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Boston Poetry Readings for the Month of October

If you ever doubted that Boston’s literary scene is closely attuned to the cycles of the academic year, just look at the massive number of readings this month. My personal recommendations are highlighted in bold. Feel free to call out your own in the comments.

Thursday, October 2, 6 pm
Christopher Ricks: “T.S. Eliot and the Second World War”
Katzenberg Center, 3rd floor, CGS
871 Commonwealth Ave.
Boston University
Boston

Thursday, October 2, 7 pm
Mr. Hip Presents: Youth Reads
w/ Guest Poet Harris Gardner
Youth Poets & Q&A
Trident Booksellers & Cafe
Newbury Street
Boston

Thursday, October 2, 7 pm
David Gullette, Carla Schwartz and Frannie Lindsay
Cervena Barva Press
Arts at the Armory (downstairs, basement, in Studio B8)
191 Highland Ave.
Somerville
$3

Friday, October 3, 8 pm
John Nardizzi, Angela Narciso Torres, and Kevin Daley
Dire Literary Series
Out of the Blue Gallery
541 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge

Saturday, October 4, 1 – 4 pm
at the graves of Agha Shahid Ali, Robert Francis, Deborah Digges, and Emily Dickinson
Dead Poets Remembrance Day 2014 in Massachusetts
Rhina Espaillat, Henry Lyman, Toni Treadway, Walter Skold, & Jane Wald (Director of the Dickinson Museum).
Northampton and Amherst
Full details and directions by searching “deadpoets typepad 2014”

Saturday, October 4, 1:30 pm
Heather Dobbins, Gilmore Tamny, and Elizabeth Witte
Arts at the Armory Café
191 Highland Ave
Somerville

Saturday, October 4, 2 pm
David P. Miller, Lee Varon and M.p. Carver
chapbook launch
Cervena Barva Press Stuido
At The Arts for the Armory
Basement, Room B8
191 Highland Avenue
Somerville

Saturday, October 4, 5:30 pm
Launch party for spoKe magazine
with Ben Mazer, Ruth Lepson, Len Krisak, Patrick Pritchett, and Margo Lockwood
Grolier Poetry Book Shop
6 Plympton Street
Cambridge

Sunday, October 5, 1 pm
Catherine Sasanov, Jacqueline M. Loring, Lisa C. Taylor, David Connolly, Melida Arredondo, Elizabeth Quinlan, Preston H. Hood, and Gloria Mindock
James’s Gate Restaurant and Pub
5 McBride Street (Corner South St. between Lee Street & Metcalf Ct.)
Jamaica Plain

Monday, October 6, 7 pm
Miles Coon, Alan Albert, and Ken Lee
Newtonville Books
10 Langley Road
Newton

Monday, October 6, 7 pm
Denise Bergman, Len Krisak, Steven Riel
Harvard-Yenching Common Room 136
2 Divinity Ave,
Cambridge

Monday, October 6, 8 pm
Nick Flynn
Blacksmith House Poetry Series
56 Brattle Street
Cambridge
$3

Tuesday, October 7, 2:30 pm
Edward Pavlic
McCormack Family Theater
70 Brown St.
Providence

Tuesday, October 7, 5:30 pm
Dead Poets Remembrance Day 2014 in Medford
at the grave of John Holmes
The public is invited to come read one favorite poem of either John Holmes, Anne Sexton, Deborah Digges, or John Ciardi at this free community celebration, which will take place at the grave of John Holmes. The event blog has directions to his gravesite: http://deadpoets.typepad.com/dead_poets_remembrance_da/
Full details and directions by searching “deadpoets typepad 2014”

Tuesday, October 7, 6 pm
Susan Howe
Spontaneous Particulars: The Telepathy of Archives
Introduction by Kristen Case
Thompson Room, Barker Center
12 Quincy Street
Harvard University
Cambridge

Tuesday, October 7, 6:30 pm
Tino Villanueva
Cambridge Public Library
449 Broadway
Cambridge

Tuesday, October 7, 8-11:30 pm
Jack Scully and Nancy Cunningham
Music: Ron Cummings, Andy and Judy Daigle
The Blackthorne Publick House
402 Turnpike St. (Rt. 138)
South Easton, MA

Wednesday, October 8, 7 pm
Cindy Hochman and Karen Neuberg
Cervena Barva Press Reading Series
At The Arts for the Armory
Basement, Room B8
191 Highland Avenue
Somerville
$3

Thursday, October 9, 4 pm
Joan Houlihan
University of Rhode Island
Kingston Campus, Hoffman Lounge
60 Upper College Road
Kingston, RI

Thursday, October 9, 5pm
Sandra Lim
West Tisbury Library
1042 State Road
Martha’s Vineyard

Thursday, October 9, 7 pm
Frannie Lindsay
Dudley House
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Harvard Yard

Thursday, October 9, 7 pm
Irene Koronas, Dennis Daly and Michael Todd Steffen
Somerville Library East Branch
115 Broadway
Somerville

Friday, October 10, 7:30 pm
Susan Eisenberg, Joan Houlihan and Martha Collins
Chapter and Verse Reading Series
Loring-Greenough House
12 South St.
Jamaica Plain

Friday, October 10, 7 pm
Denise Bergman
Grolier Poetry Book Shop
6 Plympton Street, Cambridge
(Harvard Square)

Friday, October 10, 7 pm
Ayshia Stephenson and Alexandria Peary
Cervena Barva Press Reading Series
At The Arts for the Armory
Basement, Room B8
191 Highland Avenue
Somerville
$3

Friday, October 10, 7 pm
Andrea Werblin
Book launch for Sunday With the Sound Turned Off
Porter Square Books
25 White St.
Cambridge

Saturday, October 11, 6 pm
Nicole Terez Dutton, David Miller, Carla Schwartz, Kelin Loe, Zeke Russel, Lily Duffy, and more
Musical Guest: Sterling Rhyne
Mr. Hip Presents: Reading Series
UFORGE Gallery
Jamaica Plain

Sunday, October 12, 12 pm
Louise Dery-Wells and January Gill O’Neil
Poetry: The Art of Words/Mike Amado Memorial Series
The Plymouth Center for the Arts
11 North St
Plymouth

Tuesday, October 14, 7 pm
Melissa Buckheit and Amy King
Grolier Poetry Book Shop
6 Plympton Street
Cambridge

Wednesday, October 15, 7 pm
Slavic Voices: An Evening of Poetry and Music with Sylva Fischerova, Dzvinia Orlowsky, and Vera Pavlova
Boston University Castle
225 Bay State Road
Boston

Wednesday, October 15, 7 pm
Michael Daley, Tomas O’Leary
Cervena Barva Press Reading Series
At The Arts for the Armory
Basement, Room B8
191 Highland Avenue
Somerville
$3

Thursday, October 16, 6 pm
Joshua Beckman
Books and Poets: On the Porous Experience of the Book in Physical and Imagined Space
Edison Newman Room, Houghton Library
Harvard University
Cambridge

Thursday, October 16, 7 pm
Diane Lockward, Jennifer Markell, and Tam Lin Neville
Cervena Barva Press Studio
At The Arts for the Armory
Basement, Room B8
191 Highland Avenue
Somerville, MA
$3

Thursday, October 16, 7 pm
Molly Lynn Watt and Vincent Dorio
Rozzie Reads in the Roslindale House
120 Polar Street
Roslindale, MA

Friday, October 17, 7 pm
Kimiko Hahn
Grolier Poetry Book Shop
6 Plympton Street
Cambridge

Sunday, October 19, 1 pm
In Memorium: Allen Grossman
Mandel Humanities Center Atrium
Brandeis University
415 South St.
Waltham
A tribute with speakers, music, refreshment, recordings of the poet

Sunday, October 19, 2 – 4 pm
5th Annual Charles Olson Lecture w/ Ralph Maud
Cape Ann Museum
27 Pleasant Street
Gloucester

Sunday, October 19, 3 pm
Daniel Tobin
Concord Poetry Center
Upstairs at the Emerson Umbrella
40 Stow Street
Concord

Sunday, October 19, 2 – 4 pm
Cleopatra Mathis with Betty Buchsbaum
Brookline Public Library, Main Branch
361 Washington St.
Brookline Village

Sunday, October 19, 3 – 4 pm
In His Ecstasy: The Passion of Gerard Manley Hopkins
A One Person Play performed by Poet Tom Daley
Lexington Community Education
Follen Church Society
755 Massachusetts Avenue
Lexington
$10

Sunday, October 19, 3 – 5 pm
Nancy Esposito, Kim Triedman and David Surette
Calliope: Poetry Readings at West Falmouth Library
575 West Falmouth Highway
Falmouth, MA
Donation: $5. Refreshments provided

Monday, October 20, 8 pm
Peter Cole and Karina Borowicz
Blacksmith House Poetry Series
56 Brattle Street
Cambridge
$3

Tuesday, October 21, 6 pm
Premiere of Heretofore Unheard Recordings of Wallace Stevens
Opening Remarks by Professor Helen Vendler
Thompson Room, Barker Center
12 Quincy Street
Harvard University
Cambridge

Tuesday, October 21, 7 pm
Sandra Lim
Trident Bookstore and Cafe
338 Newbury Street
Boston

Tuesday, October 21, 7:30 pm
Alison Hawthorne Deming
Stoddard Hall Auditorium
Smith College, Northampton

Wednesday, October 22, 5 pm
Valzhyna Mort
Introduction by Professor Stephanie Sandler
Woodberry Poetry Room, Lamont Library, Room 330
Harvard University
Cambridge

Wednesday, October 22, 6:30 pm-7:30 pm
Nick Montfort
Atrium of MIT’s Building E15 (“Old Media Lab”/Wiesner Building)
List Visual Arts Center
MIT
Cambridge

Thursday, October 23, 6:30 pm
Carla Schwartz, Featured Artist
Tatnuck Booksellers
Route 9 and Lyman Street in the Westboro Shopping Center
Westborough, MA

Thursday, October 23, 7 pm
Susan Bernhard, William Giraldi, Tanya Larkin, Danielle Legros Georges, Thomas McNeely, and Karen Skolfield
Massachusetts Cultural Council’s Commonwealth Reading Series
Cambridge Public Library
449 Broadway
Cambridge

Thursday, October 23, 7:30 pm
Bradford Morrow and Fanny Howe
McCormack Family Theater
70 Brown St.
Providence

Friday, October 24, 7 pm
Grey Gowrie
introduced by Christopher Ricks
Grolier Poetry Book Shop
6 Plympton Street
Cambridge

Saturday, October 25,
Joseph Massey and Laurie Duggan
Cambridge
Details to come

Monday, October 27, 8 pm
Cammy Thomas and Mary Pinard
Blacksmith House Poetry Series
56 Brattle Street
Cambridge
$3

Tuesday, October 28, 2:30 pm
Lisa Robertson
McCormack Family Theater
70 Brown St.
Providence

Tuesday, October 28, 6 pm
Grey Gowrie: “Heaney’s Great Contemporaries” (lecture and reading)
Katzenberg Center, 3rd floor, CGS
871 Commonwealth Ave.
Boston University
Boston

Tuesday, October 28, 6:30 pm
Mikhail Yeryomin and Jim Kates
Cambridge Public Library
449 Broadway
Cambridge

Tuesday, October 28, 7 pm
Sari Boren, Steven Cramer, Joseph Spece, and Sabina Murray
Jones Library
43 Amity St.
Amherst

Tuesday, October 28, 8 pm
Elyse Fenton, Sandra Lim, and Lesley Yalen
Small Animal Project
Outpost 186
186 1/2 Hampshire St
Cambridge

Wednesday, October 29, 7 pm
Anna Ross, Jon Lee, and Greg Lawless,
introduced by Wes Rothman
Suffolk University Poetry Center
Mildred F. Sawyer Library
73 Tremont Street
Boston

Wednesday, October 29, 7:30 pm
Jennifer Bartlett lectures on Larry Eigner
Gloucester Writers Center
126 East Main Street
Gloucester

Thursday, October 30, 7 pm
Rosanna Warren
Katzenberg Center, 3rd floor, CGS
871 Commonwealth Ave.
Boston University
Boston

Thursday, October 30, 7 pm
Carol Berg, Steven Edwards, Anna Ross, Stephen Tapscott, Linda Wertheimer
Back Pages Books
289 Moody Street
Waltham

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Gratitude List: Fall Allergy Season Edition

• A wide social network
• Friends and family who know the me that exists beneath the facade of social media
• An emergency room just a few minutes away from my home that provides prompt, high-quality care
• A doctor’s office that knows my history and will see me when I’m sick
• Health insurance that makes it possible for me to seek out care without breaking the bank
• Knowing that many other people in my part of the world are suffering from respitory ailments — that I’m not alone in my suffering
• The kind of job that won’t fire me because I’m sick and can’t come to work
• Zyrtec, Robitussin, Tessalon pearls, and Albuterol
• A partner who’s willing and able to drive me to the doctor when I’m too sick to drive myself

There’s more to be grateful for than this. My life is changing very rapidly right now, and the stress of those changes has no doubt contributed to my getting so sick. But for today at least, I’m going to focus on resting, healing, and getting better. And on all the positive supports in my life that make that possible.

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Bisexual Visibility Week: On the Definition of a Lesbian

In honor of Bisexual Visibility Week, I present to you an essay I first posted to the Garden in my early twenties. It’s gone through many iterations since then. Over the decades, the details of my love life have changed, but the fact of my bisexuality — or my queerness, if you reject the binary gender model — remains constant. Continue reading “Bisexual Visibility Week: On the Definition of a Lesbian”

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Forget Mints On The Pillow: Marriott Leaves Envelopes So You Can Tip The Maid

I’m really glad to see that Marriott is prompting its visitors to tip housekeeping. This is something I have been doing for more than a decade. Tipping doesn’t really solve the problem of income inequality or the sexist and racist assumptions about whose work has more value in our society. It is however a way for me to express my gratitude as an individual to people who may not be used to having their work appreciated or even noticed. I and my ancestors did similar work at one time. But even if you come from a long line of bluebloods, it’s possible to take a moment to stop and appreciate something you may take for granted. Imagine a world where no one took out the trash, vacuumed the floor, scrubbed the toilets, or made the bed. That’s not a world I want to live in.

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Tesco Abandons Plan To Have Sniper Shoot Protected Bird Living In A Store

Call me crazy, but I think animals are people who deserve to live in safety, just like humans. I guess a few humans in England feel the same way I do.

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Gratitude List

  1. Fuzzy wool socks for cold feet at night
  2. A 3:1 household ratio of blankets to humans
  3. Cooler weather means the memory foam in our bed doesn’t give me night sweats anymore
  4. We finally paid off the bed
  5. A doctor who reminds me that the symptoms of my illness are not moral failings, that I don’t have to suffer through them in order to be a productive member of society
  6. A job that allows me to work from home AND provides me with office space (now with new, improved window cube!)
  7. Listening to Sharon Salzberg’s audiobook Lovingkindness while taking baths
  8. A partner who loves and accepts me in spite of my flaws
  9. A community of friends who love, accept, and support me in spite of my flaws
  10. It’s finally frickin’ Friday
  11. Getting two more hours of sleep last night after a solid week of insomnia.

 

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Thirteen Years After 9-11-01, How Are We Supporting Our Troops?

This is what lower Manhattan looked like at 8:30 am on September 11, 2001
This is what lower Manhattan looked like at 8:30 am on September 11, 2001

Thirteen years ago, I was working for a travel company whose corporate culture trended heavily toward Nordic beauty standards and J Crew clothing — I didn’t exactly fit in. I had a nemesis coworker who was fond of practical jokes, so when she said that someone had just driven a plane into the Twin Towers I thought she was kidding. It became apparent very quickly that she wasn’t. I will always remember the tide of horror, sadness, and fear that rose in my chest as I stood with coworkers around a TV screen and watched the first tower come down. It was a distant precursor to what I would feel in April 2013 when two brothers set off homemade bombs at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

Both of these events make me contemplate rage. Continue reading “Thirteen Years After 9-11-01, How Are We Supporting Our Troops?”

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Using Haters Wisely

A clever way to repurpose hate speech into something helpful to your cause. It reminds me of the Repent Now letters I used to post on my old site about paganism.

Ragen Chastain's avatarDances With Fat

Haters Walk on WaterCivil rights change always happens against the vehement objects of those who cling to the old beliefs, typically for whatever it buys for them – privilege, a false sense of superiority reinforced by social contract, fear of change, there are plenty of reasons.  In fat civil rights that brings us fairly quickly to haters, a group of people who are so upset that there are fat people who won’t hate ourselves and spend our lives dieting and professing our inferiority, that they dedicate significant amounts of their own lives to obsessing about us and everything that we do.

In fat rights activism for the foreseeable future there will be sad people who spend their time spewing hate and bigotry trying desperately to feel ok about themselves by putting others down (and, based on the ridiculously overwrought death threats I receive, playing a lot of Call of Duty.) Each of us…

View original post 646 more words

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In Gratitude to Those Who Come to the Garden

This month, the number of people following my blog topped 500. I’d like to express my gratitude to all of you — the people who visit, the people who follow, the people who take the time to comment, to click, and to share. Writing is about communication, not just self-expression — there’s no point in doing it if it’s not reaching anyone. Here’s a Pinterest board I created just for you.