ambassador. She was a teaching artist... Read More →
avatar for Heather Treseler

Heather Treseler

Associate Professor, Worcester State University
Heather Treseler is the author of Parturition, which received the Munster Literature Centre's international chapbook prize and the Jean Pedrick chapbook prize in 2020. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Cincinnati Review, Harvard Review, JAMA, and The American Scholar, among... Read More →
avatar for Susan Roney-O'Brien

Susan Roney-O'Brien

Susan Roney-O’Brien lives in Princeton, MA where she works with international students and young writers. She curates a monthly poetry venue at The Thirsty Lab and is part of 4 X 4, a group of four visual artists and four poets who respond through art and poetry to each other’s... 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 →
avatar for Kip Wilson

Kip Wilson

Kip Wilson is the author of young adult verse novels White Rose (2019, Versify), about anti-Nazi political activist Sophie Scholl, The Most Dazzling Girl in Berlin (2022, Versify), set in a queer club in Berlin during the last days of the Weimar Republic, and One Last Shot (2023... Read More →
avatar for Marjorie Maddox

Marjorie Maddox

Professor of English and Creative Writing, Lock Haven University
Professor of English at Lock Haven University, Marjorie Maddox has published eleven collections of poetry; the story collection What She Was Saying; four children’s YA books; Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania; and Presence (assistant editor). Begin with a Question... Read More →
avatar for Karina Borowicz

Karina Borowicz

Karina Borowicz was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts. She holds degrees in writing, history, and Russian. Her most recent poetry collection, Rosetta (2020), won the Ex Ophidia Prize. Proof (2014) won the Codhill Poetry Award, and The Bees Are Waiting (2012) won the Marick Press... Read More →
avatar for Stephan Delbos

Stephan Delbos

Stephan Delbos, the first Poet Laureate of Plymouth, Massachusetts, is the author of In Memory of Fire (Cape Cod Poetry Review, 2016); Light Reading (BlazeVOX, 2019); and Small Talk (Dos Madres Press, 2021). His co-translation of The Absolute Gravedigger, by Czech poet Vítězslav... Read More →
avatar for Maru Colbert

Maru Colbert

Maru Colbert is an engineering professor and performer. Her research and teaching span the engineering fields of chemical, environmental, and materials science with a STEM focus on chemistry and mathematics. Additionally, she runs a cultural arts company based in Boston. Her spoken... Read More →
avatar for Elizabeth S. Wolf

Elizabeth S. Wolf

Elizabeth S. Wolf’s chapbook, Did You Know? was a 2018 Rattle Chapbook Prize winner. Her full-length book, When Lawyers Wept, was published by Kelsay Books. Her poetry appears in Boston Literary Magazine, Ibbetson Street, Third Wednesday, Peregrine, and Persian Sugar in English... Read More →
avatar for Joshua Coben

Joshua Coben

Joshua Coben’s second collection, Night Chaser (David Robert Books, 2020), was a finalist for the Vassar Miller Prize, the New American Poetry Prize, and the Donald Justice Poetry Prize. His first book, Maker of Shadows (Texas Review Press, 2010), won the X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize... Read More →
avatar for Margot Douaihy

Margot Douaihy

Margot Douaihy is the author of Scranton Lace, Girls Like You, and the forthcoming docupoetic project Bandit / Queen: The Runaway Story of Belle Starr (Clemson University Press). Her writing has been featured in Colorado Review, The Florida Review, North American Review, PBS NewsHour... Read More →


Saturday May 15, 2021 12:45pm - 2:00pm EDT
Online

2:15pm EDT

Voices in (Self-)Translation
During these specific times in the United States, what does it mean to have voices in translation by poets whose soul language is one other than English and who translate from it into English, their second language? Bilingual poet Jean-Dany Joachim and multilingual poet María Luisa Arroyo, New England Poetry Club Advisory Board members, invite participants to join their conversation with acclaimed poets and translators Rhina Espaillat and María José Giménez about what drives them to translate the works of other poets into English? How do they negotiate the complex dynamics of generating poems in one’s first language and then rendering them into English? Each poet will give a brief reading before the fruitful, thought-provoking discussion geared towards U.S. bilingual and multilingual poets as listeners and contributors to this timely discussion.

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/X3McF1yiSlyKQDm3Wp3i8zr-Wx2iFE2oDo3zDXwfvpmI3XeS_Nt6dctCPwT37ZwG.iClIkof9v6ObKv4g

Speakers
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 →
avatar for María José Giménez

María José Giménez

A genderqueer born-and-raised Venezuelan poet, translator, editor, and connector with roots and community in places like Montreal, the Bay Area, María José Giménez celebrated in 2020 twenty years of freelancing and creative practice through translation, revision, copyediting and... Read More →
avatar for Jean-Dany Joachim

Jean-Dany Joachim

I love words, in prints and spoken. I was born in translation. I organize and stage readings at citynightreadings.com.
avatar for Rhina Espaillat

Rhina Espaillat

Rhina P. Espaillat has published ten full-length books and three chapbooks in both English and her native Spanish, and translations from and into both languages. Espaillat’s most recent poetry collections include Playing at Stillness, and a book of Spanish translations, Oscura fruta/Dark... Read More →


Saturday May 15, 2021 2:15pm - 3:15pm EDT
Online

2:15pm EDT

Sheyr Jangi: Lineages of Survival
Poetic duels are found across cultures and times, with vibrant traditions throughout the Middle East, Central Asia, and South Asia. The Afghan tradition is called sheyr jangi, or “poetry fighting,” and has roots in early medieval Central Asian Courts.

As poets of South Asian descent, we pay homage to this tradition–with a twist. With our audience’s involvement, we invite our poets to “fight” for justice while honoring our ancestors and resilience.

Even as we experience the overturning of the Muslim Ban and a Black & South Asian American Vice President, much work of justice is yet to be done. Poets Aurora Masum-Javed, Sahar Muradi, Zohra Saed, and Purvi Shah will share their work as well as invite our audience to collaborate in improvisational sheyr jangi. In this time, we will enable Festival participants to hear poetry from communities directly impacted by xenophobic policies and co-create lineages for survival and resilience.

We bring expertise as cultural workers engaged in activism, social practice, community dialogue, and mobilizing the literary community–providing an urgent and life-affirming participatory event. After the last years of language being co-opted, we bring forth community truths and connections.

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/NqTzMcVxecRTxoA3aMEAbrYZeNVIf941pmPh3iEJ60zWgHx3Wzarold_ACt3VvDJ.4diawVUpbzKo2fYy

Speakers
avatar for Zohra Saed

Zohra Saed

Zohra Saed is a Brooklyn-based writer. She is the co-editor of One Story, Thirty Stories: An Anthology of Contemporary Afghan American Literature (University of Arkansas Press), and editor of Langston Hughes: Poems, Photos, and Notebooks from Turkestan (Lost & Found, The CUNY Poetics... Read More →
avatar for Aurora Masum-Javed

Aurora Masum-Javed

Aurora Masum-Javed is a poet, writing coach, and educator. A former public school teacher, she received her MFA from Cornell University. Her work can be found at Aster(ix), Frontier, Winter Tangerine, and elsewhere. She's received fellowships from MacDowell, Caldera, and Kundiman... Read More →
avatar for Purvi Shah

Purvi Shah

Purvi Shah’s favorite art practices are her sparkly eyeshadow, raucous laughter, and seeking justice. She won the inaugural SONY South Asian Social Service Excellence Award for her leadership in fighting violence against women. Her new book, Miracle Marks, explores women, the sacred... Read More →
avatar for Sahar Muradi

Sahar Muradi

Sahar Muradi is a writer, performer, and educator born in Afghanistan and raised in the U.S. She is the author of the chapbooks [ G A T E S ], and A Garden Beyond My Hand, co-author of A Ritual in X Movements, and co-editor of One Story, Thirty Stories: An Anthology of Contemporary... Read More →


Saturday May 15, 2021 2:15pm - 3:15pm EDT
Online

2:15pm EDT

Poetry in Libraries/Libraries in Poetry, sponsored by Massachusetts Center for the Book
From the US Poet Laureate program to its rich, archive of poetry readings, our nation's library centers poetry in the cultural discourse.  Here in the commonwealth, the Mass Book Awards and other reading programs -- such as this year's Route 1 Reads (Poetry 2021) -- bring poets and readers together in libraries for meaningful interactions.  Join the Library of Congress, Massachusetts Center for the Book, and Massachusetts poets and librarians for a conversation about programs that promote poetry to library readers.  What are we doing now?  What more can and should we do?  The panel dicussion will conclude with audience Q&A and, if time allows, an open mike.  Bring your favorite poem about libraries or librarians!

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/Zh0xI-1iQvhfMDvuA48eM3Sctldyc33LUwXPk0uthwOTQbq3V2FJDrzdl-BgsTwQ.zENsS3FpxOaWXy6o

Speakers
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 Amy Rhilinger

Amy Rhilinger

Director, Attleboro Public Library
Amy Rhilinger has been a librarian in Attleboro for 19 years. While not a poet or poetry scholar, she loves the wonder, curiosity, and connection that a poem can inspire. She shares poetry programming with our community because sharing that just-right poem with someone builds heartfelt... Read More →
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 Rob Casper

Rob Casper

Head of Poetry and Literature, Library of Congress
avatar for Sean Thibodeau

Sean Thibodeau

Coordinator of Community Planning, Pollard Memorial Library
Sean Thibodeau is a poet and librarian. He lives and works in Lowell, MA.


Saturday May 15, 2021 2:15pm - 3:15pm EDT
Online

2:15pm EDT

TEACHER TRACK: Poets Teaching Poetry in the Virtual Classroom
Three poets and experts in the field give their insights on teaching and using poetry to navigate transitions in an unprecedented digital, hybrid, and in-person landscape. Sharing their combined 30 years of experience, a high school humanities teacher, lower school English teacher, and instructional designer will share lesson plan tips and tricks and lead a sample activity for other educators, hopeful educators, and lovers of poetry and pedagogy.

The Teacher Track is a special series of four sessions specifically targeting teachers and poet-educators interested in learning more about poetry pedagogy. These sessions will serve as the first part of Mass Poetry’s annual teacher training programming. To participate in the Teacher Track, Festival ticket holders must attend all four sessions. Participation accrues four hours towards PDPs by the MA Department of Education or a Mass Poetry certificate—the remaining six hours of training required to award PDPs or certificates will be offered this summer at a mutually agreed-upon time.

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/fhsRmCAHmJoERdNASKuNf6Nt9KGpWgm6OgT8fg9nnrr14n2AhAcXH5LVIdvg.uaCumEFte3xkzfz0

Speakers
avatar for Olivia Lawrance

Olivia Lawrance

A lifelong educator, Olivia currently teaches and resides in seacoast New Hampshire. Her publications include The Green Mountains Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Ethel, and others.
avatar for Becca Van Horn

Becca Van Horn

Becca Van Horn received her MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of New Hampshire, where she was an instructor. She has been published in The Atticus Review, Flash Fiction Funny, Outlook Springs, and Quarterly West, among others, and is the nonfiction editor of Outlook Springs... Read More →
avatar for John McDonough

John McDonough

McDonough teaches humanities at Great Bay Charter School in Exeter, New Hampshire. His publication history includes Green Mountains Review, Stone Boat, and North Dakota Quarterly. Through his work for the Daily Bugle, he worked diligently and with a singular focus in order to acquire... Read More →


Saturday May 15, 2021 2:15pm - 3:15pm EDT
Online

3:30pm EDT

AAWW Presents: New Pacific Islander Poetry
In recognition of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) presents a reading and celebration of Pacific Islander poetry, hosted by Craig Santos Perez, and featuring William Nu'utupu Giles, Jocelyn Kapumealani Ng, and No'u Revilla. These writers, activists, educators, organizers, and innovators are redefining Indigenous identity, examining human relationships to the environment in a time of climate crisis, supporting contemporary protest movements, and allowing us to imagine a more sustainable future. The AAWW is a non-profit organization dedicated to holding space for community, and to uplifting the Asian diasporic and Pacific Islander literary culture of tomorrow.

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/qMcHDjW2C7bqk3a09b74ZBY2QRS8lm5uGT7kWBsEhf3HKb2RC-gvzx6GCxSrJybx.SuyrkcNZsfi61Vs9

Speakers
avatar for Craig Santos Perez

Craig Santos Perez

Craig Santos Perez is a Chamoru writer from the Pacific Island of Guåhan (Guam). He is the author of five books of poetry and the co-editor of five anthologies. He teaches at the University of Hawaiʻi, Mānoa.
avatar for William Nuʻutupu Giles

William Nuʻutupu Giles

William Nu’utupu Giles is a second-generation Samoan-American Poet and Arts Educator from Honolulu, Hawaii. He views spoken word poetry as a continuation of the Pacific Oral Tradition of storytelling as living history. Will’s poetry finds the political seeds in personal stories... Read More →
avatar for Noʻu Revilla

Noʻu Revilla

Assistant Professor of Creative Writing, University of Hawaiʻi-Mānoa
Noʻu Revilla is an ʻŌiwi poet, performer, and educator. Her debut book of poetry ASK THE BRINDLED won the 2021 National Poetry Series. She also won the 2021 Omnidawn Broadside Poetry prize. Her work has been featured in Beloit, ANMLY, Lit Hub, Poetry, and the Library of Congress... Read More →
avatar for Jocelyn Kapumealani Ng

Jocelyn Kapumealani Ng

Jocelyn Kapumealani Ng is a queer multi-dimensional creative of Hawaiian, Chinese, Japanese, and Portuguese descent. The fluidity of her art blends award-winning spoken word poetry, special effects make-up, theater performance, photography, and fabrication to navigate themes of queerness... Read More →


Saturday May 15, 2021 3:30pm - 4:30pm EDT
Online

3:30pm EDT

Sports Page, the Pandemic Edition
Join Ken Waldman, Marjorie Maddox, and J.D. Scrimgeour for Sports Page, the Pandemic Edition, a freewheeling session, half panel discussion, and half poetry reading. Ken Waldman's 2020 collection, Sports Page, provides a foundation. Former tennis teacher and highly-ranked junior player, Waldman, in his book, takes on sports in a range of settings: a section set in Alaska, a section of sonnets, a baseball section, and more. Marjorie Maddox is the great-grandniece of Branch Rickey, Brooklyn Dodger manager who signed Jackie Robinson, trail breaking athlete of color. She has eleven poetry collections and has written extensively about baseball. J.D. Scrimgeour has also written extensively about baseball, as well as about basketball, and is a great friend of the Festival. All three have published in Aethlon: The Journal of Sports Literature. They look forward to sharing how they've combined a love of poetry with a love of sports.

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/play/HPQ3WKcJPJTBYmKWMFmomvDJdwy2kufBIvUPOblEKsYnrel08lmyxjlmM4nL7w9DGIoqmo6TYOYWVV2k.h9aPY3y6xFCQsIid?continueMode=true&_x_zm_rtaid=FDldYwAgTmG1OXGfjABNWQ.1621112529150.0b45f7525d9f40d919194ce792b634b8&_x_zm_rhtaid=742

Speakers
avatar for Ken Waldman

Ken Waldman

Ken Waldman's eighteen books consist of fifteen full-length poetry collections, a memoir, a creative writing manual, and a children's poetry book. His nine CDs include two for kids. Since 1995 he's been on tour, appearing in a wide range of venues for a wide range of audiences. k... Read More →
avatar for Marjorie Maddox

Marjorie Maddox

Professor of English and Creative Writing, Lock Haven University
Professor of English at Lock Haven University, Marjorie Maddox has published eleven collections of poetry; the story collection What She Was Saying; four children’s YA books; Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania; and Presence (assistant editor). Begin with a Question... Read More →
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 →


Saturday May 15, 2021 3:30pm - 4:30pm EDT
Online

3:30pm EDT

TEACHER TRACK: Integrating Poetry, Media Arts/Theater Lesson Plans with Common Core
Learn how to integrate poetry, media arts/theater into Common Core English Language Arts & Literacy standards to create engaging lessons for your students! We will look at FREE resources, the standards and begin writing a lesson plan for your students!

The Teacher Track is a special series of four sessions specifically targeting teachers and poet-educators interested in learning more about poetry pedagogy. These sessions will serve as the first part of Mass Poetry’s annual teacher training programming. To participate in the Teacher Track, Festival ticket holders must attend all four sessions. Participation accrues four hours towards PDPs by the MA Department of Education or a Mass Poetry certificate—the remaining six hours of training required to award PDPs or certificates will be offered this summer at a mutually agreed-upon time.

Link to recording: https://youtu.be/QO8rfvMWaZA

Speakers
avatar for Kimberly Jae

Kimberly Jae

Kimberly Jae is an experienced teacher/principal, certified in Birth-8th grade all subjects, English/Speech Communications/ Theater 7-12, Principal & Superintendent. She is also Grand Slam Champion of Steel City Slam & published. Currently, she is preparing to compete in the Canadian... Read More →


Saturday May 15, 2021 3:30pm - 4:30pm EDT
Online

3:30pm EDT

The Poet and the Line
Fragment, disruption, pattern, and line. These elements are our currency, no matter what kind of poetry we write. We use and break the poetic line strategically to create drama, intrigue, and surprise. After learning about James Longenbach’s paradigm of “annotated” and “parsed” lines, this workshop will focus on the way that the poetic line can help us build and subvert expectation in both lineated and prose poems. The session will be particularly helpful for any poet who wants to revisit the way they look at revision. Through interactive activities, discussion, examples, and our own writing, we’ll sharpen our attention to what line breaks do.

Link to recording: https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/play/1KeFHZ_hp5fGW0uLAnuAYg16FzOlHLPbQUoYg20WerVylKTnCN2gbMlXVSktBd8Xwt5mIhvwvrXRqkJg.YCX5qxzh1ToDNesb?continueMode=true&_x_zm_rtaid=qzR9L_sWS-S-bcf64VFuTg.1621958442322.15b17ae5be4a2d75890780d7db387743&_x_zm_rhtaid=928

Speakers
avatar for Freesia McKee

Freesia McKee

Freesia McKee is a poet, micro-memoirist, book reviewer, and teacher. She’s a 2021 contributor to the Ploughshares blog and the essays editor at South Florida Poetry Journal. Find Freesia on Twitter: @freesiamckee... Read More →


Saturday May 15, 2021 3:30pm - 4:30pm EDT
Online

4:45pm EDT

State of Poetry Panel
The State of Poetry Panel returns! This year's panel will focus on the impact of the pandemic on American poets and poetry. Speakers will cover various aspects of the industry, including publishing, criticism, academia, and writing. This year's panelists are celebrated poets Jen Benka, Martín Espada, Jonathan Galassi, and Tyehimba Jess. Hosted by Cristela Guerra of WBUR.

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/sFnkztCeSTRS5GS0V_kyrVytD9j5WRHOgFiYMPL4U57_M7P-De1CTANLlVO8k8pH.FnSElmz0I7lsmu39?startTime=1621111539000

Moderators
avatar for Cristela Guerra

Cristela Guerra

Senior Arts and Culture Reporter, WBUR's TheARTery
Cristela Guerra is an award-winning journalist and senior arts and culture reporter for WBUR’s The ARTery. She worked nearly four years at The Boston Globe beginning in the features department and then making her way back to Metro. She’s covered the Covid pandemic, blizzards... Read More →

Speakers
avatar for Tyehimba Jess

Tyehimba Jess

Tyehimba Jess is the author of two books of poetry, Leadbelly and Olio. Olio won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, The Midland Society Author’s Award in Poetry, and received an Outstanding Contribution to Publishing Citation from the Black Caucus of the American... Read More →
avatar for Martín Espada

Martín Espada

Martín Espada has published more than twenty books as a poet, editor, essayist, and translator. His new book of poems from Norton is called Floaters. Other books of poems include Vivas to Those Who Have Failed (2016), The Trouble Ball (2011), The Republic of Poetry (2006... Read More →
avatar for Jen Benka

Jen Benka

President and Executive Director, Academy of American Poets
Jen Benka serves as the President & Executive Director of the Academy of American Poets, the producer of Poets.org and Poem-a-Day, and the largest supporter of poets and poetry organizations in the nation. Jen is also the author of two poetry collections, and writes and tweets about the imp... Read More →
avatar for Jonathan Galassi

Jonathan Galassi

Jonathan Galassi is the president of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. He has published three books of poetry and translations of the poetry of Eugenio Monltale, Giacomo Leopardi, and Primo Levi.  His first novel, Muse, was published in 2015. He is co-editor with Robyn Creswell of THE FSG... Read More →


Saturday May 15, 2021 4:45pm - 5:45pm EDT
Online

6:00pm EDT

Massachusetts CavanKerry Poets
These Massachusetts poets all have books published with CavanKerry Press. They will read a few poems from recently published books or books that are forthcoming. Then the panel will talk about their experience with CK Press, what inspired their collections, how their collections came together, and the process through publication. This should be an insightful look into the small press poetry world. There will be time for questions from the audience.

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/play/TAt7CTSj9REzab9Z0rnGH2NjeH6gX3kEvEDpaEsKpZ340SxnuzA167ZHY8pYSbYyqyD7oWWV-CGrVAI.H7lrkVEL5aZ8opLy?continueMode=true&_x_zm_rtaid=CH409mT6SBSndCRFdNz76A.1621121536752.2495958a3a271be30a8284bcce39efdc&_x_zm_rhtaid=118

Speakers
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 →
avatar for Cindy Veach

Cindy Veach

Cindy Veach is the author of Her Kind (CavanKerry Press) a finalist for the 2022 Eric Hoffer Montaigne Medal and Gloved Against Blood (CavanKerry Press), a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize and a Massachusetts Center for the Book ‘Must Read,’ Her poems have appeared in the... Read More →
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 →
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 in Salem, MA. Her poems and reviews of poetry books have been published in a number of... Read More →


Saturday May 15, 2021 6:00pm - 7:00pm EDT
Online

6:00pm EDT

Poetry & Ice Cream
Join us with your favorite sundae for this Festival open mic!  Bring your poems about ice cream, chocolate, jelly beans, or anything else sweet you'd like to share.  

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/igL_ODIIqDMUsiQuRNS_QxOVyvSGtDD_3Za7sPzay9Iaqug5VkpiE8z6aCpfbXlj.9oIc4E1lyTUgmhRN

Saturday May 15, 2021 6:00pm - 7:00pm EDT
Online

6:00pm EDT

Voices Amidst the Virus: Poets Respond to the Pandemic
When coronavirus started closing down New England in March 2020, life changed dramatically. People quickly rethought their approaches to work, school, shopping, socializing and more. In response, Lily Poetry Press created an anthology, Voices Amidst the Virus, edited by Eileen Cleary and Christine Jones, which features poems by Kevin Prufer, Annie Finch, Daniel Summerhill, Dzvinia Orlowsky, Anne-Marie Oomen, Sean Thomas Dougherty, and many others that explores our shared experiences of isolation, lock-down, re-entry. In this panel discussion, the editors and two poets from the collection will talk about the inspiration behind the project as well as their experiences writing through the pandemic. They will read a selection of poems that confront despair and reach for hope. And there will be sourdough! During the interactive session, the audience will be invited to share their own Covid-19 stories and poems.

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/vTcUKOKFQ_jzJ5-98YIDznuRwFePQQ-U4NzpjSUCKG5TG9A-C7EOvT7urpzMofaf.ncoruAHujf4fkuSu

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 Eileen Cleary

Eileen Cleary

Eileen Cleary is the author of 'Child ward of the Commonwealth' (2019), which received an honorable mention for the Sheila Margaret Motton Book Prize and ' 2 a.m. with Keats' (Nixes Mate, 2021). In addition, she co-edited the anthology ' Voices Amidst the Virus', the featured text... Read More →
avatar for Christine Jones

Christine Jones

Christine Jones lives in Orleans, MA and is the author of Now Calls Me Daughter (Nixes Mate Review, 2022) and Girl Without a Shirt (Finishing Line Press, 2020), also co-editor of the anthology, Voices Amidst the Virus: Poets Respond to the Pandemic (Lily Poetry Review Books, 2020... Read More →
avatar for Kyle Potvin

Kyle Potvin

Kyle Potvin’s newest poetry collection is Loosen (Hobblebush Books, January 2021). Her chapbook, Sound Travels on Water, won the Jean Pedrick Chapbook Award. She is a two-time finalist for the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award. Poems have appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, Tar River... Read More →


Saturday May 15, 2021 6:00pm - 7:00pm EDT
Online

6:00pm EDT

Crossing Dimensions with Indigenous Poets
Event recording: Check back! We hope to have this recording available by 5/28.

Multidimensionality has always fueled the work of Native poets. In this reading/performance sponsored by In-Na-Po, Indigenous Nations Poets, participants will share work that demonstrates some of the ways contemporary Indigenous poetics resist the static finality of a text aesthetic. Working broadly across the arts, these writers enmesh and transform poetic experience. Whether through song, picto-poems, mini poetic dramas, concrete poetry, or multi-lingual and multi-vocal works, their performances will lift the literary text into other visual and aural dimensions.


Speakers
avatar for Margaret Noodin

Margaret Noodin

Margaret Noodin, a Professor of English and American Indian studies at University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, is the author of "Weweni" and "What the Chickadee Knows," bilingual poetry collections in Anishinaabemowin and English, as well as "Bawaajimo: A Dialect of Dreams in Anishinaabe... Read More →
avatar for Kimberly Blaeser

Kimberly Blaeser

Kimberly Blaeser, Anishinaabe, former Wisconsin Poet Laureate, is the author of five poetry collections including Copper Yearning, Apprenticed to Justice, and Résister en dansant/Ikwe-niimi: Dancing Resistance. A UW–Milwaukee professor and MFA faculty for the Institute of American... Read More →
avatar for LeAnne Howe

LeAnne Howe

LeAnne Howe, Choctaw, Eidson Distinguished Professor at University of Georgia, is author of novels, plays, poetry, and screenplays. Recent books include Famine Pots: The Choctaw Irish Gift Exchange 1847-Present, and When The Light of The World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through... Read More →
avatar for Gordon Henry

Gordon Henry

Gordon Henry, White Earth Anishinaabe, is a professor at Michigan State University and Senior Editor of the American Indian Studies Series at Michigan State University Press. His publications include a novel, The Light People, a mixed-genre collection, The Failure of Certain Charms... Read More →


Saturday May 15, 2021 6:00pm - 7:00pm EDT
Online

7:00pm EDT

Headline Reading with Porsha Olayiwola, Tyehimba Jess, and Naomi Shihab Nye, sponsored by The Grolier Poetry Book Shop
Join us for this headline reading featuring Tyehimba Jess and Naomi Shihab Nye, with a special opening reading by Boston Poet Laureate Porsha Olayiwola.

Link to recording: https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/t644G-IBIwYdbBp6Zhc303bZS0m3-UAqsGU_Clk6d6ZMbPaOkdFEkvXiEDog2ITx.DX8twlxrldJPeFiO?startTime=1621119553000

Black, futurist, poet, dyke, hip-hop feminist, womanist: Porsha is a native of Chicago who now resides in Boston. Olayiwola is a writer, performer, educator and curator who uses afro-futurism and surrealism to examine historical and current issues in the Black, woman, and queer diasporas. She is an Individual World Poetry Slam Champion and the artistic director at MassLEAP, a literary youth organization. Olayiwola is an MFA Candidate at Emerson College. Porsha Olayiwola is the author of i shimmer sometimes, tooforthcoming with Button Poetry, and is the current poet laureate for the city of Boston.

Tyehimba Jess is the author of two books of poetry, Leadbelly and Olio. Olio won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, The Midland Society Author’s Award in Poetry, and received an Outstanding Contribution to Publishing Citation from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. It was also nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN Jean Stein Book Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. Leadbelly was a winner of the 2004 National Poetry Series. The Library Journal and Black Issues Book Review both named it one of the “Best Poetry Books of 2005”.

Jess, a Cave Canem and NYU Alumni, received a 2004 Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and was a 2004–2005 Winter Fellow at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. Jess is also a veteran of the 2000 and 2001 Green Mill Poetry Slam Team, and won a 2000–2001 Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Poetry, the 2001 Chicago Sun-Times Poetry Award, and a 2006 Whiting Fellowship. He presented his poetry at the 2011 TedX Nashville Conference and won a 2016 Lannan Literary Award in Poetry. He received a Guggenheim fellowship in 2018. Jess is a professor of English at College of Staten Island.

Jess' fiction and poetry have appeared in many journals, as well as anthologies such as Angles of Ascent: A Norton Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry, Beyond The Frontier: African American Poetry for the Twenty-First Century, Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social and Political Black Literature and Art, Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam, Power Lines: A Decade of Poetry from Chicago's Guild Complex, and Slam: The Art of Performance Poetry.

Naomi Shihab Nye has been a Lannan Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a Witter Bynner Fellow (Library of Congress). She has received a Lavan Award from the Academy of American Poets; the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award; the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award; the Paterson Poetry Prize; four Pushcart Prizes; the Robert Creeley Prize; “The Betty Prize” from Poets House, for service to poetry; and numerous honors for her children’s literature, including two Jane Addams Children’s Book Awards. In 2011 Nye won the Golden Rose Award given by the New England Poetry Club, the oldest poetry reading series in the country. Her collection, 19 Varieties of Gazelle, was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her work has been presented on National Public Radio on A Prairie Home Companion and The Writer’s Almanac. She has been featured on two PBS poetry specials including "The Language of Life" with Bill Moyers and also appeared on NOW with Bill Moyers. She has been affiliated with The Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin for 20 years and has been the poetry editor at The Texas Observer for 20 years. In 2019-2020 she was the editor for New York Times Magazine poems. She is Chancellor Emeritus for the Academy of American Poets, a laureate of the 2013 NSK Neustadt Award for Children’s Literature, and in 2017 the American Library Association presented Naomi Shihab Nye with the 2018 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Award. In 2018 the Texas Institute of Letters awarded her the Lon Tinkle Award for Lifetime Achievement. She was named the 2019-2021 Young People’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation. In 2020 she was awarded the Ivan Sandrof Award for Lifetime Achievement by the National Book Critics Circle. Nye is a professor of Creative Writing - Poetry at Texas State University.

As the oldest continuous all-poetry bookstore in the country, The Grolier Poetry Book Shop has been a treasured gathering hub for local and internationally renowned poets since 1927. Visit us online or in the heart of Harvard Square where we continue to sell books and host live poetry readings. GrolierPoetryBookshop.org


Speakers
avatar for Porsha Olayiwola

Porsha Olayiwola

Black, futurist, poet, dyke, hip-hop feminist, womanist: Porsha is a native of Chicago who now resides in Boston. Olayiwola is a writer, performer, educator, and curator who uses afro-futurism and surrealism to examine historical and current issues in the Black, woman, and queer diasporas... Read More →
avatar for Tyehimba Jess

Tyehimba Jess

Tyehimba Jess is the author of two books of poetry, Leadbelly and Olio. Olio won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, The Midland Society Author’s Award in Poetry, and received an Outstanding Contribution to Publishing Citation from the Black Caucus of the American... Read More →
avatar for Naomi Shihab Nye

Naomi Shihab Nye

Naomi Shihab Nye has been a Lannan Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a Witter Bynner Fellow (Library of Congress). She has received a Lavan Award from the Academy of American Poets, the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award, the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award, the Paterson Poetry Prize... Read More →


Saturday May 15, 2021 7:00pm - 8:30pm EDT
Online

8:30pm EDT

Between the Notes, Music and Poetry with Kaia Kater and Sadie Dupuis
Poetry and music have always gone hand in hand. For Maya Angelou, “Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.” And, when asked about mixing poetry with music in an interview for Scholastic, Nikki Giovanni replied “Poetry and music are very good friends. Like mommies and daddies and strawberries and cream—they go together.” Come enjoy a night of poetry and music with two amazing singer/songwriter/poets, Sadie Dupuis and Kaia Kater.

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/t644G-IBIwYdbBp6Zhc303bZS0m3-UAqsGU_Clk6d6ZMbPaOkdFEkvXiEDog2ITx.DX8twlxrldJPeFiO?startTime=1621119553000

**Note**: Skip video to 1:39:00 for Between the Notes

Speakers
avatar for Sadie Dupuis

Sadie Dupuis

Sadie Dupuis is the guitarist, songwriter & singer of rock band Speedy Ortiz, as well as the producer & multi-instrumentalist behind pop project Sad13. Sadie heads the record label Wax Nine, edits its poetry journal, and has written for outlets including Spin, Nylon, and Playboy... Read More →
avatar for Kaia Kater

Kaia Kater

Montreal-born Grenadian-Canadian Kaia’s jazz-fueled voice and deft songcraft have garnered acclaim from NPR, CBC, Rolling Stone, and No Depression. Her 2016 release 'Nine Pin' earned a Canadian Folk Music Award, sending her on 18-months of touring from Ireland to Iowa. Her most... Read More →


Saturday May 15, 2021 8:30pm - 10:00pm EDT
Online
 
Sunday, May 16
 

12:15am EDT

All Day Event - Salem Poem Walk
There is nothing quite like spring in New England: blossoming trees, beautiful weather, and, of course, the Massachusetts Poetry Festival! Come celebrate the arrival of spring, and the return of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival by taking an immersive poetry walk through Salem. Trees will be hung with poetry written by MassPoetry headliners, Montserrat and Salem State University faculty and students, and other beloved poets. Enjoy your walk with an iced coffee from one of Salem’s incredible coffee shops, or with lunch from one of our many wonderful restaurants! This event is free, public, and family-friendly. It will run the weekend prior to the Massachusetts Poetry Festival (05/08), leading up to the festival. This event was created by Jude Nixon and Meghan Miraglia of the Salem State University English Honors Society, in partnership with the Massachusetts Poetry Festival and the City of Salem.
The Salem Poem Walk features a mapped route, as well as “bonus locations” for residents familiar with Salem. These “bonus locations” are featured along the route and are not included on the map to create a “treasure hunt” feel! 
 
The route is as follows: 
  • Begin at the Salem Commons Gazebo 
  • Walk via Hawthorne Blvd to the Charlotte Forten Park 
  • Walk to Artists’ Row 
  • Take the pedestrian walkway on Essex Street 
  • Walk to Salem Armory Park 
  • End at the Salem Commons


Sunday May 16, 2021 12:15am - 12:30am EDT
Online

12:15am EDT

All Day Event - Small Press Fair
The Small Press Fair returns to the 2021 Mass Poetry Festival! In these trying times, the small presses that help elevate unique voices in the Massachusetts Poetry Community need your support more than ever. This year's Small Press Fair is dedicated to helping connect these essential businesses with those who most need and appreciate their work. Please come out to support the local publishers who help keep our community unique, vibrant, and alive!

https://festival.masspoetry.org/smallpressfair/

Sunday May 16, 2021 12:15am - 12:30am EDT
Online

12:15am EDT

All Day Event - Improbable Places Audio Tour
An audio tour highlighting some of the most memorable stops on The Improbable Places Poetry Tour has been made for your listening pleasure. The Improbable Places Poetry Tour, a reading series organized by Colleen Michaels of Montserrat College of Art, has run for over a decade around Beverly, Salem, and the North Shore bringing poetry and the community together in unexpected places. Yes, even in a swimming pool. This audio tour version will feature stops around the Massachusetts North Shore and can be enjoyed either with a day trip or virtually.

Listen to the Tour

Speakers
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 →
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 →
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 →
avatar for Eileen Cleary

Eileen Cleary

Eileen Cleary is the author of 'Child ward of the Commonwealth' (2019), which received an honorable mention for the Sheila Margaret Motton Book Prize and ' 2 a.m. with Keats' (Nixes Mate, 2021). In addition, she co-edited the anthology ' Voices Amidst the Virus', the featured text... Read More →
avatar for Catherine Fahey

Catherine Fahey

Catherine Fahey is a poet and librarian from Salem, Massachusetts. When she’s not reading and writing, she’s knitting or dancing. Her chapbook _The Roses that Bloom at the End of the World_ is available from Boston Accent Lit. You can read more of her work at www.magpiepoems... Read More →
HP

Hugo Pellinen

Hugo Pellinen is a visual artist and writer. His creative projects take images and ideas out of traditional contexts and ask audiences to make new meanings.  His recent explorations include:  The Type Liberation Project (letterpress projects from reclaimed type), The Essex Natural... Read More →
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 Shari Caplan

Shari Caplan

Shari Caplan is the author of “Advice from a Siren” (Dancing Girl Press, 2016). Her work appears in Zoetic Press, Drunk Monkeys, and Deluge and is forthcoming from Blue Lyra Review and The Rhylsing Anthology, a publication of Rhylsing Award nominees. A graduate of Lesley University’s... Read More →
avatar for Ariella Ruth

Ariella Ruth

Ariella Ruth is the author of the chapbook REMNANTS (Gesture Press, 2019), and a full-length version of that manuscript was a finalist for the Two Sylvias Press 2017 Full-Length Poetry Manuscript Prize. She has a poem published on a sandstone monolith as part of the City of Boulder... Read More →
avatar for Colleen Michaels

Colleen Michaels

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


Sunday May 16, 2021 12:15am - 11:30pm EDT
Online

12:15am EDT

All Day Event - Online Ekphrastic Gallery Premiere
Don't forget to check out the Festival website (https://festival.masspoetry.org) where you will find work by twelve amazingly gifted student artists from Montserrat College of Art, paired with bespoke poems by the winners of our Ekphrastic Gallery contest.  This gallery was created thanks to the amazing work of Montserrat Faculty Members Colleen Michaels and Dawn Paul.  You can also buy broadsides of the winning pieces, designed by talented Montserrat student Leslie Dami.  


Sunday May 16, 2021 12:15am - 11:30pm EDT
Online

9:00am EDT

Moving Words
Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/Z_nKiblYWLe4VaMoVk5JWpqdTEqSH7yfm-jKBEjEYq_eH4TNd1JxYZPEMhsQxo6L.5f5_PoaVS-d6-mSD

Link to Dance Videos

This event will involve a showing and discussion of the videos below. After an introduction, attendees will view the dances for approximately 20 minutes, and then have a conversation with Meghan McClyman and others involved in the work. There will be a Q&A segment of this event.

Although there will be dedicated time during this event to view the linked videos, attendees may watch any time before or after the event. They will remain available at the link below.

Link to Dance Videos



Speakers
avatar for Cindy Veach

Cindy Veach

Cindy Veach is the author of Her Kind (CavanKerry Press) a finalist for the 2022 Eric Hoffer Montaigne Medal and Gloved Against Blood (CavanKerry Press), a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize and a Massachusetts Center for the Book ‘Must Read,’ Her poems have appeared in the... Read More →
avatar for Catherine Fahey

Catherine Fahey

Catherine Fahey is a poet and librarian from Salem, Massachusetts. When she’s not reading and writing, she’s knitting or dancing. Her chapbook _The Roses that Bloom at the End of the World_ is available from Boston Accent Lit. You can read more of her work at www.magpiepoems... Read More →

Artists
avatar for Angelina Benitez

Angelina Benitez

Angelina Benitez is a dance educator and a self-taught fiber artist.  She graduated from Salem State University in May 2018 with a B.A in both Modern/Contemporary Dance and Spanish World, Language, and Culture.  Her choreography at Salem State was presented at Boston's American... Read More →
avatar for Betsy Miller

Betsy Miller

A native of Ohio, Betsy Miller is a dance artist, educator, and facilitator based in Salem, Massachusetts. Her choreography blends improvisational practice, ritual, athleticism, and theatricality through collaborative practices. More info at www.betsymillerdanceprojects.comphoto credit: Jonathan Hsu... Read More →
avatar for Danielle Legros Georges

Danielle Legros Georges

Danielle Legros Georges is a creative and critical writer, translator, and academic whose work sits in the fields of contemporary U.S. poetry, Black and African-diasporic poetry and literature, Caribbean/Latin American and Haitian studies, and literary translation. She is the author... Read More →
avatar for Gregory Glenn

Gregory Glenn

Beloved Editor Supreme, Unpopular Writer
Gregory Glenn is a writer and artist based in Massachusetts. Published in Molecule, Drunk Monkeys, Poetry Soup, and Soundings East, among others. Collection of poems featured in the anthology 9X5 (2022, Only Human Press).
avatar for Jackie Bowden

Jackie Bowden

Jackie Bowden graduated with a minor in dance from Salem State University where she received the Creativity Award in Dance. She is the former co-director of Kaleidoscope Dance Company and has danced with Boston Community Dance Project and Onstage Dance Company Rep. Jackie is the owner... Read More →
avatar for Jake Crawford

Jake Crawford

Jake Crawford is a dancer, choreographer, and visual artist from the Boston area. After graduating from Salem State University with a BA in both contemporary/modern dance and 3-dimensional studio art and design, he has focused on creating a body of work centered on gender and queer... Read More →
avatar for Kathleen Aguero

Kathleen Aguero

Writer: "Self Portrait as Geranium"Dancer: Betsy Miller
avatar for Laura Smith

Laura Smith

Writer: "Late Fall"Dancer: Meghan McLyman
avatar for Lindsey McGovern

Lindsey McGovern

Lindsey McGovern is a 2015 graduate of Salem State University's dance program and is the owner/director of Enchanted Dance Academy in Winchester, MA. She co-founded, dances, and performs for Vitality Dance Project, whose work was most recently seen in NACHMO Boston 2021. Lindsey is... Read More →
avatar for Lis Weiss Horowitz

Lis Weiss Horowitz

Writer: "In The Museum Sculpture Garden"Dancer: Lindsey McGovern
avatar for Meghan McLyman

Meghan McLyman

Meghan McLyman is a professor of dance at Salem State University. In addition to her teaching, she co-creates dances with Kristen Duffy Young under Accumulation Dance. Please view their website for more information www.accumulationdance.orgphoto credit: Eric Fisher... Read More →
avatar for Rebecca Lang

Rebecca Lang

Angelina Benitez (she/her/hers) and Rebecca Lang (she/her/hers) are both creative and life partners. They started dancing together six years ago at Salem State University where they both studied dance and received Presidential Arts Scholarships. Their recent performance credits in... Read More →


Sunday May 16, 2021 9:00am - 10:00am EDT
Online

10:15am EDT

Rivers of Addiction: Poetry of Witness to the Opiate Epidemic
How to speak of the river of addiction and the trauma of loved ones drowned in it? An
epidemic that rages fiercely within the current pandemic, drug overdoses have claimed even
more lives this last year. In this group reading, three poets who are mothers of children who
died from addiction offer their voices, highlighting the ways in which poetry gives voice to
unspeakable tragedy. These poets are writing about the “silent epidemic,” one that doesn’t
have a Dr. Fauci as its champion, where big pharma is the villain, not the hero. The poems
explore three unique, agonizing and loving journeys of mother and child. Poems of varying
aesthetic styles, poems like prayers, curses, conversations with gone ones, poems that
illuminate both loss and hope, and offer ways forward. The reading is designed to spark a
fruitful conversation about art and addiction.

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/DNXn_DGrgIUtUfSgUc1j7K-HYXTrTU49ThaVPNOx25x3nCpJzfj_CN_DQFWvFp66.JhFt9QKOXeSsvZuA

Speakers
avatar for Miriam Greenspan

Miriam Greenspan

Miriam Greenspan is a psychotherapist and writer whose work includes the bestseller Healing Through the Dark Emotions, as well as numerous magazine essays of political/cultural commentary. The Heroin Addict’s Mother, (Atmosphere Press, 2021) a memoir that bears witness to the ravages... Read More →
avatar for Julia Paul

Julia Paul

Pres., Board of Directors, Riverwood Poetry Series, Inc
Julia Paul is president of Riverwood Poetry Series, a longstanding reading series in Hartford, CT, and an elder law attorney. Her chapbook, Staring Down the Tracks, was published by The Poetry Box , and her book, Shook, by Grayson Books. Her book, Table with Burning Candle, is forthcoming... Read More →
avatar for Sheryl St. Germain

Sheryl St. Germain

Sheryl St. Germain has published six poetry books, three essay collections, and co-edited two anthologies. The Small Door of Your Death (poetry) explores the life and overdose death of her son, as does her latest collection of essays, Fifty Miles. sheryl-stgermain.com/... Read More →


Sunday May 16, 2021 10:15am - 11:15am EDT
Online

10:15am EDT

Constraint in Contemporary English and Spanish Experimental Poetry
Three experimental poets working with different degrees of constraint engage in a conversation about their experiences with constraint in poetry, the bilingual collaborations to which they have contributed, and muse about the role of constraint in poetry in general, and in bilingual poetry, specifically.

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/stFEWOJBLek5ciWrfm2bNL6wa7bZUy7oBV4Tgbc79X8zQ_7png3w-rSoHpCeFuc5.JVeeQm3yuQtTckjA

Speakers
avatar for Pedro Poitevin

Pedro Poitevin

Associate Professor, Salem State University
A mathematician by training and the author of some extreme feats of constrained experimental writing—ten million palindromic sonnets, a palindromic sestina, a sonnetina, and more—, Pedro Poitevin also writes poetry in both English and Spanish, and he translates poetry, primarily... Read More →
avatar for Anthony Etherin

Anthony Etherin

Anthony Etherin is a British experimental formal poet and publisher for the imprint Penteract Press. He is known for his use of strict, often combinatorial, literary restrictions, most notably palindromes, anagrams, and aelindromes, a restriction of his own invention. He also composes... Read More →
avatar for Merlina Acevedo

Merlina Acevedo

A chess master and a master of the palindrome form and the epigram in Spanish, Merlina Acevedo is also a musician and a visual artist.


Sunday May 16, 2021 10:15am - 11:15am EDT
Online

10:15am EDT

Chaotic? Good!: Harnessing the Power of the Happy Accident in Your Poetry
James Merrill used a Ouija board to commune with the spirits of the dead. He got 560 pages out
of it. French Surrealists described their dreams, Tracy K. Smith took an eraser to the Declaration
of Independence, and Jericho Brown writes lines on slips of paper that he slides around until
something interesting pops out.

In this workshop, we'll use techniques such as erasure, web-surfing, tarot decks, and more to
help attendees relinquish some control to outside forces (and the unconscious) during the
drafting and revision stages of their processes. This can create work that functions less by logic
than by juxtaposition, association, the element of surprise--what Robert Bly called poetic
"leaping."

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/feAIO17e4v2bcUPSpZZOKif1AYahXShxenQ7mv-aF8plb3k6ZdwZrtcG3iUxsM6E.rhHGDgGXipdsD1rA

Speakers
avatar for Maria Pinto

Maria Pinto

Maria Pinto is a writer, educator, and mushroom enthusiast. She teaches at GrubStreet, reads for The Drum, and Peripheries, and has been awarded fellowships by Vermont Studio Center, The Writers' Room of Boston, The Mastheads, and Garret on the Green. Find her work in Frigg, Necessary... Read More →
avatar for Emily Franklin

Emily Franklin

Emily Franklin’s work has been published in the New York Times, Guernica, the Cincinnati Review, New Ohio Review, Shenandoah, Blackbird, Painted Bride Quarterly, The Rumpus, Passages North, The Journal, and Cimarron Review. Her poetry collection Tell Me How You Got Here was published... Read More →
avatar for Walter Smelt

Walter Smelt

Walter Smelt's poems have appeared in Colorado Review, Subtropics, Poetry East, Redivider, and Peripheries, and his translations of poems in The Battersea Review, and the Harvard Divinity Bulletin. Originally from Florida, he lives in Massachusetts and teaches English for Bunker Hill... Read More →
MD

Maya Demissie

Maya Demissie’s work has appeared in Monologue Project, a student publication, and they are the news managing editor of The Newtonite, their school newspaper. They also co-host Miamas, a storytelling podcast for students at their high school.


Sunday May 16, 2021 10:15am - 11:15am EDT
Online

11:30am EDT

11 Years of SPINE: A Celebration
EmersonWRITES is an urban, creative writing program offering free college-style workshops to students grades 8-12 enrolled in a Greater Boston public or charter school. In 2019 we celebrated 10 years of SPINE—our annual anthology written by the students of EmersonWRITES. Come join our reading of works spanning over a decade of published student work, of a program committed to giving voice to so many talented young writers.

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/9yTDbf3vxttEQ88FBl53VGazg_40BxcKCcwjJVHlCN1AG0zA6HPpmWDjzObCeXJ6.Ce8G4Ijt6XXEZTEF?startTime=1621179106000

Speakers
avatar for Livia Meneghin

Livia Meneghin

Emerson College
Livia Meneghin (she/her) is the author of Honey in My Hair and GASHER reviews. She is the winner of Breakwater Review's 2022 Peseroff Prize, a Writers' Room of Boston Fellowship, and The Academy of American Poets' 2020 University Prize. Her writing has found homes in Solstice Lit... Read More →
avatar for Rebecca Rubin

Rebecca Rubin

Rebecca Rubin has her MFA in creative writing from Emerson College. She has taught with EmersonWRITES for two years and is also teaching at Emerson in the First Year Writing Program.
avatar for Kate Kobosko

Kate Kobosko

Instructor, EmersonWrites
Kate Kobosko earned her MFA in Poetry from Emerson College in the Spring of 2021. Before that, she attended Eckerd College, where she dual majored in creative writing and human development. Her work has been published in Red Cedar Review, Hunnybee Lit, and Reunion: The Dallas Review... Read More →


Sunday May 16, 2021 11:30am - 12:30pm EDT
Online

11:30am EDT

Every Place Has Its Story: Writing About Region
Mark Doty will moderate a panel discussion with Alice Kociemba, Robin Smith-
Johnson and Rich Youmans, co-editors of From the Farther Shore: Discovering Cape
Cod and the Islands Through Poetry
(Bass River Press, 2021). Mark Doty will give an
overview of the anthology and lead the editors in a discussion about how they
conceived, selected, and organized the poems in order to bring the region to life.
They will then read a selection that illustrates how poetry can capture the spirit of
the region—its history, its people, its landmarks, its industries, and its beauty.

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/zWdKlv_SVvDARvyf5afGolPVoTE4WY7UsLVsdtlzrlLw_h2ulDjIJwW6l-kxE6wB.obrxecu3QIUtEWoq

Speakers
avatar for Robin Smith-Johnson

Robin Smith-Johnson

Robin Smith-Johnson teaches at Cape Cod Community College. She is the author of two books of poetry: Dream of the Antique Dealer’s Daughter (Word Poetry, 2013), and Gale Warnings (Finishing Line Press, 2016), as well as being a co-founder of the Steeple Street Poets. Robin lives... 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 →
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 →
avatar for Mark Doty

Mark Doty

Distinguished Professor, Rutgers University
Mark Doty is the author of more than ten books of poetry, most recently Deep Lane (W.W. Norton, 2015), and three memoirs, including What Is the Grass: Walt Whitman in My Life (W.W. Norton, 2020).  Fire to Fire, his volume of new and selected poems, won the National Book Award for... Read More →


Sunday May 16, 2021 11:30am - 12:30pm EDT
Online

11:30am EDT

The Empire Writes Back
This reading and craft talk features three writers who blur genre conventions. George Abraham, Sam Cha, and Krysten Hill blend and expand the limits of lyric essays, prose poems, visual narratives, and multilingual writing to address issues that orbit race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and nationality. Each will read from their latest work and discuss how their respective identities inform their choices to surpass and defy expectations of genre. Moderated by Carissa Halston.

Link to recording: https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/0PuDWJwrO9HPBMJJe0f9229-g8M26jX7_kWjjSlN-xNZ7uq_aY1vYfXkB6qhEcJQ.K7pyRIXFU31eTO06


Speakers
avatar for Sam Cha

Sam Cha

Sam Cha was born in Korea. He has an MFA from UMass Boston. He is the author of The Yellow Book (Pank, 2020) and the chapbook American Carnage (Portable Press @ Yo-Yo Labs, 2018). Other work has appeared in apt, Assay, Best New Poets, and Boston Review. He lives with his family in... 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 Carissa Halston

Carissa Halston

Fiction writer
Carissa Halston is an award-winning fiction writer and omnireader. She's a doctoral candidate studying Critical Race Feminism and surveillance studies. She's androgynous, Syrian, Mvskoke, and queer.
avatar for George Abraham

George Abraham

George Abraham (they/he) is a Palestinian American poet from Jacksonville, FL. They are the author of the poetry collection Birthright (Button Poetry, 2020) and the chapbooks The Specimen's Apology and al youm. He is currently a bioengineering Ph.D. candidate at Harvard University... Read More →


Sunday May 16, 2021 11:30am - 12:30pm EDT
Online

11:30am EDT

BLBC Presents: We Are Our Own Gods
This workshop will explore writing from a feminine power. As women’s rights are threatened and a woman’s ability to make choices about her reproductive health becomes endangered, it is critical to speak out from a place of both vulnerability and strength. The aggressive, misogynist template that has been revitalized in our culture needs a gendered recalibration. This workshop will seek to generate work that resists and rejects anti-feminism in all forms. Three members of the Black Ladies Brunch Collective (BLBC), a poetry group whose mission is to lift up, promote, and inspire the voices of women of color, will lead this writing experience. We will draw inspiration from Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, Lucille Clifton, and Maxine Hong Kingston as well as use writing exercises to compose poems centered from a feminine consciousness. This workshop is open to all. Any poet seeking to connect with feminine energy is encouraged to attend.

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/hF6vGEsNk1ChigUUAJpcflCejWafIC9l-I3Qu8oTSbNhaAeDK3sqcjzkiVWX8ET5.iB-_GKD0BnFdUKQ_

Speakers
avatar for Teri Ellen Cross Davis

Teri Ellen Cross Davis

Poetry Coordinator, Folger Shakespeare Library
Teri Ellen Cross Davis is the author of a more perfect Union (The 2019 Journal/Charles B. Wheeler Poetry Prize) and Haint (2017 Ohioana Poetry Award). She is the 2020 Poetry Society of America’s Robert H. Winner Memorial Prize winner and the poetry coordinator for the Folger Shakespeare... Read More →
avatar for Katy Richey

Katy Richey

Black Ladies Brunch Collective
Katy Richey’s work has appeared in Rattle, Cincinnati Review, RHINO, The Offing, and other journals. She received an honorable mention for the Cave Canem Poetry Prize and was a finalist for Tubelo Press Snowbound Chapbook Poetry Award. She has received fellowships from The Cave... Read More →
avatar for Saida Agostini

Saida Agostini

Poet & Activist
Saida Agostini is a queer Afro-Guyanese poet whose work explores the ways Black folks harness mythology to enter the fantastic. She is the author of Stunt (Neon Hemlock, 2020), a chapbook reimagining the life of Nellie Jackson, a Black madam and FBI spy from Natchez, Mississippi... Read More →


Sunday May 16, 2021 11:30am - 12:30pm EDT
Online

1:00pm EDT

Headline Reading with Ariana Reines and Patricia Spears Jones, sponsored by The Shipman Agency
Please join us for this headline reading featuring Ariana Reines and Patricia Spears Jones, sponsored by The Shipman Agency. Opening reading by Jennifer Martelli.

Link to recording:
https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/ut-mTqEs_ljSy0gDnz7Yu8wX8bqLvQqwq1q8BaURDzs56HfGq-dIvaotyPQlFOw1.GgR1IZVgNDxK3p_9?startTime=1621184084000

Arkansas born and raised; resident of New York City for more than four decades, Patricia Spears Jones is the recipient of The Jackson Poetry Prize, one the most prestigious awards for American Poets via Poets & Writers, Inc. The $50,000 prize is among the most substantial given to an American poet and is designed to provide what all poets need: time and encouragement to write. She is the eleventh winner. In language that is simultaneously sensuous, wise-cracking, explicit, and rollicking, Spears Jones describes a world rich in beauty and longing, with pain tempered always by joy.

Spears Jones was named by Essence as one of its “40 Poets They Love” in 2010. She is the author of the poetry collections Painkiller and Femme du Monde: Poems from Tia Chucha Press;  The Weather That Kills from Coffee House Press; and five chapbooks including Living in the Love Economy. Her fourth collection, A Lucent Fire: New and Selected Poems is out from White Pine Press (White Pine Press Distinguished Poets series) and features her 2016 Pushcart Prize-winning poem, “Etta James at the Audubon Ballroom”. She was a finalist for the William Carlos Williams Prize from the Poetry Society of America and the Paterson Prize from the Passaic County Community College. Her work is widely anthologized. In 2015 she received a Barbara Deming Memorial Fund Award for her memoir in progress.

Ariana Reines is an award-winning poet, playwright, and translator. Her most recent book of poetry is A Sand Book (Tin House, 2019), which was longlisted for the National Book Award. Her other books include Tiffany’s Poems (Song Cave, 2015); Ramayana (Song Cave, 2015); The Origin of the World (Semiotext(e), 2014); Beyond Relief (Belladonna*, 2013); Thursday (Spork Press, 2012); Mercury (Fence Books, 2011); Coeur de Lion (Fence Books, 2007); and The Cow (Fence Books, 2006). Her poems have been anthologized in Corrected Slogans (Triple Canopy, 2013); Miscellaneous Uncatalogued Materials (Triple Canopy, 2011); Against Expression (Northwestern University Press, 2011); and Gurlesque (Saturnalia, 2010). Reines has been described as “one of the crucial voices of her generation” by Michael Silverblatt on NPR’s Bookworm. In 2020, she won the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. She’s been a MacDowell Fellow, has judged the National Poetry Series, and writes regularly for ArtForum.

Reines’s first play Telephone (2009) was performed at the Cherry Lane Theater and received two Obie Awards. A re-imagining of its second act was featured as part of the Guggenheim’s Works+Process series in 2009, and the script was published in Play: A Journal of Plays in 2010. Telephone was published by Wonder in 2018. Reines’s translations include a version of Baudelaire’s My Heart Laid Bare (2009); Jean-Luc Hennig’s The Little Black Book of Grisélidis Réal: Days and Nights of an Anarchist Whore (2009); and Tiqqun’s Preliminary Materials Toward a Theory of the Young-Girl (2012).

Performances Reines has created include Miss St’s Hieroglyphic Suffering for the Guggenheim (2009); The Origin of the World for Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London (2012); Mortal Kombat for Le Mouvement Biel/Bienne; Galerie TPW Toronto; The Whitney Museum of American Art, NY (2014); and more. Public Space, a 2017 sculpture collaboration with Oscar Tuazon, was shown at Stuart Shave/Modern Art London.
In an interview with The White Review, Reines was asked about the connection between writing the occult and writing female desire:

Writing is a transformative act and writing the occult, which I interpret as writing what’s invisible, or apparently invisible, is inevitably connected to writing my desire as a woman. Since the beginning of my career I’ve been haunted by the old mode of writing, which I think of as ‘righting’ – seeking redemption, somehow, by rendering past events into art; into fiction, into vision, into some form of intellectual lucidity that could somehow free me from the shit of the real. This is how the old dudes used to do it, and it’s not without its value. But what fascinates me is writing’s relationship to the future. Every book I’ve written has radically transformed my life. It has materially altered my lifestyle, brought me into contact with new friends and lovers, artworks and countries, ideas and vibrations I had neither the guts nor the imagination to visualize in advance.

Reines has taught at Columbia University, NYU, The New School, Tufts, and the European Graduate School, where she studied literature, performance, and philosophy. She has also been Visiting Critic in the Department of Sculpture at Yale in 2009 she was the Roberta C. Holloway Lecturer in Poetry at the University of California-Berkeley, the youngest poet to ever hold that position. She is currently a student at Harvard Divinity School. Since 2012, she has worked privately with clients through her astrology practice, Lazy Eye Haver.

Jennifer Martelli is the author of My Tarantella (Bordighera Press), awarded an Honorable Mention from the Italian-American Studies Association, selected as a 2019 “Must Read” by the Massachusetts Center for the Book, and named as a finalist for the Housatonic Book Award. Her chapbook, After Bird, was the winner of the Grey Book Press open reading, 2016. Her work has appeared in Thrush, Verse Daily, Iron Horse Review (winner, Photo Finish contest), The Sycamore Review, Cream City Review, The Bitter Oleander, and Poetry. Jennifer Martelli has twice received grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council for her poetry. She is co-poetry editor for Mom Egg Review and co-curates the Italian-American Writers Series.

About The Shipman Agency, Inc:
The Shipman Agency offers complete literary services to writers at all stages of their careers. While our primary focus is representing leading authors and thinkers for speaking engagements, we're pleased to offer the services of literary agent Annie DeWitt, independent book publicist Preeya Dave, and Mike Levine, editorial consultant. We’ve also added The Work Room, online classes + seminars taught by our clients. Our mission remains the same: to provide clients, venues, emerging writers + students with the best possible experience, and to represent authors who are on the cutting edge of contemporary thinking about culture and the world.



Speakers
avatar for Ariana Reines

Ariana Reines

Ariana Reines is an award-winning poet, playwright, and translator. Her most recent book of poetry is A Sand Book (Tin House, 2019), which was longlisted for the National Book Award. Her other books include Tiffany’s Poems (Song Cave, 2015), Ramayana (Song Cave, 2015), The Origin... Read More →
avatar for Patricia Spears Jones

Patricia Spears Jones

Arkansas born and raised; resident of New York City for more than four decades, Patricia Spears Jones is the recipient of The Jackson Poetry Prize, one the most prestigious awards for American Poets via Poets & Writers, Inc. The $50,000 prize is among the most substantial given to... Read More →
avatar for Jennifer Martelli

Jennifer Martelli

Co-Poetry Editor, Mom Egg Review
Jennifer Martelli is the author of The Queen of Queens andMy Tarantella (Bordighera Press), awarded an HonorableMention from the Italian-American Studies Association,selected as a “Must Read” by the Massachusetts Center forthe Book, and named as a finalist for the Housatonic BookAward... Read More →


Sunday May 16, 2021 1:00pm - 2:30pm EDT
Online

2:45pm EDT

Drawing Inspiration from the Everyday: A Reading
A writer’s practice can’t constantly wait for the Muse: we have to actively glean inspiration from casual interactions, chores and caregiving, watching television, even just simple choices of food and drink. This array of poets, all reading from new collections, will share work that interrogates the pressures of “everyday” existence—and how we turn those moments into edgy, funny, and exciting poems that waken into revelation. How do we bring in research and cultural dialogue? How do we innovate in terms of structure and conceit? We will further contextualize our readings with introductory comments that acknowledge how we relate to the current moment. These are the poems we need right now.

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/IM4FBuXBx5BMBDQhkwhkZ7whm4hX2l7__mJk-26forb8958FzGKVdpCM9s6x5yBu.FPxPbJbqSBb6HJnh

Speakers
avatar for Sandra Beasley

Sandra Beasley

Sandra Beasley is the author of four poetry collections, most recently Made to Explode, which came out with W. W. Norton in 2021; and Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life, a disability memoir. She also edited Vinegar and Char: Verse from the Southern Foodways... Read More →
avatar for Khadijah Queen

Khadijah Queen

Khadijah Queen is the author of six books, including Anodyne (TinHouse Books, 2020), and I'm So Fine: A List of Famous Men & What I Had On (YesYes Books, 2017), a finalist for the National Poetry Series, which was praised in O Magazine, the New Yorker, Los Angeles Review, and elsewhere... Read More →
avatar for Aricka Foreman

Aricka Foreman

Aricka Foreman is an American poet and writer from Detroit MI. Author of Salt Body Shimmer (YesYes Books), she’s earned fellowships from Cave Canem, Callaloo, and the Millay Colony for the Arts. She lives in Chicago, IL, engaging poetry with photography & video.
avatar for Kate Durbin

Kate Durbin

Kate Durbin is an artist and writer whose books of poetry include Hoarders (Wave Books), E! Entertainment, The Ravenous Audience, and ABRA. ABRA is also a free, interactive iOS app that is "a living text," and won the 2017 international Turn On Literature Prize for electronic literature... Read More →


Sunday May 16, 2021 2:45pm - 3:45pm EDT
Online

2:45pm EDT

Voices Carry: A Reading with Voices from Inside
Since 1999, Voices From Inside has elevated the voices of currently and formerly incarcerated women poets and writers. Committed to the proposition that writing changes lives, Voices From Inside has helped women find their voices and become leaders in their communities through creative writing. VFI offers ongoing writing workshops using the Amherst Writers and Artists method developed by Pat Schneider and described in her book, Writing Alone and with Others. In VFI writing workshops, participants receive encouragement and support for their writing, gain self-confidence as they strengthen their literacy and communication skills, and begin to imagine new possibilities for themselves.

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/Xj7qMGq3AKJEHdVmb5bcDEWMSb221rQHXLqZvrWS2-vOrkVIe6_NIkJmBvSH3jUS.0RMxsjUF9OvjjTjn

Speakers
avatar for Amie Hyson

Amie Hyson

Poet & Group Facilitator, Voices From Inside
Amie lives in Western Massachusetts where she has been writing poetry & reading out at local open mics since 2016. She joined a Voices From Inside (VFI) writing workshop in early 2017, becoming a facilitator later that year. She has been facilitating a weekly VFI group for incarcerated... Read More →


Sunday May 16, 2021 2:45pm - 3:45pm EDT
Online

2:45pm EDT

Poetry & Pets, sponsored by the MSPCA
In partnership with MSPCA, this pet-themed meet-up w/open mic will give participants a chance to share and hear some great poems about some amazing animals. Participants are encouraged to bring their own pets on screen.

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/-D7skxCiA-FU-Hr0GMtJ48FqkdtneitpW-hOi_zlTtBxlDuD2oHxsGlljVlWlE0.6bxFsUzCga-karDC

Speakers
avatar for MSPCA

MSPCA

Our MissionThe mission of the MSPCA-Angell is to protect animals, relieve their suffering, advance their health and welfare, prevent cruelty, and work for a just and compassionate society.Our WorkWe are a national and international leader in animal protection and veterinary medicine... Read More →
JB

Jamei Bauer

Clinic Supervisor, MSPCA-Angell Clinic at Nevins Farm
SL

Shyre Lancia

Volunteer Coordinator, MSPCA at Nevins Farm


Sunday May 16, 2021 2:45pm - 3:45pm EDT
Online

2:45pm EDT

Yes, We Are in the Room: A Panel of Abilities
In this panel, moderated by Leslie McIntosh, poets Sylvia Chan, Jim Ferris, Stephen Kuusisto, and Camisha Jones will share their experience as public poets writing with and through disability. The conversation will explore the relationship their bodies of work have, or don’t have, with their specific physical and sensory abilities. The nuances of navigating life as academics, advocates, performers, community organizers, literary citizens, and plain old private human beings will shared. Attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions. The panelists may not have all the answers, but the attendees will walk away understanding that specific answers aren’t the point, but rather the experiential wisdom of different forms of embodiment.

Event Recording: https://youtu.be/jAhmhXH0ZX8
View the Transcript: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1C0fUF3ogu2JILBC5DYSy5pwAGnIypKbDyDY4pfzMgYs/edit?usp=sharing

Speakers
avatar for Sylvia Chan

Sylvia Chan

Sylvia Chan is an amputee writer, educator, and activist. Originally a jazz pianist from the San Francisco Bay Area, she lives in Tucson, where she teaches at the University of Arizona and serves as court advocate for foster kids in Pima County and nonfiction editor at Entropy. Her... Read More →
avatar for Leslie McIntosh

Leslie McIntosh

Leslie McIntosh is black, gay, cis-male, neurodivergent (ASD), an older millennial, a poet, and a psychologist. He has received residencies and fellowships, from Callaloo, Furious Flower Poetry Center, Watering Hole, and Zoeglossia. He is an assistant poetry editor at Newfound and... Read More →
avatar for Camisha L. Jones

Camisha L. Jones

Camisha L. Jones is the author of Flare (Finishing Line Press, 2017). Her poems can be found at the New York Times, Poets.org, Button Poetry, The Deaf Poets Society, Typo, The Quarry, and elsewhere. She was one of The Loft Literary Center's 2017 Spoken Word Immersion Fellows... Read More →
avatar for Jim Ferris

Jim Ferris

Ability Center Endowed Chair in Disability Studies, University of Toledo
avatar for Stephen Kuusisto

Stephen Kuusisto

Professor, Syracuse University
Stephen Kuusisto holds a University Professorship at Syracuse and is the author of the memoirs Have Dog, Will Travel: A Poet’s Journey; Planet of the Blind (a New York Times “Notable Book of the Year”); Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening; and of the poetry... Read More →


Sunday May 16, 2021 2:45pm - 3:45pm EDT
Online

2:45pm EDT

LiberArte: Poetry and Music of Liberation
LiberArte is a project of the Terezin Music Foundation (TMF) uniting poets, composers, and performing artists to express the yearning for freedom. TMF commissions musical settings of poems from Liberation (Beacon Press), an anthology of 82 poems by 63 contemporary poets around the world, including thirteen from New England. To date, TMF has commissioned twelve LiberArte works premiered in concert halls and festivals, including Boston Symphony Hall and the Prague International Spring Music Festival.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote of LiberArte; “It will hearten those who have lived long and inspire young readers to strive for understanding, celebration of our differences, and peace among diverse peoples."

Mark Ludwig, director of the Terezín Music Foundation, a renowned Holocaust music scholar and creator of LiberArte, will discuss working with poets, composers, and artists contributing to this project. He will be joined by Massachusetts poets Richard Hoffman and Fanny Howe, and composer David Post in a program of readings, video recordings, and reflections on their collaborative process. For more information on the LiberArte project visit liberarte.org

Link to recording:  https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/play/5qQAIWiCO92-0x7IUk24muhkOYCkGkNJeDazme2jzo4Kj4vZ9JVf_Txqyzx1zWLDcTzRDv6phknQWb0.6eKgoNGYntniA4qb?continueMode=true&_x_zm_rtaid=6m9rB_SZQkalekcKRhiH-Q.1621194887860.e514ed0d3caaeb01bff23c6501de5d1e&_x_zm_rhtaid=648

Speakers
avatar for Mark Ludwig

Mark Ludwig

Mark Ludwig is a Fulbright scholar of Terezín, a member of the Pamatník Terezín Advisory Board, and Director of Terezin Music Foundation. He produces recordings, concerts, and Holocaust and genocide education programs worldwide. He is a violist emeritus of the Boston Symphony Orchestra... Read More →
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 Fanny Howe

Fanny Howe

Fanny Howe is an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She was awarded the 2009 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize presented annually by the Poetry Foundation to a living U.S. poet whose lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition.


Sunday May 16, 2021 2:45pm - 3:45pm EDT
Online

4:00pm EDT

Headline Reading with Jos Charles and Martín Espada, sponsored by The Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival
Please join us for the final event of the Festival, featuring Jos Charles and Martín Espada, with an opening reading by U18* poet Gabriel McCreath.  

Link to recording: https://salemstate.zoom.us/rec/share/5-oVUvms9TExBs6MGS8QWrZEUgyCzIetKqakJfE3cWEl0KOTT4HA3jwh4iz4vi3m.uoSOY9iktbyc9mkv?startTime=1621195217000

Jos Charles is the author of feeld (Milkweed Editions, 2018), a Pulitzer-finalist and winner of the 2017 National Poetry Series selected by Fady Joudah, and Safe Space (Ahsahta Press, 2016). In 2016 she received the Ruth Lilly & Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship through the Poetry Foundation. Jos Charles has an MFA from the University of Arizona. She is a Ph.D. student at UC Irvine and currently resides in Long Beach, CA.

Martín Espada has published more than twenty books as a poet, editor, essayist, and translator. His new book of poems from Norton is called Floaters. Other books of poems include Vivas to Those Who Have Failed (2016), The Trouble Ball (2011), The Republic of Poetry (2006), and Alabanza (2003). He is the editor of What Saves Us: Poems of Empathy and Outrage in the Age of Trump (2019). He has received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Shelley Memorial Award, the Robert Creeley Award, an Academy of American Poets Fellowship, the PEN/Revson Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. The Republic of Poetry was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. The title poem of his collection Alabanza, about 9/11, has been widely anthologized and performed. His book of essays and poems, Zapata’s Disciple (1998), was banned in Tucson as part of the Mexican-American Studies Program outlawed by the state of Arizona, and reissued by Northwestern. A former tenant lawyer in Greater Boston, Espada is a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Learn more at martinespada.net.

*U18 was a special edition of MassPoetry's U35 reading series for young poets. Visit Mass Poetry's website for more about the series.


Speakers
avatar for Jos Charles

Jos Charles

Jos Charles is author of feeld, a Pulitzer-finalist and winner of the 2017 National Poetry Series selected by Fady Joudah (Milkweed Editions); and Safe Space (Ahsahta Press). In 2016 she received the Ruth Lilly & Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship through the Poetry Foundation... Read More →
avatar for Martín Espada

Martín Espada

Martín Espada has published more than twenty books as a poet, editor, essayist, and translator. His new book of poems from Norton is called Floaters. Other books of poems include Vivas to Those Who Have Failed (2016), The Trouble Ball (2011), The Republic of Poetry (2006... Read More →
avatar for Gabriel McCreath

Gabriel McCreath

Gabriel McCreath (he/him, xe/xem) is a senior at Chapel Hill-Chauncy Hall high school in Waltham, MA. He has been published in Typishly online magazine, and received two Gold Keys in the 2021 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards for his Selected Poems and flash fiction piece, "Ordo... Read More →


Sunday May 16, 2021 4:00pm - 5:30pm EDT
Online
 
  • Timezone
  • Filter By Date 2021 Massachusetts Poetry Festival May 13 -16, 2021
  • Filter By Venue Salem, MA
  • Filter By Type
  • Featured Event
  • Group Reading
  • Headline Reading
  • Open Mic/Meet Up
  • Panel
  • Performance
  • Sponsor Event
  • Teacher Track
  • Workshop


Filter sessions
Apply filters to sessions.