Category: poetry

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Boston Area Poetry Readings for the Second Half of December 2018 and All of January 2019

Poetry to Warm a Mind of Winter: Photograph of a Cardinal on a Branch. Photo credit: James H via Flickr, Creative Commons License 2.0.

Take some time away from the holiday swirl and listen to some poetry. Or break in the New Year the same way.

Please note that I am reading on Thursday, January 24, 2019 at Rozzi Reads in Roslindale Square, along with Phyllis Bluhm and Mary Lou Maloney. The reading starts at 7pm with an open mic to follow. Hope to see you there.

Friday, December 14, 7 pm
A Tribute to Claribel Alegria and other Salvadoran Poets
Readers: Lee Varon, Marguerite Bouvard, Doug Holder, Alexander Levering Kern, Dorothy Nelson, Jesse Diamond, Annie Pluto, Julia Carlson, Melissa Silva, Karen Friedland, Joy Martin, Kevin Bowen, Nelson Salazarand, and Gloria Mindock.
At The Arts for the Armory
Basement, Room B8
191 Highland Avenue
Somerville, MA

Friday, December 14, 7:30 pm
Jonathan Aibel, Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough, and Ellen Steinbaum
Chapter and Verse Literary Reading Series
Loring-Greenough House
12 South Street
Jamaica Plain
Boston, MA

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Dispatches from an MFA: Semester Two, First Packet

This is part of a series called Dispatches from an MFA, which details my experiences in the low-residency MFA program at Lesley University. In the second semester, I studied with poet Kevin Prufer. We spent the semester looking at narrative versus lyric poetry. This is the cover letter to the first packet.

Dear Kevin:

Thanks for being so generous with your time, both during the residency and via email this month. I’ve been particularly crazed during this first packet. I constantly had the feeling of playing catch-up. Somewhere in there I forgot that I’m doing all of this because I enjoy studying and writing poetry. Last semester, I had a moment sitting under a tree in our back yard reading Sylvia Plath, and I thought, how is this grad school? I’ve had a moment or two like that in the past month, but they’ve mostly been overshadowed by OMGIHAVETODOALLTHETHINGS RIGHTNAOWWWW. Perhaps this is just how it feels to be in one’s second semester. The winter blues don’t help.

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Boston-Area Poetry Readings for November and December 2018

Image credit: Mabel Amber via Pixabay, CC0.

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

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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

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Reading at HUBweek next Sunday, October 14 at 10am

Flyer for Improbable Places Poetry Tour

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

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Boston-Area Poetry Readings for September and October 2018

Poetry and all that jazz

Take your pick of free and low-cost readings from Boston to Gloucester, Northampton to Providence. Of special note: New Hampshire Poetry Festival this weekend; group readings in Harvard (the town, not the university), Somerville, and Amherst; “Asian Glow” at the Pao Arts Center in Boston, and the Dire Literary Series Finale. Danez Smith in Northampton wraps up the list in late October.

September 15
New Hampshire Poetry Festival
Linda Pastan, Adrian Blevins, Robert Crawford, Sharon Dolin, Matthew Guenette, Kathleen Aguero, Liz Ahl, María Luisa Arroyo, DeMisty D. Bellinger, Candace Bergstrom, Julia Bouwsma, Cheryl Buchanan, Eileen Cleary, Quintin Collins, Peter Covino, Tom Daley, Rachel DeWoskin, Maggie Dietz, Amy Dryansky, Nicole Terez Dutton, Alice B. Fogel, Robbie Gamble, Regie Gibson, Peter Gizzi, Gail Hanlon, Todd Hearon, Krysten Hill, Richard Hoffman, Joan Houlihan, Christine Jones, Hope Jordan, and many others.
http://www.poetrysocietyofnewhampshire.org/fest/
Henniker, NH

Saturday, September 15, 1 – 3 pm
Timothy Gager, Marcus Pierre, With Open Mic
Everyone Has a Voice
Brockton Library Poetry Series
Driscoll Gallery
304 Main St.
Brockton, MA

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Interview with Sarah Nichols, Author of Dreamland for Keeps

Cover image for the chapbook Dreamland for Keeps

The latest chapbook from poet Sarah Nichols, Dreamland for Keeps (Porkbelly Press, 2018), uses found poetry to reclaim a voice for Elizabeth Short, victim of a brutal murder in 1947. The gruesome details of Short’s death led to sensationalized media coverage and the nickname “The Black Dahlia.”  Nichols lifts words from a novel inspired by the case and remixes them into a pointillist narrative–Elizabeth’s own story, rather than the story told about her. The resulting poems are spare, bold, and utterly riveting. Nicci Mechler of Porkbelly Press enhances the manuscript’s artistry with a beautifully designed, handmade chapbook.

Sarah Nichols took some time to discuss the book, her writing process, and the political implications of her work with me via email.

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