I’m headlining with Wyn Cooper and Rosie Rosenzweig at the Newton Public Library’s online poetry series on Tuesday, September 8 at 7 pm. There’s an open mic after the features. I’d love to see you there. You’ll need to register in advance in order to receive the Zoom link.
June Generative Workshop via Zoom
Creative expression is a balm in troubling times. Take some time for yourself and your work and join a writing workshop I’m hosting on Wednesday evenings (7pm to 9pm Eastern) in June. We will use all five senses and plumb our memories and imaginations to sprout seeds of new writing. A few seats remain. All genres — poetry, fiction, memoir, or combinations thereof — and all experience levels welcome. Open to teens and adults. Sign up here.
UPDATED Boston Area Poetry Readings and Cancellations as of March 2020
In the wake of the spread of coronavirus, public events are being cancelled left and right. Poetry readings do not tend to draw large crowds, so some events may go on as planned. It’s best to call ahead to make sure that a reading has not been cancelled.
If you are sick, please stay home. The best way to prevent the spread of the virus is to wash your hands thoroughly and often (as long as it takes to sing Happy Birthday twice), to avoid touching your face, and to avoid contact with people who may have been exposed to the virus. The CDC has a list of precautions you should be taking.
These listings are current as of March 12, 2020.
Among the CANCELLED readings:
- Mary Buchinger, Jennifer Markell, and J.D. Scrimgeour (3/13) in JP
- A celebration of Stephen Jonas’s Arcana (3/14) at MIT Press Bookstore
Charles North (3/16) at MIT - Katherine Hollander and Angela Voras-Hills (3/16) at Blacksmith House
- David Ferry at Suffolk (3/17)
- Christian Wiman (3/23) at Blacksmith House
- Sara London and Nathan McClain (3/31) at Smith College (All Smith College Poetry Center readings are cancelled through the end of the semester)
- Anne Carson (4/1) Harvard Divinity School’s Ingersoll Lecture – “will take place in fall 2020 on a date to be determined”
- Joy Harjo (4/9) at Harvard
- Paisley Rekdal (4/14) at Smith College
Daniel Bouchard writes the following in his latest email update:
Remember: colleges do not lose revenue when a poetry reading is cancelled but bookstores do. Keep MIT Press Bookstore, Brookline Booksmith, Grolier, Harvard Bookstore, Porter Square Books, Bedlam Book Café in Worcester, I AM Books in the North End, and so on healthy – drop by and buy some books or order something online.
Continue reading “UPDATED Boston Area Poetry Readings and Cancellations as of March 2020”
Come See Me Read at the Solidarity Salon, Saturday April 27, 2019
Thanks to Lisa DeSiro for organizing this event.
Solidarity Salon
Saturday, April 27, 2019
7:00–9:00pm (doors open 6:45pm)
Third Life Studio
33 Union Square, Somerville MA
Featuring:
Paintings by Andrea Lynne
Poetry by Robert Carr, Frances Donovan, and Kelly DuMar (with members of Playback Theatre)
Music by Robin Ginenthal (soprano) and Lisa DeSiro (piano)
Hard Stones, a song cycle written by Griffin Candey with texts by Lisa DeSiro,
performed by Ann Moss (soprano) and Lois Shapiro (piano)
Admission $5.00
Reception afterward including refreshments
Books, CDs, and art available to purchase
Directions and parking information: https://www.thirdlifestudio.com/directions
Boston-Area Poetry Readings for November and December 2018
New since the last listing:
- James Grigg and Heather Dupont in Gloucester (11/7)
- Amanda Doster, Anna M. Warrock, Richard Wollman, and Janet MacFadyen in Turners Falls (11/9)
- Kate Colby, Amanda Cook, and Kate Tarlow Morgan read Charles Olson in (of course) Gloucester (11/10)
- Gloria Mindock, David Blair, and Bert Stern in Cambridge (11/15)
- Susan Eisenberg in Jamaica Plain (11/15)
- Carla Schwartz in Cambridge (11/16)
- Peter Fallon and David Ferry in Boston (11/27)
- David Ferry and Bert Stern in Somerville (12/3)
- Troy Jollimore and Heather Altfeld at MIT (12/12)
Also please note:
- Gabrielle Calvocoressi’s reading with Wendy Drexler at Belmont Books on November 15 has been cancelled.
- Tino Villanueva’s reading at the Omni Parker House in Boston has been moved from November 10 to November 17.
Thursday, November 8, 6 pm
Kate Colby and Anselm Berrigan
Houghton Library
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA
Thursday, November 8, 7 pm
Susan Stewart delivers the CD Wright Lecture
McCormack Family Theater
70 Brown St.
Providence, RI
Thursday, November 8, 7 pm
John Farrell
Recital of Eliot’s Four Quartets
Holy Cross
Carol & Park B Smith Hall Rehm Library
College Street
Worcester, MA
Continue reading “Boston-Area Poetry Readings for November and December 2018”
Boston-Area Poetry Readings for Late October and All of November 2018
Thanks as always to Daniel Bouchard for compiling these listings. Lots of free and low-cost poetry in and around Boston. Of note: Solmaz Sharif and Evie Shockley at the Knafel Center in Cambridge (Oct 22); Stone Soup and Stonecoast Review at the Dudley Cafe in Roxbury (Oct 27); Danez Smith at Smith College (Oct 30); Tom Daley and others at Porter Square Books (Nov 2); Gabrielle Calvocoressi and Wendy Drexler at Belmont Book (Nov 15); A Two Day Celebration of Poet and Translator Forrest Gander in Providence (Nov 15-16); Jenna Le in Dublin, NH (Nov 18).
Saturday, October 20, 8 pm
Gail Mazur
Fine Arts Work Center
24 Pearl Street
Provincetown, MA
Sunday, October 21, 2 pm
Rebecca Morgan Frank and Pam Matz
Brookline Poetry Series
Brookline Public Library
361 Washington Street
Brookline, MA
Sunday, October 21, 2:30 pm
Ewa Chruscial and Kevin McLellan
Del Rossi’s Trattoria
Route 137N
Dublin, NH
Monday, October 22, 4:15 pm
Solmaz Sharif and Evie Shockley
A Political Poetry: Reading and Conversation with Solmaz Sharif
Knafel Center
10 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA
Continue reading “Boston-Area Poetry Readings for Late October and All of November 2018”
Reading at HUBweek next Sunday, October 14 at 10am
I’m excited to be reading my long poem “On the Ferry to Spectacle Island” with the Improbable Places Poetry Tour at the Boston HUBweek festival next Sunday, October 14. The reading runs from 10am to 11:30am.
You need to register for the event in advance but you can get in for free if you do soon enough. Here’s the description from the HUBweek website:
The Improbable Places Poetry Tour, hosted by Colleen Michaels of Montserrat College of Art, has been bringing poetry to unlikely venues north of Boston since 2010. The tour began in a bicycle shop and has made stops at a laundromat, tattoo shop, power plant, Viking ship, and the YMCA – in the swimming pool. For this tour stop, poets will excavate down to Scollay Square. They will look in windows and wait in lines at government offices. Watch them work the concrete and slants of City Hall Plaza.
Register here: https://2018.hubweek.org/agenda/session/30883
Literary Collage Workshop Saturday, September 8 in Roslindale MA
I’m facilitating a workshop using the fun, hands-on technique of literary collage, or cut-ups. You can use this technique to revise your own work or make poems out of existing texts. Scissors, paper, glue, and texts provided. No experience required! We’ll also discuss how to attribute poems “found” in someone else’s work.
When: Saturday, September 8, 1pm-3pm
Where: SpaceUs at the Roslindale Substation
4228 Washington Street, Roslindale, MA
(Across from Adams Park in Roslindale Square)
Details are also on Facebook
Here’s a video of David Bowie using the cut-up method:
Direct link to the video, in case the embed fails
UPDATED Boston Area Readings for April and May 2018
National Poetry Month continues at fever pitch. Updated listings below.
New in this posting:
Lainie Senechal, Neil Silberblatt and Anna M. Warrock in Somerville (4/17)
Matthew Dickman and Jenny Xie in Brookline (4/19)
Krysten Hill, Bruce Willard, Kathleen Hill and Michael Stein in Boston (4/23)
Tommy Pico, Joseph Osmundson, and Dorothea Lasky in Brookline (4/23)
The Writers Room of Boston Annual Reading in Jamaica Plain (4/26)
Newburyport Literary Festival (4/28)
Kevin McLellan book launch and reading in Cambridge (5/4)
Luljeta Lleshanaku in conversation with Ani Gjika in Brookline (5/4)
Beth Castrodale, Peter Cherches, Mark Saba, Julia Carlson, and Lee Varon in Cambridge (5/5)
Kevin McLellan, Steven Riel, Quintin Collins, Eileen Cleary in Cambridge (5/14)
Thursday, April 19, 7 pm
Tom Laaser and Joe Kebartas
and open mic
Midnight Voices sponsored by Veterans for Peace
Friends Service Center
5 Longfellow Park (across from Longfellow House)
Cambridge, MA
Thursday, April 19, 7 pm
Ellendra Proffer Teasley
Grolier Poetry Book Shop
Plympton Street
Cambridge, MA
Continue reading “UPDATED Boston Area Readings for April and May 2018”
Boston Area Poetry Readings for April and May 2018
EDITOR’S NOTE: Click here for April 2019 listings.
National Poetry Month lives up to its name with a boatload of readings in Boston and environs. Special shout-outs:
Martha Collins and Joan Houlihan in Newton (4/3)
Kazim Ali and Stephanie Burt in Cambridge (4/4)
Robbie Gamble and Helen Marie Casey in Newton (4/6)
Marge Piercy in Boston (4/7)
Louise Glück in Cambridge (4/12)
Anne Waldman and Meredith Monk in Providence, RI (4/13)
Gloria Mindock, Lori Desrosiers, and Dorothy Shubow Nelson in Somerville (4/14)
Layli Long Soldier in Providence, RI (4/26)
Tracy K. Smith in Providence, RI (4/27)
Lyn Hejinian in Cambridge (5/22)
Thanks as always to Daniel Bouchard (reading Saturday, May 12 at the MIT Press Bookstore) for compiling these listings.
Monday, April 2, 12 pm
Ewa Chrusciel
Common Room, CSWR
42 Francis Ave.
Harvard Divinity School
Cambridge, MA
Monday, April 2, 2 pm
J.D. Scrimgeour
Federal Building — Assembly Room
Middlesex Community College
50 Kearney Square
Lowell, MA
Monday, April 2, 7 pm
Catherine Stearns and Nate Klug
Book launch, reading, and reception
Newtonville Books
10 Langley Rd
Newton, MA
Monday, April 2, 8 pm
Gabrielle Calvocoressi and Gabriel Fried
Blacksmith House Poetry Series
56 Brattle Street
Cambridge, MA
Continue reading “Boston Area Poetry Readings for April and May 2018”
Garden of Words 