Massachusetts Statewide Poetry Calendar

Join Mass Poetry for a special U35 reading at The Prudential Center in Boston. Mollie Chandler, Carolyn Gibney and John McDonough will perform their work in the outdoor courtyard, Boylston Plaza at 800 Boylston St., Tuesday, September 26th from 5 - 7 pm.

Live readings from writers Jonathan Baumbach and Stephen Campiglio. 

Amesbury Public Library fall poetry series opens on Tuesday, September 26th ,6:00- 7:30 PM, with local poet and poetry organizer Toni Treadway. Toni has been a member of the Powow River Poets of Newburyport for about fourteen years. She is co-organizer of their reading series at the Newburyport Library since 2015. In poetry she searches for music in nature and to understand odd struggles with odd friends. A handful are online in The Flea and The Poetry Porch: the Wild Men Wild Women edition. At the library she will read a new poem, "Sachem's Island", which is a story set in an earlier time in a great salt marsh. She restores old movie film for museums and archives and sings in the Newburyport Choral Society. Toni is a regular reader at the Whittier Home's Tapestry of Voices poetry event held each August. The library hosts a monthly poetry series with an open mic. Each month there is a featured poet followed by a discussion, an open mic and light refreshments. Lainie Senechal, Amesbury Poet Laureate, hosts this event. 149 Main St., Amesbury. Free and open to the public.

Anita D is a spoken word artist and slam poet born and raised in Brockton. After moving to San Diego in 2013 she began to treat poetry as more of a career and less of a hobby. She was a member of the 2016 San Diego Slam Team that went on to take second place at nationals. She has since featured at many open mic venues, colleges and universities across San Diego and Boston. She hosted workshops for high school students on both coasts. Most recently, she appeared at The Staples Center and performed during an WNBA game.

JESSICA JACOBS’ Pelvis with Distance (2015) details the life of the painter Georgia O’Keefe and, in the words of Christopher Merrill, “discovers a vibrant music rooted in portraiture.” A finalist for the Lambda Literary award and winner of the 2015 New Mexico Book Award in Poetry, Pelvis with Distance draws on O’Keefe’s paintings, letters, and personal documents as well as the poet’s own experiences in Abiquiú, New Mexico, where O’Keefe lived for many years. Jacobs’ second full-length collection, Take Me with You, Wherever You’re Going, is forthcoming from Four Way Books in 2019. Jacobs majored in English at Smith and went on to earn an MFA from Purdue University. Currently, she serves as associate editor of the Beloit Poetry Journal and lives in Asheville, North Carolina with her wife, the poet Nickole Brown.

NICKOLE BROWN describes poetry as “a raw, muscular devotion to paying attention.” Brown aims to “knock poetry off its pedestal” and open readers to its multitude of possibilities. The narrator of Sister (2007), was born during a tornado to a 16-year-old “giggling, cigarette-sneak / mini-skirt-hike girl.” Library Journal named Brown’s second collection, Fanny Says, to its list of Best Poetry Books of 2015, and Patricia Smith proclaimed it “raucous and heart-rending, reflective and slap-yodamn-knee hilarious, a heady meld of lyrical line and life lesson.” Brown edits the Marie Alexander Series in Prose Poetry at White Pine Press, and teaches each fall at the Great Smokies Writing Program. She lives in Asheville, North Carolina with her wife, the poet Jessica Jacobs, and is at work on her next manuscript.