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Wednesday, February 16
 

12:30pm EST

February Seaport Free Writes
Wednesday February 16, 2022 12:30pm - 1:15pm EST
Looking to add some creativity to your day? Want to meet other local writers and get started on some new writing? Join our Seaport Free Writes session on Wednesday, February 16th, from 12:30-1:15pm. You’ll meet fellow writers and get your creative juices flowing with some fresh writing exercises. Best of all, you’ll leave with some new ideas to ponder for the rest of your day and beyond. Please note that you must register ahead of time and provide proof of vaccination to attend this session.
Wednesday February 16, 2022 12:30pm - 1:15pm EST
GrubStreet Center for Creative Writing
 
Tuesday, March 1
 

7:00pm EST

Grubbie Debut: Neema Avashia with E. B. Bartels
Tuesday March 1, 2022 7:00pm - 8:30pm EST
Porter Square Books and GrubStreet are delighted to present the latest installment of the Grubbie Debut series with author and GrubStreet instructor Neema Avashia in celebration of the release of Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place. Neema will be joined in conversation by fellow author and GrubStreet instructor E. B. Bartels. This event will take place at Porter Square Books: Boston Edition- please RSVP for updates on venue and more.

Neema Avashia was born and raised in southern West Virginia to parents who immigrated to the United States. She has been a middle school teacher in the Boston Public Schools since 2003. Her essays have appeared in the Bitter Southerner, Catapult, Kenyon Review Online, and elsewhere. E.B. Bartels is a nonfiction writer, a former Newtonville Books bookseller, and a GrubStreet instructor, with an MFA from Columbia. Her writing has been published in Catapult, The Rumpus, The Millions, and The Toast. She lives in Massachusetts.
Tuesday March 1, 2022 7:00pm - 8:30pm EST
GrubStreet Center for Creative Writing
 
Sunday, March 13
 

4:00pm EDT

Thresh & Hold
Sunday March 13, 2022 4:00pm - 5:00pm EDT
THRESH & HOLD is a book of poems re-coded into a collaborative ceremony of composed and improvisational music, dance, poetry, and short film.

“Exhausted of singing in an empire’s hopeful choir,” Dekine’s poems play with past, present, and future, all held within any moment, remembering the power of Black imagination for collective ancestral healing. Join Marlanda Dekine for an evening-length, multimedia experience centered around their forthcoming full-length debut poetry collection, Thresh & Hold (Hub City Press, 2022).

With collaborative artists Victoria Lynn Awkward (Dance), Brittany J. Green (Composer), Mahkia Greene (Film), Zahili Gonzalez Zamora (Music), and Emily Bearce (Lights).
Speakers
Sunday March 13, 2022 4:00pm - 5:00pm EDT
Boston Center for the Arts
 
Tuesday, March 15
 

7:00pm EDT

Emerson College Department of Writing, Literature & Publishing Reading Series: Special Guest Martín Espada
Tuesday March 15, 2022 7:00pm - 8:30pm EDT
Please join the Department of Writing, Literature & Publishing for a very special event on Tuesday, March 15, 2022 at the Bill Bordy Theatre beginning at 7:00 p.m.

We are honored to be hosting the recipient of the 2021 National Book Awards 2021 for Poetry, Martín Espada. You are cordially invited to attend in-person at Bordy Theater, 216 Tremont St. or virtually. Those who cannot join us in-person are welcome to register to watch the event via livestream. If attending in-person, please complete the Covid attestation found on the Eventbrite registration page. Martín will be available to sign his book, Floaters, which we will have on sale that evening at the Bordy Theater.

Pre-registration is necessary for both in-person and virtual attendance.
Speakers
Tuesday March 15, 2022 7:00pm - 8:30pm EDT
The Bill Bordy Theatre of Emerson College
 
Thursday, April 7
 

7:00pm EDT

Haleh Liza Gafori, author of Gold, with Kythe Letitia Heller at Porter Square Books: Cambridge Edition
Thursday April 7, 2022 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
TBA
Porter Square Books is delighted to welcome Haleh Liza Gafori for Gold, a new translation of Rumi that has been called "ecstatic and piercing." Gafori will be joined in conversation by writer, interdisciplinary artist, and doctoral candidate at Harvard University Kythe Letitia Heller. This event will take place in person at our Cambridge location on Thursday, April 7 at 7pm. It's free to attend, but space will be limited, so be sure to register for your free ticket below.

Rumi’s poems were meant to induce a sense of ecstatic illumination and liberation in his audience, bringing its members to a condition of serenity, compassion, and oneness with the divine. They remain masterpieces of world literature to which readers in many languages continually return for inspiration and succor, as wellas aesthetic delight. This new translation by Haleh Liza Gafori preserves the intelligence and the drama of the poems, which are as full of individual character as they are of visionary wisdom.

Marilyn Hacker praises Gafori’s new translations of Rumi as “the work of someone who is at once an acute and enamored reader of the original Farsi text, a dedicated miner of context and backstory, and, best of all, a marvelous poet in English.”

Thursday April 7, 2022 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
TBA
 
Tuesday, April 12
 

7:00pm EDT

Erika Meitner, author of Useful Junk, and Sarah Matthes, author of Town Crier, at Porter Square Books: Cambridge Edition
Tuesday April 12, 2022 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
TBA
Just in time for National Poetry Month, Porter Square Books is delighted to welcome poets Erika Meitner and Sarah Matthes for a joint reading from their latest collections. Hear from Meitner's Useful Junk, lauded as "tragicomic-erotic-nostalgic with a twist of existential dread and a cherry of wit on top" and Matthes' Town Crier, a collection of Kabbalistic poems that recognize wit as a ritual of mourning and the winner of the 2020 Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize.

Tuesday April 12, 2022 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
TBA
 
Wednesday, April 20
 

7:00pm EDT

Hybrid Reading Series: Rebecca Kaiser Gibson and Fred Marchant
Wednesday April 20, 2022 7:00pm - 9:00pm EDT
Please join us for our reading with Rebecca Kaiser Gibson and Fred Merchant. 

Please provide proof of vaccination at the door. Masks are required for the duration of the event.

To register to attend on Zoom, go here: http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07ej31qnr71575a7af&llr=6hztvkcab
Wednesday April 20, 2022 7:00pm - 9:00pm EDT
Grolier Poetry Bookshop Plympton Street Cambridge
 
Thursday, April 21
 

7:00pm EDT

Kemi Alabi, author of Against Heaven, with Porsha Olayiwola
Thursday April 21, 2022 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
TBA
Porter Square Books is delighted to welcome Kemi Alabi for Against Heaven, called "a stunning debut from one of our most talented emerging voices". Joined in conversation by poet laureate for the city of Boston Porsha Olayiwola, Alabi will discuss magic, portals, spells, and altered states in their poetry. This event is free and open to all, hosted virtually via Crowdcast on Thursday, April 21 at 7pm.
Winner of the Academy of American Poets First Book Award, selected by Claudia Rankine.

Kemi Alabi’s transcendent debut reimagines the poetic and cultural traditions from which it is born, troubling the waters of some of our country’s central and ordained fictions—those mythic politics of respectability, resilience, and redemption. Instead of turning to a salvation that has been forced upon them, Alabi turns to the body and the earth as sites of paradise defined by the pleasure and possibility of Black, queer fugitivity. Through tender love poems, righteous prayers, and vital provocations, we see the colonizers we carry within ourselves being laid to rest.

Thursday April 21, 2022 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
TBA

7:00pm EDT

Changeable Gods - Richard Wollman - Book Launch
Thursday April 21, 2022 7:00pm - 8:30pm EDT
Please join the Department of Literature & Writing and Sidelines Magazine to celebrate the book launch of Changeable Gods, Richard Wollman's new poetry collection, winner of the Elyse Wolf Prize from Slate Roof Press. There will be an introduction by Alfred Nicol, Q&A, and wine and hors d'oeuvres after the reading.

This event will be both in-person and on Zoom.
Speakers
Thursday April 21, 2022 7:00pm - 8:30pm EDT
Trustman Gallery Simmons College
 
Tuesday, April 26
 

7:00pm EDT

April U35-U18
Tuesday April 26, 2022 7:00pm - 8:30pm EDT
To kick off our poetry programming at GrubStreet's new Center for Creative Writing, and in honor of National Poetry Month, we are bringing some of Boston's best youth voices to the Seaport for a night of words and music. You won't want to miss this one-of-a-kind, U35 through U18 extravaganza!
Tuesday April 26, 2022 7:00pm - 8:30pm EDT
GrubStreet's Center for Creative Writing
 
Thursday, April 28
 

5:00pm EDT

Robert M. Gay Memorial Lecture — Poetry Reading with Martín Espada
Thursday April 28, 2022 5:00pm - 7:00pm EDT
Martín Espada, winner of the 2021 National Book Award for Poetry, will read from Floaters, his remarkable book. Cyrus Cassells: "...Espada is a fierce activist in verse, decrying, with accuracy and urgency, the depravity of inhumane detention and acute bigotry. One of America's most indelible voices, as always, Espada's poetry is lionhearted."

This event will be both in-person and on Zoom.
Thursday April 28, 2022 5:00pm - 7:00pm EDT
Linda K. Paresky Conference Center at Simmons University
 
Friday, April 29
 

5:30pm EDT

Read and Write PoeTREE with Fay Ferency, Jess Rizkallah, and Letta Neely
Friday April 29, 2022 5:30pm - 7:00pm EDT
Join writers Fay Ferency, Jess Rizkallah, and Letta Neely as they read aloud their nature and tree-centered poetry and guide participants in a brief poetry writing workshop. Participants will then have the opportunity to head outdoors, craft their own tree-inspired poetry, and share their creations with the rest of the group, all alongside the assistance of the writers. Registration requested, but walk-ups are welcome.

This event is brought to you in partnership with Boston Seaport by WS Development.
Friday April 29, 2022 5:30pm - 7:00pm EDT
111 Harbor Way
 
Saturday, April 30
 

1:00pm EDT

Soul: An Ancestor Workshop w/ Marlanda Dekine
Saturday April 30, 2022 1:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
Led by poet and Castle of our Skins’ Shirley Graham Du Bois Creative in Residence Marlanda Dekine, this participatory workshop will use writing and meditation to consider how our individual origin stories and ancestries influence our being.

Speakers
Saturday April 30, 2022 1:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
Arnold Arboretum
 
Tuesday, May 3
 

7:00pm EDT

Joint Reading with Jeffrey Yang with Fanny Howe
Tuesday May 3, 2022 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
Porter Square Books is thrilled to partner with Mass Poetry in welcoming Jeffrey Yang and Fanny Howe for a reading and conversation about the poets' latest works! Hear from Line and Light, a multifaceted collection by Jeffrey Yang, whose poetry is “flexible, expansive, sonorously clever” (The Millions), and Indivisible, the conclusion of a radically philosophical and personal series of Fanny Howe novels animated by questions of race, spirituality, childhood, transience, resistance, and poverty.
Tuesday May 3, 2022 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
GrubStreet Center for Creative Writing
 
Sunday, June 12
 

3:00pm EDT

Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site & New England Poetry Club
Magdalena Gómez is the Poet Laureate of Springfield, MA and a Poetry Fellow of the Academy of American Poets. Her poetry collection, Shameless Woman, (Red Sugarcane Press, NYC) is studied in Latinx curricula throughout the U.S. Her ground-breaking memoir noir, M’ija, will be released in hardcover in spring of 2022 by Heliotrope Books, NYC.

Enzo Silon Surin is a Haitian-born award-winning poet, educator, publisher and social advocate. He is the author of three collections of poetry, including When My Body Was A Clinched Fist (Black Lawrence Press, 2020) and A Letter of Resignation: An American Libretto (2017). He is Founding Editor and Publisher at Central Square Press and President/Executive Director at the Faraday Publishing Company, Inc. The Longfellow Summer Festival brings music, poetry, and community to the East Lawn of the Longfellow House on Sunday afternoons through the summer.

The 2022 Summer Festival will kick off on Sunday, June 5. All events are free and open to the public. Just bring a picnic blanket or lawn chair! The series is co-sponsored by the Friends of Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters and the New England Poetry Club.
 
Saturday, June 18
 

7:30pm EDT

Her Voice Among the Aisles: A Celebration of Emily Dickinson through Poetry & Song
Saturday June 18, 2022 7:30pm - 9:00pm EDT
Emily Dickinson is largely considered one of the leading poetic voices of the 19th century. Her words have inspired many composers who have set her words to music. Annina Hsieh (soprano) and Judy Park (piano) will perform selections from Aaron Copland’s playful, tragic, personal, perennial, and ethereal song cycle Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson, as well as settings of Dickinson’s verse by other American composers. Poets Tom Daley and Cammy Thomas will recite and provide insights into the power, nuance, and beauty of Dickinson’s poetic vision.

Annina Hsieh is a Boston-based soprano and educator. Praised for her sensitivity as a performer, Hsieh strives to connect with audiences in opera and recital settings, and was the 2019 winner of the Handel and Haydn Society’s Barbara E. Maze Award for Musical Excellence. She completed her Master of Music in Voice Performance at Cleveland Institute of Music, and her Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance at Ithaca College.

Leona Cheung is a Boston-based collaborative pianist. Her deep devotion to Art Song repertoire has brought her to perform in the Oxford Lieder Festival, Leeds Lieder Festival, Toronto Summer Music Festival, Franz Schubert Institut and Songfest. She earned her Master of Music and Graduate Diploma in Collaborative Piano from New England Conservatory, and a Bachelor of Music degree in Piano Performance from Hong Kong Baptist University.

Tom Daley is the author of the play Every Broom and Bridget—Emily Dickinson and Her Irish Servants. Tom leads workshops in poetry and in memoir writing at Lexington Community Education and elsewhere. Recipient of the Dana Award in Poetry his poetry has appeared in Harvard Review, Massachusetts Review, 32 Poems, Fence, Denver Quarterly, Crazyhorse, Barrow Street, Rhino, Prairie Schooner, Witness, and Poetry Ireland Review. Regarding his poetry collection House You Cannot Reach, Lloyd Schwartz writes, "Every line here, even—and maybe especially—in the poignant poems “spoken” by the poet’s mother, radiates his love of poetry."

Cammy Thomas’ first book of poems, Cathedral of Wish, received the 2006 Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America. A fellowship from the Ragdale Foundation helped her complete her second book, Inscriptions. Her third book, Tremors, came out in 2021. Her poems have recently appeared in Amsterdam Quarterly, The Poetry Porch, New Orleans Review, and Poet Lore. Far Past War, a choral setting of her poems composed by her sister, Augusta Read Thomas, premiered at Washington’s National Cathedral on March 13, 2022. She lives in Bolton, MA.
Saturday June 18, 2022 7:30pm - 9:00pm EDT
Follen Church Society
 
Saturday, June 25
 

6:00pm EDT

The Hard Work of Hope Reading
Saturday June 25, 2022 6:00pm - 8:30pm EDT
Shortly after COVID-19’s arrival, Mass Poetry put out a call for poems about this unprecedented moment—empty grocery store shelves, conversations across balconies, stadiums turned hospitals, civil resistance in the face of police violence, the sirens, the sirens, the sirens—and were met with an overwhelming response. Using Kathleen Aguero's potem "Hard Work" as a guide, our community rose to the challenge, helping us make a record of this pandemic life. 
We always intended to have a culminating reading, but as the weeks became months, then years, and still case numbers rise and fall, rise again—well, we're realizing there isn't going to be as clear an ending as we'd hoped. So instead we're inviting you to a kick-off celebration: a reading to mark the beginning of a year of dreaming, planning, and creating. We will host a huge community gathering at the Mass Poetry Festival in Spring 2023, and everyone who has participated (as poet, or reader) in "The Hard Work of Hope" is invited to attend. 
But for now, join us on the Summer Solstice, June 21, 2022, to celebrate the balance between light and dark, a tip, a turn toward sun and summer, and beginning again:
6:00 pm - Community gathering near the harbor
6:30 pm - Choral reading of a poem
7:00 pm - Reading on the Calderwood Stage at GrubStreet's Center for Creative Writing
Come for some, or all of the evening. For the inside portion (beginning at 7), masks will be required.
Making sure our events are accessible is a top priority: GrubStreet's building, restrooms, and the event space are wheelchair accessible. There is a hearing loop available, and we will be using a mic and doing sound checks before the event for clarity. If you require closed captioning, ASL interpreters, or have other accessibility needs we might not have thought of, please reach out to danielle@masspoetry.org. We will do our best to accommodate any and all requests.
Saturday June 25, 2022 6:00pm - 8:30pm EDT
GrubStreet's Center for Creative Writing
 
Sunday, July 10
 

3:00pm EDT

Longfellow Summer Poetry Festival: Martha Collins and Philip Nikolayev
Join us for the 2022 Longfellow Summer Poetry Festival! All events are free and open to the public - just bring a picnic blanket or lawn chair! The series is co-sponsored by the Friends of Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters and the New England Poetry Club. Visit https://www.nps.gov/long/planyourvisit/summer-festival.htm for details.

Martha Collins has published ten volumes of poetry, most recently Because What Else Could I Do (Pittsburgh, 2019), which won the Poetry Society of America’s William Carlos Williams Award. She has also published four volumes of co-translated Vietnamese poetry, most recently Black Stars: Poems by Ngo Tu Lap (Milkweed, 2013, with the author), and edited a number of anthologies. Her newest book of poems, Casualty Reports, is forthcoming in fall 2022.

Philip Nikolayev is a Russo-American bilingual poet living in Boston. He is a polyglot and translates poetry from several languages. Nikolayev’s verse collections include Monkey Time (Verse/Wave Books, winner of the 2001 Verse Prize) and Letters from Aldenderry (Salt). He co-edits Fulcrum, a serial anthology of poetry and critical writing. His bilingual edition, The Star of Dazzling Ecstasy: 79 Poems by Alexander Pushkin, Translated by Philip Nikolayev has been published by Tiptop Street.
 
Thursday, September 8
 

6:30pm EDT

Podcasting for Everyone: Getting Started Is Easier Than You Think! (In-person Event)
Thursday September 8, 2022 6:30pm - 7:30pm EDT
Podcasting is enjoying a resurgence lately, and it's easy to think that you need formal training or fancy equipment to try it out. You don't. In a discussion moderated by GrubStreet's Director of Community Engagement (and podcast lover) Eson Kim, come hear how podcasters Heloiza Barbosa and Felix Poon started out with zero podcast experience and eventually developed their craft into personally meaningful and award-winning works. There will be time for audience questions as well!

Directly following the event, there will be a small Open House tour of GrubStreet's new podcast studio space. Sign-ups will be available at the event for those who are interested.

Exhibitors
Thursday September 8, 2022 6:30pm - 7:30pm EDT
GrubStreet 162 Boylston Street 5th FL Boston, MA 02116
 
Friday, September 16
 

7:00pm EDT

The Civic Role of Poetry: For, By & Of the People with Richard Blanco
Friday September 16, 2022 7:00pm - 8:30pm EDT
Selected by President Obama as the fifth inaugural poet in U.S. history, Richard Blanco is the first Latino, immigrant, and gay person to serve in such a role. Born in Madrid to Cuban exile parents and raised in Miami, the negotiation of cultural identity characterizes his four collections of poetry: How To Love a Country, City of a Hundred Fires, which received the Agnes Starrett Poetry Prize from the University of Pittsburgh Press; Directions to The Beach of the Dead, recipient of the Beyond Margins Award from the PEN American Center; and Looking for The Gulf Motel, recipient of the Paterson Poetry Prize and the Thom Gunn Award. He has also authored the memoirs For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet’s Journey and The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood, winner of a Lambda Literary Award. His inaugural poem “One Today” was published as a children’s book, in collaboration with renowned illustrator Dav Pilkey. Boundaries, a collaboration with photographer Jacob Hessler, challenges the physical and psychological dividing lines that shadow the United States. And his latest book of poems, How to Love a Country, both interrogates the American narrative, past and present, and celebrates the still unkept promise of its ideals. Blanco has written occasional poems for the re-opening of the U.S. Embassy in Cuba, Freedom to Marry, the Tech Awards of Silicon Valley, and the Boston Strong benefit concert following the Boston Marathon bombings. He is a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and has received numerous honorary doctorates. He has taught at Georgetown University, American University, and Wesleyan University. He serves as the first Education Ambassador for The Academy of American Poets.
Speakers
Friday September 16, 2022 7:00pm - 8:30pm EDT
Follen Church Society
 
Thursday, September 22
 

5:30pm EDT

Fall 2022 Open House & Info Session
Thursday September 22, 2022 5:30pm - 6:30pm EDT
Love to write but don't have anywhere to get feedback on your work? Want to meet fellow writers and work under the guidance of published authors? GrubStreet is here to help!

On Thursday, September 22nd from 6:30pm-7:30pm, we will be hosting an In-Person Open House to talk about upcoming Fall 2022 classes, GrubStreet's membership program, GrubStreet's Boston Writers of Color Group, The Muse and the Marketplace and more!

After a short presentation from GrubStreet staff, we will be on hand to answer any questions you have and show off our brand new space, including our expanded classrooms for teens and adults, the bookstore run by our friends at Porter Square Books (complete with rotating bookshelves), our community lounge, Boston’s only stage for the literary arts, our podcast studio, and more.

This event is free and includes complimentary drinks and snacks. Bring your mask, join the fun!

Please make sure to pre-register! We'll also send all attendees a code to receive 10% off any Fall 2022 class.

Exhibitors
Thursday September 22, 2022 5:30pm - 6:30pm EDT
GrubStreet 162 Boylston Street 5th FL Boston, MA 02116
 
Tuesday, January 3
 

7:00pm EST

Unearthed Song & Poetry Open Mic: Oliver de la Paz
Tuesday January 3, 2023 7:00pm - 9:30pm EST
  • January 3, Time 7:00PM - 9:30PM. home.stead bakery & cafeUnearthed Song & Poetry Open Mic  



Tuesday January 3, 2023 7:00pm - 9:30pm EST
Home.stead Bakery and Cafe
 
Wednesday, January 4
 

6:00pm EST

Lesley January Reading Series Presents: Carl Phillips
Wednesday January 4, 2023 6:00pm - 8:00pm EST
Poetry reading by Carl Phillips at the Marran Theatre at Lesley University, located at 34 Mellen Street, in Cambridge, MA.

Wednesday January 4, 2023 6:00pm - 8:00pm EST
Marran Theater
 
Friday, January 6
 

6:00pm EST

Lesley January Reading Series Presents: Sharon Bryan and Rachel Kadish
Friday January 6, 2023 6:00pm - 8:00pm EST
Poetry reading by Sharon Bryan, and fiction reading by Rachel Kadish, at Lesley University's Marran Theater, located at 34 Mellen Street, in Cambridge, MA.
Friday January 6, 2023 6:00pm - 8:00pm EST
Marran Theater
 
Tuesday, January 10
 

7:00pm EST

Brookline Booksmith: Five Brookline Poets Reading
Tuesday January 10, 2023 7:00pm - 8:30pm EST
Five Brookline Poets share their work with the community that inspired them. »Zvi Sesling is the Poet Laureate of Brookline, MA and a prize winning poet. He has been published widely in print and online nationally and internationally. Sesling is Editor of Muddy River Poetry Review, publishes Muddy River Books and reviews for the Boston Small Press and Poetry Scene.
Jan Schreiber is an American poet, translator, and literary critic who has been part of the renascence of formal poetry that began in the late twentieth century. He is the author of four books of verse, two books of verse translation and one book of literary criticism.
Judith Steinbergh was selected as first Poet Laureate for the town of Brookline, MA for a 3 year term ending on April 1, 2015. She is the author of 4 poetry books and 3 poetry teaching texts. She also teaches and mentors students and teachers for Troubadour, Inc.
Deborah Leipziger is an author, poet, and professor. Her chapbook, Flower Map, was published by Finishing Line Press (2013). In 2014, her poem “Written on Skin” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Born in Brazil, Ms. Leipziger is the author of several books on human rights and sustainability. Her poems have been published in SalamanderVoices IsraelPOESYWilderness House ReviewIbbetson Street, and the Muddy River Poetry Review.
Tino Villanueva is the author of seven books of poetry and has taught creative writing at the University of Texas-Austin, the College of William & Mary, and Bowdoin College. His artwork has appeared on the covers and pages of national and international journals such as NexosGreen Mountains ReviewTriQuarterlyParnassus, and MELUS. He teaches in the Department of Romance Studies at Boston University.




Tuesday January 10, 2023 7:00pm - 8:30pm EST
Brookline Booksmith
 
Monday, January 16
 

7:00pm EST

Transnational Series: E.J. Koh in conversation with Jennifer Tseng
Monday January 16, 2023 7:00pm - 8:30pm EST
The Magical Language of Others is a powerful and aching love story in letters, from mother to daughter. After living in America for over a decade, Eun Ji Koh’s parents return to South Korea for work, leaving fifteen-year-old Eun Ji and her brother behind in California. Overnight, Eun Ji finds herself abandoned and adrift in a world made strange by her mother’s absence. Her mother writes letters, in Korean, over the years seeking forgiveness and love–letters Eun Ji cannot fully understand until she finds them years later hidden in a box.
The Magical Language of Others weaves a profound tale of hard-won selfhood and our deep bonds to family, place, and language, introducing–in Eun Ji Koh–a singular, incandescent voice.
E. J. Koh is the author of the poetry collection A Lesser Love, winner of the Pleiades Editors Prize (Louisiana State U. Press, 2017). Her poems, translations, and stories have appeared in Boston ReviewLos Angeles Review of Books, and World Literature Today, among others. She is the recipient of The MacDowell Colony and Kundiman fellowships and a 2017 ALTA Emerging Translator Mentorship, and was runner-up for the 2018 Prairie Schooner Summer Nonfiction Prize.
Jennifer Tseng’s flash fiction collection, The Passion of Woo & Isolde (Rose Metal Press 2017), was a Firecracker Award finalist and winner of an Eric Hoffer Book Award; and her novel, Mayumi and the Sea of Happiness (Europa Editions 2015), was shortlisted for the PEN American Center’s Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction and the New England Book Award. She’s also published three award-winning books of poetry, The Man With My Face (AAWW 2005); the bilingual Red Flower, White Flower (Marick Press 2013) featuring Chinese translations by Mengying Han and Aaron Crippen; and Not so dear Jenny (Bateau Press 2017), poems made with her Chinese father’s English letters. Jennifer and her sister, visual artist Amanda Tseng, collaborate on Instagram @tseng.sisters, using the hashtag #sistersreadingsisters. Together, her sister’s images and her micro reviews celebrate books by women of color, queer women and women in translation—past, present, and future.

Speakers
Monday January 16, 2023 7:00pm - 8:30pm EST
Brookline Booksmith
 
Tuesday, January 17
 

6:30pm EST

The Visible Planets by Aly Pierce Release Show
Tuesday January 17, 2023 6:30pm - 9:30pm EST
The Visible Planets by Aly Pierce is dropping on 1/17! Come hang out with us

We'll have sets from Aly Pierce, Lip Manegio, Cassandra de Alba, and more!

Michael Malpiedi and Kaleigh O'Keefe are co-hosting!

Makeshift Boston is an amazing community space and we're excited to show you our newest book release!

Space is limited so please register. Admission is free! Come on time and hang out with the whole GOB crew.

The space is wheelchair accessible! This show is alcohol free.

Any questions? Message Game Over Books on Facebook or Instagram.
Tuesday January 17, 2023 6:30pm - 9:30pm EST
Make Shift Boston
 
Thursday, January 19
 

3:00pm EST

Brookline Poetry Series: Rodney Jones
Thursday January 19, 2023 3:00pm - 5:00pm EST
January 19, 2020
Featured Reader: Rodney Jones
Rodney Jones is the author of eleven books of poems. His honors include the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Harper Lee Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Award, and he has been a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award, the Griffin International Poetry Prize, and the Pulitzer Prize. His poems have appeared widely in magazines and in nine editions of Best American PoetryVillage Prodigies, his latest book, doubles as a book of poems and an experimental novel. He lives in New Orleans and teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Warren Wilson College.
Opening Reader: Mitch Manning
Mitch Manning is the author of city of water (Arrowsmith, 2019). He’s taught poetry in central China and his poems have been read in Basra, southern Iraq as part of the Boston to Basra Project. He teaches in the English and Labor Studies programs at UMass Boston, and is Associate Director at the Joiner Institute for the Study of War and Social Consequences. He’s an Associate Editor for CONSEQUENCE magazine and founder of NO INFINITE, a journal of petry, art, and protest. Poems and interviews published in The DorisBOOG CityLet The Bucket DownCONSEQUENCESundialHollowGAFF and more.

Speakers
Thursday January 19, 2023 3:00pm - 5:00pm EST
Hunneman Hall, Brookline Village Library 361 Washington St. Brookline
 
Sunday, January 22
 

8:00pm EST

Devin Kelly Features at the Boston Poetry Slam
Sunday January 22, 2023 8:00pm - 11:00pm EST
Devin Kelly will be the featured poet at the Boston Poetry Slam on Wednesday, January 22, 2020. 

Devin Kelly is the author of In This Quiet Church of Night, I Say Amen (Civil Coping Mechanisms) and the co-host of the Dead Rabbits Reading Series. He is the winner of a Best of the Net Prize, and his writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Guardian, LitHub, Catapult, DIAGRAM, Redivider, and more. He lives and teaches high school in New York City.

An open poetry slam is scheduled for the late-night portion of this show, following the feature. The slam will be speed slam format: eight open sign-ups will be available starting at door time, and poets will slam head-to-head in up to three rounds with time limits of 3, 2, and 1 minute. Winner and runner-up qualify for the 2020 Team Selection series. To volunteer to judge in exchange for free admission to the show, or to ask questions about the slam, email the slam curator at slamseries@bostonpoetryslam.com.

SCHEDULE
7:15pm: doors and sign-ups open
8:00pm: open mic
10:00pm: Devin Kelly features
11:00ish: open poetry slam
More info about the show: http://bostonpoetryslam.com/?p=9666

The show is 18+, $3 and the bar is cash only. Everyone must show a photo ID to enter the Cantab Lounge.

Speakers Exhibitors
Sunday January 22, 2023 8:00pm - 11:00pm EST
Cantab Lounge
 
Monday, January 23
 

7:00pm EST

Rozzie Reads Poetry and Open Mic
Monday January 23, 2023 7:00pm - 9:00pm EST
Monday January 23, 2023 7:00pm - 9:00pm EST
Roslindale House

8:00pm EST

Countertop Chants: January Poetry Session
Monday January 23, 2023 8:00pm - 10:00pm EST
Countertop Chants is proud to host Poetry Sessions that celebrate our craft, art of all mediums, community, and local businesses. 
Join us the 4th Thursday every month for a lively open mic at Canopy Room, one of the newest spots for local artists and entrepreneurs in the Boston area! This month’s session will be held Thursday, January 23rd,, from 8 to 10 pm. 

SCHED:
Space opens at 8 pm, reading starts at 8:15pm! Our intermission music starts promptly at 9 pm. We have 10 spots for poetry reading, with music from this month's guest, Sophie London. Each reader will have 5 minutes at the mic, sign ups will be open until we fill the spots. 

ABOUT THE READING: 
This is a place to share your work, meet new artist friends, explore the Boston area, and have fun. Boston has a strong community of artists and writers and they deserve an inclusive space to connect and enjoy their art while still making it a party. We are here to celebrate life, arts, and our community. 

This is not a competition! There will be no winners, and there is no expected format. Tell us your dreams through acrostic poems, give us just a taste of your despair with a haiku. Whatever form you take, we celebrate it. 

We do book our intermission act in advance. If you are interested in playing acoustic music, doing an interpretative dance, or something that compliments the poetic medium, drop us a line at countertopchants@gmail.com 


ABOUT THE SPACE: 
We are hosting our poetry sessions in the event space of Bow Market, Canopy Room. We are teaming up with local businesses to foster our local artists. There is no cover to get in, but there is a cash/credit card bar! So please enjoy libations during the reading and have a little fun with us. 

Bow Market is home to many retail shops, restaurants, brewery and more. Grab food from one of these shops and bring it with you to the reading, or get here early and explore some of the shops before you join us!

Monday January 23, 2023 8:00pm - 10:00pm EST
Canopy Room 1 Bow Market Way, Somerville MA 02143
 
Wednesday, January 25
 

TBA

IAWA in Boston Presents
Wednesday January 25, 2023 TBA
Speakers
Wednesday January 25, 2023 TBA
I Am Books
 
Sunday, January 29
 

TBA

8:00pm EST

Porsha Olayiwola Features at the Boston Poetry Slam
Sunday January 29, 2023 8:00pm - 11:00pm EST
Porsha Olayiwola will be the featured poet at the Boston Poetry Slam on Wednesday, January 29, 2020. 

Porsha Olayiwola is from the future! Black, poet, queer-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, too forthcoming with Button Poetry and is the current Poet Laureate for the city of Boston.

There will be NO poetry slam competition after the feature tonight; please come celebrate our feature and her new book. 

SCHEDULE
7:15pm: doors and sign-ups open
8:00pm: open mic
10:00pm: Porsha Olayiwola features
More info about the show: http://bostonpoetryslam.com/?p=9694

The show is 18+, $3 and the bar is cash only. Everyone must show a photo ID to enter the Cantab Lounge.
Exhibitors
Sunday January 29, 2023 8:00pm - 11:00pm EST
Cantab Lounge
 
Monday, January 30
 

TBA

Deep Curation: an experimentally curated poetry reading
Monday January 30, 2023 TBA
Lee Ann Brown, Sawako Nakayasu, Klara Du Plessis
with audio of Fanny Howe's poetry
in the Front Theater Space
 
Thursday, February 2
 

2:00pm EST

Temple Sinai’s 11th Annual Poetry Festival
Thursday February 2, 2023 2:00pm - 4:00pm EST
This year’s featured poet is Rachel Kann -- a poet, performer, ceremonialist and teaching artist. Her writing has appeared in journals such as Soul-Lit, Tiferet, Eclipse, Permafrost, Coe Review, Sou’wester, GW Review and Quiddity. She is a resident writer for Hevria, where she’s also featured as a performing artist on The Hevria Sessions.  Rachel has performed her poetry in such varied venues as Disney Concert Hall, Royce Hall, the Broad Stage and San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts. She is a 2019 Inquiry Fellow through American Jewish University’s Institute for Jewish Creativity and was a 2017 Asylum Arts Reciprocity Fellow and the 2017 Outstanding Instructor of the Year at UCLA Extension Writers' Program. Her latest poetry collection is How to Bless the New Moon, from Ben Yehuda Press. Her poetry collections include A Prayer on Behalf of the Broken Heart and 10 for Everything. She is also the author of the children’s book, You Sparkle Inside.

Master of Ceremonies: Professor Larry Lowenthal

An open mic will follow!
Readers bring one original poem on themes of family, community, or Jewish life. Sign up to read as you enter.  Questions?  Contact Deborah Leipziger at dleipziger@gmail.com
Speakers

Thursday February 2, 2023 2:00pm - 4:00pm EST
Temple Sinai

7:00pm EST

Moonlighting Featuring Keely Fae & Justice Ameer
Where: The Democracy Center (45 Mt. Auburn St. Cambridge-- there is a wheelchair accessible entrance on the right hand side of the building if you are facing the front entrance)
 When: January 5th, 2019   
  Doors Open at 7:00pm Open Mic Starts at 7:30pm
 Cost: $5 suggested cover. No one will be turned away for lack of funds. 
 
 What is Moonlighting? 
 
Moonlighting is a queer open mic presented by the Boston Poetry Slam. This reading series is a revival of a Cambridge favorite hosted and produced by Myles Taylor and Ilyus Evander. We aim to build, stew in, and celebrate the queer community and their words and work in Cambridge and the surrounding areas.
 
Saturday, February 4
 

7:00pm EST

Black History Month Open Mic & Karaoke Night!
Saturday February 4, 2023 7:00pm - 9:00pm EST
Happy new year FEMS, and happy Black History Month! Come celebrate with us ♥ bring yourself, a piece of writing by a Black artist who inspires you (can be yourself!), and your fav karaoke songs by Black artists to sing for the second half of the night!

Doors - 7pm
Open Mic / Readings - 7:30
Karaoke - 8:15 

Can't wait to see you there!!

Make Shift accessibility info:

Make Shift has a wheelchair accessible entrance, seating space, and bathroom. We are not a fragrance free or sober space (though we do not sell alcohol). Makeshift is 0.2 miles away from the Massachusetts Ave T stop on the Orange Line. Please feel free to message us with any accessibility questions or feedback.
Exhibitors
Saturday February 4, 2023 7:00pm - 9:00pm EST
Make Shift Boston
 
Sunday, February 5
 

8:00pm EST

Tatiana M.R. Johnson Features at the Boston Poetry Slam
Sunday February 5, 2023 8:00pm - 11:00pm EST
Tatiana Mary Rebecca Johnson will be the featured poet at the Boston Poetry Slam on Wednesday, February 5, 2020. 

Tatiana M.R. Johnson (she/her/hers) is a writer, artist and educator in the Boston area. She’s an MFA candidate in poetry at Emerson College and works as poetry editor for the literary journal Redivider. She is a 2017 Pushcart Prize nominee and she’s recently been published in Southern Humanities Review as an Honorable Mention selection for the 2019 Auburn Witness Poetry Prize, judged by Vievee Francis. Tatiana’s writing is forthcoming in Transition Magazine and Aesthetica Magazine. Her writing explores identity and trauma, especially inherited trauma and what it means to heal.

An early-bird workshop is scheduled for the hour before doors open for the show. For more information, please see our separate workshop event, Tatiana M.R. Johnson Workshop at the Boston Poetry Slam.

Photo of the artist is courtesy Manuel Boria. 

SCHEDULE
7:15pm: doors and sign-ups open
8:00pm: open mic
10:00pm: Tatiana M.R. Johnson features
More info about the show: http://bostonpoetryslam.com/?p=9675

The show is 18+, $3 and the bar is cash only. Everyone must show a photo ID to enter the Cantab Lounge. There is one flight of stairs to access the room.
Sunday February 5, 2023 8:00pm - 11:00pm EST
Cantab Lounge
 
Monday, February 6
 

TBA

 
Tuesday, February 7
 

TBA

Patricia Cleary Miller
Tuesday February 7, 2023 TBA
TBA
Tuesday February 7, 2023 TBA
TBA

TBA

7:00pm EST

Bradley Trumpfheller: Reconstructions Book Release
Tuesday February 7, 2023 7:00pm - 8:30pm EST
Local poet (and Booksmith staff member!) Bradley Trumpfheller shares their beautiful collection.
“Bradley Trumpfheller has made for us (the ‘unbecame beloved across’) a simply stunning book that begs to be read aloud. I’m reminded here how tender and intelligent, how generous and fierce one must be to play with language, to let it make and be made from one’s body, to construct and to be re-constructed, to say anything one means and know ‘it will never mean again, not even now.”
-TC Tolbert, author of Gephyromania
Bradley Trumpfheller is from Alabama & Virginia. Their work has appeared in PoetryThe NationjubilatIndiana Review, and elsewhere. They co-edit Divedapper & currently live in Massachusetts.

Tuesday February 7, 2023 7:00pm - 8:30pm EST
Brookline Booksmith

7:00pm EST

First Fridays Youth Open Mic ft. Ariana Brown
Tuesday February 7, 2023 7:00pm - 10:00pm EST
Doors open at 7:00, and dinner is served shortly after (vegetarian and vegan options provided!) Open mic begins at 7:30. Bring your friends! Bring your art! You are welcome! $5-$10 suggested donation for all (no one turned away for lack of funds). All ages and talents are welcome on the mic! Open mic slots 3 minutes each. Sign up upon arrival. Hosted and organized by the First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain and Kaleigh O'Keefe

FEATURED ARTIST: Ariana Brown

Ariana Brown is a queer Black Mexican American poet from San Antonio, Texas, with a B.A. in African Diaspora Studies and Mexican American Studies. She is the recipient of two Academy of American Poets Prizes and a 2014 collegiate national poetry slam champion. Ariana, who has been dubbed a “part-time curandera,” is primarily interested in using poetry to validate Black girl rage, in all its miraculous forms. Follow her work online at arianabrown.com or on Twitter & Instagram @arianathepoet.

*this venue is wheelchair accessible and has gender neutral restrooms*
Speakers
Tuesday February 7, 2023 7:00pm - 10:00pm EST
First Baptist Church 633 Centre St, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130

7:00pm EST

Unearthed Song & Poetry Open Mic
Tuesday February 7, 2023 7:00pm - 10:00pm EST
Open Mic with poet Tomika Beyer, and Chris and George of Kingsley Flood, and of course, you! Doors and sign up at 7, show starts at 7:30, $5 cover. 

Tamiko Beyer is the author of Last Days (Alice James Books, forthcoming 2021), We Come Elemental (Alice James Books, 2013), and two chapbooks of poems. She publishes a monthly newsletter for living life wide awake and shaping change, Starlight & Strategy. A social justice communications writer and strategist, she spends her days writing truth to power.  Find her at tamikobeyer.com.

Chris Barrett and George Hall are veterans of the Boston music world.
Speakers
Tuesday February 7, 2023 7:00pm - 10:00pm EST
home.stead café 1448 Dorchester Avenue, Dorchester, MA
 
Wednesday, February 8
 

TBA

 
Thursday, February 9
 

3:00pm EST

New Poetry and Open Mic
Thursday February 9, 2023 3:00pm - 5:00pm EST
Members read from their new books, followed by an open mic
Speakers
Thursday February 9, 2023 3:00pm - 5:00pm EST
Center for the Arts at the Armory
 
Saturday, February 11
 

TBA

6:00pm EST

NOVELIST STEVEN DUNN & POET LORA STRAUB
Saturday February 11, 2023 6:00pm - 7:15pm EST
Authors Steven Dunn & Lora Straub read from their work and answer questions. Please join us for this literary arts event! This is a debut reading in Boston for Steven Dunn.
Steven Dunn is the author of the novels Potted Meat (Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2016) and water & power (Tarpaulin Sky 2018). He was born and raised in West Virginia, and after 10 years in the Navy, he earned a B.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Denver. Some of his work can be found in Columbia JournalGranta Magazine, and Best Small Fictions 2018.
Lora Straub lives in Lower Allston, MA. She received her BA in Literary Arts from Brown University and was awarded the Judith Lee Stronach Scholarship for Excellence in Poetry by St. Mary’s College of California, where she earned her Poetry MFA. She considers her writing to be hybrid genre and her chapbook, Id Est, was released in October 2017 by SpeCt! Books. Her work can be found in Construction Mag, She Explores, The Fem, The Elephants, Wave Composition, et al.
Speakers
Saturday February 11, 2023 6:00pm - 7:15pm EST
MassArt, Kennedy, 406
 
Sunday, February 12
 

7:30pm EST

Poetry/Photo slideshow at Mass Audubon's Joppa Flats Education Center
Sunday February 12, 2023 7:30pm - 9:00pm EST
Mass Audubon hosts The Arts and the Experience of Nature with poets Janet MacFadyen and David Davis, and photographer Stephen Schmidt. Slate Roof managing editor Janet MacFadyen and photographer Stephen Schmidt present Adrift in the House of Rock: a Praise Song for the Earth, a reading and slideshow set in the beautiful, besieged desert southwest. Their work is followed by a reading by former Poet-In-Residence at Mass Audubon's Joppa Flats, David Davis.

Bring your writing! The evening concludes with an open mic!

1 Plum Island Turnpike, Newburyport, MA

Janet MacFadyen is the author of five books of poetry, most recently Adrift in the House of Rocks (New Feral Press, 2019). Her work is forthcoming in Scientific American and has appeared in CALYX, Crannóg, Poetry, Q/A Poetry, and Terrain. Stephen Schmidt's photographs have won awards from Sierra and Earth magazines, and have appeared at the Merrill Lynch Corporate Gallery and The Arthur Griffin Center for Photographic Art. David Davis is the former Poet-In-Residence at Mass Audubon's Joppa Flats Education Center, and a member of the Powow River Poets. He is author of three poetry books, including The Joy Poems and Joppa Flats (Bard Brook Press, 2017/18).

Sunday February 12, 2023 7:30pm - 9:00pm EST
Mass Audubon's Joppa Flats Education Center

8:00pm EST

The Poetry Brothel: Circus of Love
Sunday February 12, 2023 8:00pm - 11:00pm EST
An interactive literary cabaret series that fuses poetry, burly-q, live music, aerials, vaudeville, visual art, magic, mysticism, and private, one-on-one poetry experiences.

Welcome to a unique and immersive poetry event that takes poetry outside classrooms and lecture halls and places it in the lush interiors of a bordello. The Madame presents a rotating cast of poets, each operating within a carefully crafted character, who share their work in public readings, spontaneous eruptions of poetry, and most distinctly, as purveyors of private poetry readings on beds, chaise lounges and in private rooms. For a fee, all of the poets are available for these sequestered readings at any time during the event. Of course, any true bordello need a good cover; ours is an immersive cabaret featuring poetry, burly-q, live music, vaudeville, aerials, visual art, magic, and mysticism, with newly integrated themes, performances and installations at each event.

Doors open at 8pm, and the show begins promptly at 8:30. Masks, costumes, and extravagant dress are encouraged but not required. For more information, please visit thepoetrybrothel.com.
Sunday February 12, 2023 8:00pm - 11:00pm EST
Sonia 10 Brookline Ave, Cambridge
 
Tuesday, February 14
 

TBA

 
Wednesday, February 15
 

1:00pm EST

The Brockton Library Poetry Series: Everyone Has a Voice
Wednesday February 15, 2023 1:00pm - 2:00pm EST
Featured student poet Lola Bennett is a freshman at New Heights Charter School in Brockton. She loves to write because it makes her feel free. "I can write about something I have never done before or something that doesn't exist, when I am writing no rules apply."

Featured poet Nancy Brady Cunningham is a published poet and author of four books of non-fiction. She also co-edited, with Jack Scully, "The Book Of Arrows" by poet Mike Amado. She has won both the Barbara Bradley and the Gretchen Warren awards from the New England Poetry Club. Thirteen of her poems were included in "Unlocking the Poem" by Ottone M. Riccio and Ellen Beth Siegal. Nancy and drummer Mike Morin formed "the Poetry and Percussion Duo" and perform Southeaster Mass. She is a student of yoga, and has taught yoga and meditation classes for decades.

There will be an open mic & light refreshments will be served.
Speakers Exhibitors
Wednesday February 15, 2023 1:00pm - 2:00pm EST
Driscoll Gallery, Brockton Public Library

4:00pm EST

Raquel Balboni Book Launch
Wednesday February 15, 2023 4:00pm - 6:00pm EST
Speakers
Wednesday February 15, 2023 4:00pm - 6:00pm EST
Outpost 186
 
Thursday, February 16
 

2:00pm EST

 
Friday, February 17
 

TBA

Patricia Cleary Miller
Friday February 17, 2023 TBA
Friday February 17, 2023 TBA
Grolier Book Shop

7:00pm EST

Small Press Book Club Discusses: Homie by Danez Smith
Friday February 17, 2023 7:00pm - 8:00pm EST
Read something off the beaten path! To contact our moderator email smallpress@brooklinebooksmith.com.

Discussing Homie by Danez Smith

Homie is Danez Smith’s magnificent anthem about the saving grace of friendship. Rooted in the loss of one of Smith’s close friends, this book comes out of the search for joy and intimacy within a nation where both can seem scarce and getting scarcer. In poems of rare power and generosity, Smith acknowledges that in a country overrun by violence, xenophobia, and disparity, and in a body defined by race, queerness, and diagnosis, it can be hard to survive, even harder to remember reasons for living. But then the phone lights up, or a shout comes up to the window, and family—blood and chosen—arrives with just the right food and some redemption. Part friendship diary, part bright elegy, part war cry, Homie is the exuberant new book written for Danez and for Danez’s friends and for you and for yours.

Danez Smith is the author of Don’t Call Us Dead, winner of the Forward Prize for Best Collection and a finalist for the National Book Award, and [insert boy], winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. They live in Minneapolis.



Friday February 17, 2023 7:00pm - 8:00pm EST
Brookline Booksmith
 
Saturday, February 18
 

7:00pm EST

First and Last Word Poetry Series
Saturday February 18, 2023 7:00pm - 8:00pm EST
Saturday February 18, 2023 7:00pm - 8:00pm EST
Arts at the Armory Café
 
Sunday, February 19
 

6:00pm EST

Boston Originals Series
Sunday February 19, 2023 6:00pm - 8:00pm EST
Sunday February 19, 2023 6:00pm - 8:00pm EST
Woodberry Poetry Room Lamont Library, Room 330
 
Monday, February 20
 

TBA

4:15pm EST

History Reconsidered: Poetry Reading with Clint Smith
Monday February 20, 2023 4:15pm - 5:15pm EST
Clint Smith is a doctoral candidate at Harvard University and an Emerson Fellow at New America. His writing has been published in the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic, Poetry Magazine, the Paris Review, and elsewhere. His first full-length collection of poetry, Counting Descent, published in 2016, won the 2017 Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and was a finalist for the NAACP Image Award. His debut nonfiction book, How the Word Is Passed, which explores how different historical sites reckon with—or fail to reckon with—their relationship to the history of slavery, is forthcoming from Little, Brown.
 
The reading will be followed by a Q&A session with Amanda Gorman, 2017 National Youth Poet Laureate.
 
To register, visit www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2020-clint-smith-poetry-reading.
 
This event is part of the Roosevelt Poetry Readings at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. The Roosevelt Poetry Readings are made possible by a donor gift that will help bring poets of recognized stature to the Institute.
 
This event is free. Registration is required. We welcome students (of all levels and institutions) to attend our events.
Monday February 20, 2023 4:15pm - 5:15pm EST
Knafel Auditorium, Radcliffe Institute 10 Garden Street, Cambridge MA

6:00pm EST

Salamander Issue #49 Release Party
Monday February 20, 2023 6:00pm - 8:00pm EST
Please join us to celebrate the release of  Salamander #49, with readings from contributors Moira Linehan, Sonya Larson, and David Moloney!

Light refreshments will be served.
Monday February 20, 2023 6:00pm - 8:00pm EST
Suffolk University Poetry Center
 
Tuesday, February 21
 

7:00pm EST

Breakwater Reading Series February Reading
Tuesday February 21, 2023 7:00pm - 10:00pm EST
Boston's only inter-MFA reading series second reading of 2020, featuring: Anna Hull, Sofia Marlin, Christopher Stelson Wilson, Anita Ballesteros, Christie Towers, and Andria Warren! Come support these readers!

Tuesday February 21, 2023 7:00pm - 10:00pm EST
56 Brattle Street Cambridge

7:30pm EST

The Juke: a Blues Bacchae
Tuesday February 21, 2023 7:30pm - 9:30pm EST
Join us for this foot-stomping, spirit-shaking concert version of an amazing new musical.From the pen of gifted poet/performer Regie Gibson comes this extraordinary adaptation of Euripides' classic tragedy.
Set in the small town of Crossroads, Mississippi, The Juke: A Blues Bacchae chronicles the fight between D'nysus, the divine son of the God of Blues, and his cousin Pent, defender of the Gospel faith, for the soul of the town.
With ear-popping poetic language and great music from gospel to jazz to funk to blues, this powerful human tale is guaranteed to thrill. Performed with a live band and some of Boston's most celebrated musical stars (including Elliot Norton Award Winner Davron Monroe and National Poetry Slam Winner and author Regie Gibson).

To reserve tickets ($10 general admission, $5 Somerville residents), go to https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-juke-a-blues-bacchae-tickets-92029000217/
Tuesday February 21, 2023 7:30pm - 9:30pm EST
Arts at the Armory Café
 
Wednesday, February 22
 

3:00pm EST

Gloria Mindock
Wednesday February 22, 2023 3:00pm - 4:00pm EST
Wednesday February 22, 2023 3:00pm - 4:00pm EST
Arts at the Armory/Basement B8

7:30pm EST

The Juke: A Blues Bacchae
Wednesday February 22, 2023 7:30pm - 9:30pm EST
Join us for this foot-stomping, spirit-shaking concert version of an amazing new musical.From the pen of gifted poet/performer Regie Gibson comes this extraordinary adaptation of Euripides' classic tragedy.
Set in the small town of Crossroads, Mississippi, The Juke: A Blues Bacchae chronicles the fight between D'nysus, the divine son of the God of Blues, and his cousin Pent, defender of the Gospel faith, for the soul of the town.
With ear-popping poetic language and great music from gospel to jazz to funk to blues, this powerful human tale is guaranteed to thrill. Performed with a live band and some of Boston's most celebrated musical stars (including Elliot Norton Award Winner Davron Monroe and National Poetry Slam Winner and author Regie Gibson).

To reserve tickets ($10 general admission, $5 Somerville residents), go to https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-juke-a-blues-bacchae-tickets-92029000217/
Wednesday February 22, 2023 7:30pm - 9:30pm EST
Arts at the Armory Café
 
Thursday, February 23
 

TBA

 
Friday, February 24
 

TBA

7:00pm EST

Black Box Reading Series (Poetry, Fiction, etc)
Friday February 24, 2023 7:00pm - 8:30pm EST
Join us for an evening of fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and drama at the Boston Playwrights' Theatre as BU's MFA fiction and poetry writers (and several alumni) read from their work. On the menu: poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and even a scene from a play. Light snacks and drinks will be served.

Friday February 24, 2023 7:00pm - 8:30pm EST
Boston Playwrights' Theatre 949 Commonwealth Avenue
 
Saturday, February 25
 

TBA

Joan Naviyuk Kane
Saturday February 25, 2023 TBA
Saturday February 25, 2023 TBA
MIT Stata Center

6:00pm EST

 
Sunday, February 26
 

7:15pm EST

The Boston Poetry Slam features RLynn
Sunday February 26, 2023 7:15pm - 11:00pm EST
RLynn is a bartender, visual artist, and poet living in Boston. They’re a Pink Door alumnus, with work in Cosmonauts Ave., maps for teeth, and The Shallow Ends. You can follow them on Instagram.

This show in our weekly Wednesday series takes place at the Cantab Lounge, 738 Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge, with one flight of stairs to access the basement room (click for directions and accessibility information). Doors for the show open at 7:15. The open mic begins at 8:00 and the feature performs at approximately 10:00. The show is 18+ (ID required) and the cover charge is $3.
Speakers
Sunday February 26, 2023 7:15pm - 11:00pm EST
Cantab Lounge
 
Monday, February 27
 

6:00pm EST

Getting to the Point with Richard Blanco
Monday February 27, 2023 6:00pm - 7:30pm EST
Presidential inaugural poet Richard Blanco will visit the Institute for a Getting to the Point discussion on the themes he explores in his recent poetry collection, How to Love a Country, and how Americans can find common ground through shared experiences and ideals.

Richard Blanco was the fifth presidential inaugural poet, serving as poet for President Obama’s second inauguration in 2013. He stands as the youngest, first Latino, immigrant, and gay person to serve in such a role. He is the author of four collections of poetry and three memoirs.

Mr. Blanco will perform a poetry reading as part of the program and will also participate in a book signing.

The event is free and attendees can register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/getting-to-the-point-with-richard-blanco-tickets-90788164845
Speakers
Monday February 27, 2023 6:00pm - 7:30pm EST
Edward M. Kennedy Institute For the U.S. Senate

7:00pm EST

Rozzie Reads Poetry and Open Mic
Monday February 27, 2023 7:00pm - 9:00pm EST
Monday February 27, 2023 7:00pm - 9:00pm EST
Roslindale House
 
Tuesday, February 28
 

7:00pm EST

An Evening With Richard Blanco
Tuesday February 28, 2023 7:00pm - 8:00pm EST
Brookline-Quezalguaque Sister City Project is very proud to present “An Evening With Richard Blanco” during which he will read his poetry and share his reflections. The evening will conclude with a book-signing. All proceeds from this event will be used for our Sister City in Nicaragua to fund projects in the areas of health, education, and more. Most currently, and thanks to generous grants from the Rotary in Brookline and Rotary International, we are engaged in an enormous and life-changing clean water initiative. This October will mark Brookline’s 33rd year anniversary of this Sister City relationship with Quezalguaque.

Tickets can be bought in advance for $25 at brooklinesistercity.org or by sending a check to BQSCP, PO Box 114, Brookline, MA 02446. There will be a list of attendees who have paid in advance at the door. Tickets at the door are $30. Sponsors donating $100 or more are invited to a private reception with Richard Blanco from 6 to 6:45 p.m.

Doors will open at 6:15 and on-street parking is available, but plan to arrive early as the event begins promptly at 7.
Speakers
Tuesday February 28, 2023 7:00pm - 8:00pm EST
Pierce Hall, First Parish in Brookline
 
Friday, March 3
 

6:00pm EST

Marie Howe
Friday March 3, 2023 6:00pm - 7:00pm EST
Friday March 3, 2023 6:00pm - 7:00pm EST
Tufts University

7:00pm EST

Boston Poetry Out Loud Semi-Finals
Friday March 3, 2023 7:00pm - 9:30pm EST
Poetry Out Loud is a national recitation contest that celebrates the power of the spoken word and a mastery of public speaking skills while cultivating self-confidence and an appreciation of students’ literary heritage as they take poetry from the page to the stage. Celebrating 15 years in 2020, Poetry Out Loud has inspired hundreds of thousands of high school students to discover and appreciate both classic and contemporary poetry.

For more information on Poetry Out Loud, visit the official website at poetryoutloud.org. For information about the Massachusetts contests, please contact Meg O'Brien, Director of Education at poetryoutloud@huntingtontheatre.org.

The Boston Semi-Final will be held at the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA, 527 Tremont Street, Boston, MA.

Poetry Out Loud is a national program run by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. The Huntington Theatre Company's Education Department, in partnership with the Mass Cultural Council, are proud to facilitate Poetry Out Loud for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 

**All contests are free and open to the public.
**Ending time for event is approximate
Friday March 3, 2023 7:00pm - 9:30pm EST
Huntington Theatre Company 264 Huntington Avenue, Boston MA 02115
 
Sunday, March 5
 

7:15pm EST

Boston Poetry Slam featuring Susanna Kitrredge
Sunday March 5, 2023 7:15pm - 11:30pm EST
Susanna Kittredge is a schoolteacher and poet from the Boston area. She belongs to the Jamaica Pond Poets, a weekly workshop group that includes several psychologists, a candy-maker, and multiple feisty old ladies. She is also a regular participant at the Brighton Word Factory, a super fun bi-weekly collaborative writing party. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. Susanna is thrilled to announce that her first full-length poetry collection, The Future Has a Reputation, was published by CW Books in January, 2020! You can find links to her work at her website.

An open poetry slam is scheduled for the late-night portion of this show, following the feature. The slam will be speed slam format: eight open sign-ups will be available starting at door time, and poets will slam head-to-head in up to three rounds with time limits of 3, 2, and 1 minute. Winner and runner-up qualify for the 2020 Team Selection series. To volunteer to judge in exchange for free admission to the show, or to ask questions about the slam, email the slam curator at slamseries@bostonpoetryslam.com.

This show in our weekly Wednesday series takes place at the Cantab Lounge, 738 Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge, with one flight of stairs to access the basement room (click for directions and accessibility information). Doors for the show open at 7:15. The open mic begins at 8:00 and the feature performs at approximately 10:00, with the poetry slam to follow. The show is 18+ (ID required) and the cover charge is $3.
Exhibitors
Sunday March 5, 2023 7:15pm - 11:30pm EST
Cantab Lounge
 
Tuesday, March 7
 

7:00pm EST

Poetry at the Y Series ft. Timothy Gager and Sarah Snyder
Tuesday March 7, 2023 7:00pm - 8:00pm EST
Speakers
Tuesday March 7, 2023 7:00pm - 8:00pm EST
West Suburban YMCA
 
Wednesday, March 8
 

4:30pm EST

 
Saturday, March 11
 

7:00pm EST

Poetry Reading and Open Mike
Saturday March 11, 2023 7:00pm - 9:00pm EST
This year’s Poetry Series continues with readings by Wyn Cooper, Nausheen Eusuf and Michael Steffen. An open mike will follow with a limit of one poem per person. Come early to sign up for the open mike; limited slots are available, time permitting. The series is facilitated by Doug Holder of Ibbetson Street Press. Info contact: Doug at dougholder@post.harvard.edu.

Saturday March 11, 2023 7:00pm - 9:00pm EST
Newton Free Library
 
Sunday, March 12
 

7:15pm EDT

Boston Poetry Slam featuring Adam Falkner
Sunday March 12, 2023 7:15pm - 11:30pm EDT
Dr. Adam Falkner is a poet, educator and arts & culture strategist. He is the author of Adoption (winner of the 2017 Diode Editions Chapbook Award) and The Willies (Button Poetry, 2020), and his work has appeared in a range of print and media spaces including on programming for HBO, NBC, NPR, BET, in the New York Times, and elsewhere. A former high school English teacher in New York City’s public schools, Adam is the Founder and Executive Director of the pioneering diversity consulting initiative, the Dialogue Arts Project, in which capacity he develops and facilitates trainings for schools, companies and cultural institutions across the nation. Adam has toured the United States as a guest artist, lecturer and consultant for thousands of students, educators and corporate employees, and was the featured performer at President Obama’s Grassroots Ball at the 2009 Presidential Inauguration. He holds a Ph.D. in English and Education from Columbia University.

An open poetry slam is scheduled for the late-night portion of this show, following the feature. The slam will be speed slam format: eight open sign-ups will be available starting at door time, and poets will slam head-to-head in up to three rounds with time limits of 3, 2, and 1 minute. Winner and runner-up qualify for the 2020 Team Selection series. To volunteer to judge in exchange for free admission to the show, or to ask questions about the slam, email the slam curator at slamseries@bostonpoetryslam.com.

This show in our weekly Wednesday series takes place at the Cantab Lounge, 738 Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge, with one flight of stairs to access the basement room (click for directions and accessibility information). Doors for the show open at 7:15. The open mic begins at 8:00 and the feature performs at approximately 10:00, with the poetry slam to follow. The show is 18+ (ID required) and the cover charge is $3.
Speakers Exhibitors
Sunday March 12, 2023 7:15pm - 11:30pm EDT
Cantab Lounge
 
Tuesday, March 14
 

7:00pm EDT

Matthew Lippman and Jacob Strautmann
Tuesday March 14, 2023 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
Tuesday March 14, 2023 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
Brookline Booksmith

7:00pm EDT

Adam Falkner reading, "The Willies"
Tuesday March 14, 2023 7:00pm - 8:30pm EDT
TBA
Dr. Adam Falkner is a poet, educator and arts & culture strategist. He is the author of "Adoption" (Winner of the 2017 Diode Editions Chapbook Award) and "The Willies" (forthcoming from Button Poetry, 2020), and his work has appeared in a range of print and media spaces including on programming for HBO, NBC, NPR, BET, in the New York Times, and elsewhere.

A former high school English teacher in New York City’s public schools, Adam is the Founder and Executive Director of the pioneering diversity consulting initiative, the Dialogue Arts Project, and Special Projects Director for Urban Word NYC, in which capacity he oversees the New York City Youth Poet Laureate program, and the organization’s partnerships with corporate and cultural institutions across the country. Adam has toured the United States as a guest artist, lecturer and trainer for thousands of students, educators and culture workers, and was the featured performer at President Obama’s Grassroots Ball at the 2009 Presidential Inauguration. He holds a Ph.D. in English and Education from Columbia University.
Speakers
Tuesday March 14, 2023 7:00pm - 8:30pm EDT
TBA

7:30pm EDT

CANCELED - Chapter and Verse Literary Reading Series
Tuesday March 14, 2023 7:30pm - 8:30pm EDT
TBA
hapter and Verse is a free literary reading series sponsored by the Jamaica Pond Poets, usually on the second Friday of the month, from October through May. The events take place at the Loring Greenough House in Jamaica Plain at 7:30 PM. The operating committee members are  Dorothy Derifield, Sandra Storey, Susanna Kittridge, Jennifer Markell, and Alan Smith Soto
There are three readers followed by free refreshments. Open to all. Please join us. A $5.00 donation is requested but not required.For more information, contact dorothy.derifield@gmail.com
Tuesday March 14, 2023 7:30pm - 8:30pm EDT
TBA
 
Saturday, March 18
 

7:00pm EDT

CANCELLED - David Ferry
Saturday March 18, 2023 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
Saturday March 18, 2023 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
Suffolk University Poetry Center

7:00pm EDT

Poets & Plants
Saturday March 18, 2023 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
Saturday March 18, 2023 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
Pemberton Farms
 
Sunday, March 19
 

7:15pm EDT

Boston Poetry Slam featuring Lip Manegio
Sunday March 19, 2023 7:15pm - 11:30pm EDT
Lip Manegio (they/them) is a Pushcart nominated writer, organizer, & cryptid who is learning to be unapologetically in love with life. They are currently pursuing a BFA in creative writing with a minor in art history at Emerson College, where they also serve as co-president of the Emerson Poetry Project.

They represented Emerson at CUPSI 2018 & 2019, have appeared on finals stages at FEMS & Capturing Fire, and were on the winning team at Vox Pop 2018. Their work has appeared in Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Puerto del Sol, tenderness lit, Gordon Square Review, Tin House, and elsewhere. Their debut chapbook, We’ve All Seen Helena, a collection of poems about queerness, survival, & My Chemical Romance, is available now from Game Over Books.

An open poetry slam is scheduled for the late-night portion of this show, following the feature. The slam will be speed slam format: eight open sign-ups will be available starting at door time, and poets will slam head-to-head in up to three rounds with time limits of 3, 2, and 1 minute. Winner and runner-up qualify for the 2020 Team Selection series. To volunteer to judge in exchange for free admission to the show, or to ask questions about the slam, email the slam curator at slamseries@bostonpoetryslam.com.

This show in our weekly Wednesday series takes place at the Cantab Lounge, 738 Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge, with one flight of stairs to access the basement room (click for directions and accessibility information). Doors for the show open at 7:15. The open mic begins at 8:00 and the feature performs at approximately 10:00, with the poetry slam to follow. The show is 18+ (ID required) and the cover charge is $3.
Speakers Exhibitors
Sunday March 19, 2023 7:15pm - 11:30pm EDT
Cantab Lounge
 
Wednesday, March 22
 

7:00pm EDT

Solidarity Salon
Wednesday March 22, 2023 7:00pm - 9:00pm EDT
The Solidarity Salon features a variety of creative artists who are women, people of color, immigrants, LGBTQ and/or differently-abled. Admission is free but donations are accepted. The donations recipient for our March 21 event will be Abilities Dance Boston.
Wednesday March 22, 2023 7:00pm - 9:00pm EDT
The Community Church of Boston
 
Thursday, March 23
 

3:00pm EDT

John Mulrooney and Danielle Legros Georges @ Xit the Bear Reading Series
Thursday March 23, 2023 3:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
Speakers
Thursday March 23, 2023 3:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
The Press Room
 
Friday, March 24
 

6:00pm EDT

Poetry Reading by Mary Szybist
Friday March 24, 2023 6:00pm - 7:00pm EDT
Mary Szybist is the author of Incarnadine (Graywolf Press, 2013), winner of the 2013 National Book Award for Poetry, and Granted (Alice James Books, 2003), winner of the 2003 Beatrice Hawley Award from Alice James Books and the 2004 Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award. She is also the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, and the Witter Bynner Foundation. She teaches at Lewis & Clark College and lives in Portland, Oregon.

Speakers
Friday March 24, 2023 6:00pm - 7:00pm EDT
Katzenberg Center, 3rd floor, CGS

7:00pm EDT

Nixes Mate Poetry Reading/Book Launch
Friday March 24, 2023 7:00pm - 9:00pm EDT
Nixes Mate is a navigational hazard in Boston Harbor. 42° 19' 47.9" North · 70° 56' 43.9" West
They want to challenge the preconceived notions of reading on the web by using off-the-shelf technology to build a best-in-breed literary magazine. More than a magazine, it's a website. They feature small-batch artisanal literature, created by writers who've been honing their craft the time-honored way: one line at a time.
About the Authors
David P. Miller’s chapbook, The Afterimages, was published by Červená Barva Press. He received degrees in theater at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst and Emerson College, and librarianship from Simmons College. For twenty-five years, he was a member of the Mobius Artists Group of Boston, creating his own performance art pieces and collaborating on performances of original experimental work, as well as pieces by John Cage, Gertrude Stein, and Jackson Mac Low. In 2018, he retired from Curry College in Milton, Massachusetts, where he was a librarian for twenty-six years. A resident of Boston since 1978, he lives in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood with his wife, the visual artist Jane Wiley.
Brad Rose was born and raised in Los Angeles and lives in Boston. He is the author of a collection of poetry and flash fiction, Pink X-Ray (Big Table Publishing, 2015, http://pinkx-ray.com and Amazon.com.) His two new books of poems, Momentary Turbulence and WordinEdgeWise, are forthcoming from Cervena Barva Press. Brad is also the author of five chapbooks of poetry and flash fiction, Democracy of Secrets, Coyotes Circle the Party Store, Dancing School Nerves, An Evil Twin is Always in Good Companyand Away with Words. Three times nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and once nominated for Best of the Net Anthology, Brad’s poetry and micro fiction have appeared in, The American Journal of Poetry, The Los Angeles Times, Folio, decomP, Lunch Ticket, The Baltimore ReviewPositOff the Coast, Clockhouse, and other publications.


Event date:
Monday, March 23, 2020 - 7:00pm


Event address:
338 Newbury Street
Boston, MA 02115
Speakers
Friday March 24, 2023 7:00pm - 9:00pm EDT
Trident Bookstore
 
Monday, March 27
 

7:00pm EDT

Rozzie Reads Poetry and Open Mic
Monday March 27, 2023 7:00pm - 9:00pm EDT
 Kathleen McCann lives in Weymouth, Massachusetts, by the sea. She has two chapbooks: The Small Hours, and The Sea’s Rosary in print and two full-length collections: A Roof Gone To Sky, and Barn Sour. New poems are forthcoming in Poetry Ireland and New American Writing. One of her poems, Lone Egret, was selected by Ted Kooser for his syndicated newspaper column: American Life in Poetry.
David P. Miller’s collection, Sprawled Asleep, was published by Nixes Mate Books in 2019. Poems have recently appeared in Meat for Tea, Hawaii Pacific Review, Turtle Island Quarterly, Clementine Unbound, Constellations, J Journal, The Lily Poetry Review, Unlost, Ibbetson Street, and What Rough Beast. His poem “Add One Father to Earth” was awarded an Honorable Mention by Robert Pinsky for the New England Poetry Club's 2019 Samuel Washington Allen Prize competition
Speakers
Monday March 27, 2023 7:00pm - 9:00pm EDT
Roslindale House
 
Wednesday, March 29
 

4:00pm EDT

Alec Solomita and Philip Nikolayev
Wednesday March 29, 2023 4:00pm - 6:00pm EDT
Wednesday March 29, 2023 4:00pm - 6:00pm EDT
Outpost 186

4:00pm EDT

The Liminal Reading Series
Wednesday March 29, 2023 4:00pm - 6:00pm EDT
Alysia Abbott reads Steve Abbott and Jim Cory reads Karl Tierney
Wednesday March 29, 2023 4:00pm - 6:00pm EDT
MIT Press Bookstore

6:00pm EDT

IAWA Open Mic and Featured Reading
Wednesday March 29, 2023 6:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
Wednesday March 29, 2023 6:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
I Am Books
 
Friday, March 31
 

6:00pm EDT

Irish Voices: Poetry Reading by Alan Gillis and David Wheatley
Friday March 31, 2023 6:00pm - 7:00pm EDT
Alan Gillis teaches creative writing as well as modern and contemporary poetry at the University of Edinburgh. Alan Gillis's books of poetry include Somebody, Somewhere (2004), Hawks and Doves (2007), which was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize, and Scapegoat (2014), all published by The Gallery Press. As a critic, he is author of Irish Poetry of the 1930s (Oxford University Press, 2005). Gillis co-edited The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Poetry (OUP, 2011) with Fran Brearton. He was the editor of Edinburgh Review from 2010 to 2015.

David Wheatley was born in Dublin and is the author of five poetry collections with The Gallery Press, including A Nest on the Waves (2010) and The President of Planet Earth (2017), which was shortlisted for The Irish Times Poetry Now Award, and the critical study Contemporary British Poetry (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). He has edited the work of James Clarence Mangan for The Gallery Press, Samuel Beckett’s Selected Poems 1930–1989 for Faber and Faber, and The Wake Forest Series of Irish Poetry, Vol. IV (WFU Press, 2017). His writing has won various prizes, including the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the Vincent Buckley Prize, and the Friends Provident (Irish) National Irish Poetry Competition. He lives in rural Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
Friday March 31, 2023 6:00pm - 7:00pm EDT
Katzenberg Center, 3rd floor, CGS
 
Sunday, April 2
 

5:15pm EDT

POSTPONED - Harvard Divinity School Ingersoll Lecture with Anne Carson
Sunday April 2, 2023 5:15pm - 6:30pm EDT
We are delighted to invite you to this year's Harvard Divinity School Ingersoll Lecture on the Immortality of Man, “A Lecture on the History of Skywriting,” by poet, essayist, translator, and Professor of Classics Anne Carson.  Organized and sponsored jointly by the Center for the Study of World Religions and Harvard Divinity School as well as the Woodberry Poetry Room at Harvard University, this special event will take place on Wednesday, April 1, 2020, from 5:15 to 6:30 pm at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in the Norton’s Woods Conference Center (136 Irving Street, Cambridge).  Books will be sold at the event by The Coop.
 
Kindly note that seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.  
Speakers
Sunday April 2, 2023 5:15pm - 6:30pm EDT
Norton's Woods Conference Center

7:00pm EDT

Brandon Melendez & Courtney LeBlanc @ Porter Square Books
Sunday April 2, 2023 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
TBA
Join Write Bloody poet Brandon Melendez and Vegetarian Alcoholic Press poet Courtney LeBlanc as they kick off National Poetry Month with a reading from their newest books featuring poems about love, loss, home, violence, grief, family, and hope.


Sunday April 2, 2023 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
TBA
 
Sunday, April 9
 

6:00pm EDT

 
Monday, April 10
 

6:00pm EDT

6:30pm EDT

Nick Flynn--Stay
Monday April 10, 2023 6:30pm - 8:00pm EDT
Join artist Daniel Heyman for a conversation with Nick Flynn about collaboration. With his new book Stay, acclaimed poet, artist, and bestselling memoirist Nick Flynn presents a self-portrait via a constellation of topics that have circled his work. Ranging from the impact of suicide and homelessness to addiction, political engagement, and the vital power of artistic friendships, Stay is a mixed-media retrospective that shows nothing is created in isolation. Mirroring Flynn’s life, this work of visual and literary memoir is populated by examples of his collaborations since the 1980s with such luminaries as the photographers Amy Arbus and Catherine Opie, composer Guy Barash, actor Robert De Niro, cartoonist Josh Neufeld, author Sarah Sentilles, filmmaker Paul Weitz, and artists John Baldessari, Marilyn Minter, and Bill Shuck. In Flynn’s refusal to conform to narrative or the safety of his own perspective, Stay grasps for an essential truth, an answer to what art, in the end, can and cannot reflect.

The event will also feature performances by tK (Thalia Zedek, Heather Kapplow, and Phil Milstein), as well as a reading by City of Boston Youth Poet Laureate Alondra Bobadilla.
Monday April 10, 2023 6:30pm - 8:00pm EDT
Boston Public Library's Main Branch
 
Saturday, April 15
 

7:30pm EDT

Natasha Trethewey and Megan Fernandes : Robert Lowell Memorial Lecture Series
Saturday April 15, 2023 7:30pm - 8:30pm EDT
Reception to follow at BU Castle
Saturday April 15, 2023 7:30pm - 8:30pm EDT
Leventhal Center Auditorium 233 Bay State Rd.
 
Wednesday, April 19
 

4:00pm EDT

The Liminal Reading Series
Wednesday April 19, 2023 4:00pm - 5:00pm EDT
Wednesday April 19, 2023 4:00pm - 5:00pm EDT
MIT Press Bookstore
 
Sunday, April 23
 

7:00pm EDT

Omar Sakr, George Abraham, Chen Chen, and moira j
Sunday April 23, 2023 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
n The Lost Arabs, Award-winning Arab Australian poet Omar Sakr presents a pulsating collection of poetry that interrogates the bonds and borders of family, faith, queerness, and nationality.

George Abraham’s highly anticipated debut Birthright constructs a dialogue in which “every pronoun is a Free Palestine.” Through poems of immense emotion, and the use of alluring form, Abraham crafts work that examines what we come to own by existing.

Chen Chen’s award-winning debut, When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities, interrogates the fragile, inherited ways of approaching love and family from Asian American, immigrant, and queer perspectives.

Bury Me in Thunder, the full-length debut by moira j., is an eviscerating collection, suffused with nature, ceremony, and pain. Delivering an unflinching look into the consumption of Indigenous people, this collection sheds new light on the colonization of North America and how trauma is carried through intergenerational memory.

Omar Sakr is a bisexual Muslim poet born and raised in Western Sydney to Lebanese and Turkish migrants. His debut collection These Wild Houses (2017) was shortlisted for the Judith Wright Calanthe Award and the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry. Omar’s poems have been published in English, Arabic, and Spanish, featuring or forthcoming in the American Academy of Poets Poem-A-Day series, Prairie Schooner, The Margins, Tinderbox, Wildness, Peril, Circulo de Poesía, Overland, Meanjin, and Antic, among others. Anthologized in Best Australian Poems 2016 and in Contemporary Australian Poetry, he is the 2019 recipient of the Edward Stanley Award for Poetry.

George Abraham is a Palestinian American poet from Jacksonville, Florida. They are the author of Birthright (Button Poetry, 2020), and the chapbooks: the specimen’s apology (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2019) and al youm (TAR, 2017). He is a Kundiman and Watering Hole fellow, and recipient of the College Union Poetry Slam International’s Best Poet title. Their work has been published with the Paris Review, American Poetry Review, LitHub, Poem-A-Day, and Bettering American Poetry. He is currently based in Massachusetts, where he is a PhD candidate in Bioengineering at Harvard University.

Chen Chen was born in Xiamen, China, and grew up in Massachusetts. His work has appeared in two chapbooks and in such publications as Poetry, Gulf Coast, Indiana Review, Best of the Net, and The Best American Poetry. The recipient of the 2016 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize, he has been awarded fellowships from Kundiman, the Saltonstall Foundation, Lambda Literary, and in 2015, he was a finalist for the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowships. He earned his BA at Hampshire College and his MFA at Syracuse University. Currently, he is pursuing a PhD in English and Creative Writing at Texas Tech University. Chen lives in Lubbock, Texas, with his partner, Jeff Gilbert, and their pug dog, Rupert Giles.

moira j. is an agender writer of Dził Łigai Si’an N’dee descent. They are the winner of the 2018 Pacific Spirit Poetry Prize and are Frontier Poetry’s 2019 Frontier New Voices Fellow. moira j.’s writing examines narratives of indigeneity, queerness, gender, sex, kinship, and illness. Their work has been featured with many publications, including The Shallow Ends, WILDNESS, and PRISM International. They currently live with their partner in the occupied Massachusett homelands of Nutohkemminnit (Greater Boston, Massachusetts).

https://www.brooklinebooksmith.com/events/2020-04/omar-sakr-george-abraham-ad-chen-chen/
Sunday April 23, 2023 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
Brookline Booksmith
 
Monday, April 24
 

7:00pm EDT

Memorial Reading for Jane Kenyon
Monday April 24, 2023 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
TBA
Monday April 24, 2023 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
TBA

7:00pm EDT

Rozzie Reads Poetry and Open Microphone
Monday April 24, 2023 7:00pm - 9:00pm EDT
Free event. After featured readers, a break for refreshments followed by open mic. On-street parking and in unnumbered spaces, as well as at rear of building,.
Monday April 24, 2023 7:00pm - 9:00pm EDT
Roslindale House
 
Wednesday, April 26
 

6:00pm EDT

Christine Casson and Rita Ciresi
Wednesday April 26, 2023 6:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
Speakers
Wednesday April 26, 2023 6:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
I Am Books
 
Sunday, April 30
 

6:00pm EDT

 
Monday, May 1
 

6:00pm EDT

HERE ALL NIGHT: POETRY & COCKTAILS
Monday May 1, 2023 6:00pm - 7:00pm EDT
Registration is requested

Members $20 and Non-members $30
Here All Night: Poetry & Cocktailswith Jill McDonough

Join acclaimed poet Jill McDonough for a night of poetry and themed cocktails. Her latest collection is a fiercely unapologetic, transforming mundane moments into witty and provocative insights that closely examine the flaws in our quick-moving society. Using dark humor, the poems address the impermanence of life and how we should always find reasons to re-evaluate ourselves as empathetic beings over our selfish tendencies.
Jill McDonough is the author of Habeas Corpus (Salt, 2008), Oh, James! (Seven Kitchens, 2012), Where You Live (Salt, 2012), Reaper (Alice James, 2017), and Here All Night (Alice James, 2019). The recipient of three Pushcart prizes and fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fine Arts Work Center, the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress, and Stanford’s Stegner program, she taught incarcerated college students through Boston University’s Prison Education Program for thirteen years.  Her work has appeared in Poetry, Slate, The Nation, The Threepenny Review, and Best American Poetry.  She teaches in the MFA program at UMass-Boston and offers College Reading and Writing at a Boston jail. Her website is jillmcdonough.com.
Monday May 1, 2023 6:00pm - 7:00pm EDT
Boston Athenæum 10½ Beacon Street, Boston, MA
 
Thursday, May 18
 

3:00pm EDT

Arrowsmith Press: Spring 2020 Book Launch
Thursday May 18, 2023 3:00pm - 5:00pm EDT
Our writers will be reading from Arrowsmith's Spring 2020 publications:


Peter Balakian is the author of 8 books of poems, 4 books of prose, 3 collaborative translations and several edited books. “No Sign,” is the title poem of Balakian’s forthcoming book of poems. Ozone Journal won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for poetry, Black Dog of Fate, a memoir won the 1998 PEN/Martha Albrand Prize for the Art of the Memoir; The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response won the 2005 Raphael Lemkin Prize. His collaborative translations include two books by Grigoris Balakian: Armenian Golgotha: A Memoir of the Armenian Genocide and The Ruins of Ani. Among his other books of prose is Vice and Shadow: Essays on the Lyric Imagination, Poetry, Art, and Culture. His work has been translated into more than a dozen languages. Balakian is the recipient of many awards and prizes and civic citations including the Presidential Medal from the Republic of Armenia, Guggenheim and NEA Fellowships, The Spendlove Prize for Social Justice, Tolerance, and Diplomacy, and The Emily Clark Balch Prize for poetry from the Virginia Quarterly Review. He is Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor of the Humanities in the department of English and Director of Creative Writing at Colgate University.

Scott Harney (1955-2019) was a practicing poet who, aside from a few early publications in the Somerville Community News, did not publish during his lifetime, leaving a significant body of work to be discovered by readers after his death. He grew up in and around Boston, graduating from Charlestown High School and Harvard College. His literary influences include Robert Lowell and Jane Shore, with whom he studied at Harvard in the 1970s, as well as Richard Hugo and Philip Levine.

Megan Marshall is the winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in Biography for Margaret Fuller. She is also the author of The Peabody Sisters, which won the Francis Parkman Prize, the Mark Lynton History Prize and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2006, and 2017's Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast. She is the Charles Wesley Emerson College Professor and teaches narrative nonfiction and the art of archival research in the MFA program at Emerson College.

Kythe Heller is a poet, essayist, multimedia artist, and scholar who received an MDiv at Harvard Divinity School and is currently completing a doctorate at Harvard University in Comparative Religion and Arts and Media Practice. She is also a practitioner of Sufism and a student of M.R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen. Her published work includes two poetry chapbooks, Immolation (Monk Honey) and Thunder (Wick: Harvard Divinity School), the philosophical monograph “An Ethnography of Spirituality” (Cambridge UP), an essay in the anthology Quo Anima: spirituality and innovation in contemporary women’s poetry (Akron Series in Contemporary Poetics), and poems and essays published in American Poetry Review, Tricycle, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. Her work has been supported by grants and fellowships from Harvard University, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, The Mellon Foundation, The MacDowell Colony, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Vermont Studio Center, and Squaw Valley Community of Writers. While completing an MFA at Sarah Lawrence College, she created a literacy and creative arts program at the Coachman Family Homeless Shelter in White Plains, New York; she has also worked and taught through the Bard Prison Initiative, Janus Youth Shelters, Bradley-Angle Women’s Shelter, and Yellow Brick Road Street Outreach; currently she is a teaching fellow at Harvard University and on the faculty of the Language and Thinking Program at Bard College. In 2017, she founded VISION LAB, a collective of creatives working across spirituality, the arts, social and environmental justice, and technology.

Winner of Arrowsmith's Ramaswamy Prize, Oksana Zabuzhko is one of Ukraine’s best known and most important public intellectuals. Her controversial novel, Field Work in Ukrainian Sex, is widely regarded as a contemporary classic and has been translated into more than a dozen languages. Her most recent novel, Museum of Abandoned Secrets, explores the untold stories of Soviet life in the second half of the twentieth century. Zabuzhko has been a Fulbright scholar, and has taught Ukrainian literature at Penn State, Pittsburgh University, and Harvard. Her book Notre-dame d’Ukraine is a cultural study focused on the work of the fin-de-siecle writer Lesia Ukrainka. Founding editor of Komora Publishers, she works at the Hryhori Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy at the National Academy of Sciences in Ukraine.
Thursday May 18, 2023 3:00pm - 5:00pm EDT
First Parish Church
 
Saturday, June 10
 

6:00pm EDT

Lit Crawl: Mass Poetry Presents Poems To Go featuring the Traveling Poetry Emporium
Saturday June 10, 2023 6:00pm - 9:00pm EDT
Get your quick poetry fix! Mass Poetry presents the Traveling Poetry Emporium: poets Cassandra de Alba and Julia Story will offer poems-to-order on your subject, composed right before your eyes. Visitors to this booth can name any topic—large or small, real or imagined, object-specific or broadly thematic. One of the Emporium's poets will compose an original poem on your topic within five minutes, typed on a manual Hermes typewriter. The poet will read the poem aloud before handing you the only existing copy of the poem, which is yours to keep. Come with five minutes and leave with a one-of-a-kind made-to-order poem!

About LitCrawl
Lit Crawl features more than a dozen separate readings, performances, and interactive
games—all held outdoors in some of Cambridge’s hippest restaurant patios and performance
venues. This year’s event will have all of the quirky and unexpected fun that Lit Crawl attendees
have come to expect, but in order to manage capacities at our host venues, we need to institute
some new policies this year. These include requiring registration (free through Eventbrite for
events at Starlight Square, $15 for events at restaurants) for all events unless otherwise noted--
attendees must register separately for each session. The full schedule and registration link can be found here: https://bostonbookfest.org/year-round-events/lit-crawl-boston/

The Traveling Poetry Emporium Poets
Cassandra de Alba is a poet living in Massachusetts. Her chapbooks are habitats (Horse Less Press, 2016), Ugly/Sad (Glass Poetry Press, 2020) and Cryptids (Ginger Bug Press, 2020). Her work has appeared in The Shallow Ends, Big Lucks, and Wax Nine, among other publications. She is a poetry reader for Underblong and an instructor at the Redbud Writing Project.

Julia Story is the author of Post Moxie (Sarabande Books) and the chapbooks The Trapdoor (dancing girl press) and Julie the Astonishing (Sixth Finch Books). She is a 2016 recipient of a Pushcart Prize and her recent work can be read in Sixth Finch, Tinderbox, and Tupelo Quarterly. She is a Midwesterner who now lives in Massachusetts.

Saturday June 10, 2023 6:00pm - 9:00pm EDT
Starlight Square

7:00pm EDT

Daniel Johnson & Anthony Febo
Saturday June 10, 2023 7:00pm - 9:00pm EDT
Anthony Febo is a Puerto Rican poet, artist, and new dad living in Malden, MA. Febo has been performing and teaching poetry and theatre for over a decade in the greater Boston area. He was featured as part of WBUR’s The ARTery 25 as an artist to watch. In the classroom, Febo treats each workshop as it’s own celebration. He draws on his experiences from his time in theatre spaces, museums, non-profits, and art centers. On the stage, he has toured the country individually and as half of Adobo-Fish-Sauce: a cooking and poetry collaboration. His work examines what it means to actively choose joy in the face of what is trying to break you. Weaving performance into his writing, he examines issues such as toxic masculinity, family, culture, identity, and the role representation plays into a person’s development. His first full length book of poetry, Becoming an Island, can be purchased at Game Over Books. Visit him online at https://www.thisisfebo.com and https://adobofishsauce.com.

Daniel Johnson is the author of How to Catch a Falling Knife, published by Alice James Books. In 2018, he was commissioned to compose lines of poetry for the twin memorials honoring those killed and wounded in the Boston Marathon bombings. His writing has appeared in Tin House, The Iowa Review, The Best American Poetry, Boston Review, jubilat, and elsewhere. He recently completed his second volume of poems, Shadow Act, an Elegy for American Journalist James Foley. He currently serves as the executive director of Mass Poetry.

Registration link:
https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcqcOmqqD8qH9TCLl0s1RWEaXIjjlFt27wC


Facebook event:
https://www.facebook.com/events/752107948763238

Saturday June 10, 2023 7:00pm - 9:00pm EDT
Menino Arts Center
 
Monday, September 11
 

3:30pm EDT

Benefit for the Boston National Poetry Month Festival, 2018 Sonia
Monday September 11, 2023 3:30pm - 5:30pm EDT
Purchase tickets online or at the door
Monday September 11, 2023 3:30pm - 5:30pm EDT
10 Brookline Ave, Cambridge MA
 
Wednesday, September 13
 

5:00pm EDT

Mass Poetry Unplugged at Prudential Center
Wednesday September 13, 2023 5:00pm - 7:00pm EDT
Join Mass Poetry for a series of readings at The Prudential Center in Boston. Aaron Smith, Enzo Silon Surin and Amy Mevorach will perform their work in the outdoor courtyard, Boylston Plaza at 800 Boylston St., Tuesday, September 12th from 5 - 7 pm.
Wednesday September 13, 2023 5:00pm - 7:00pm EDT
Boylston Plaza

6:00pm EDT

6:00pm EDT

Poetry Reading
Wednesday September 13, 2023 6:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
Wednesday September 13, 2023 6:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
Cambridge Public Library

7:00pm EDT

Chuck Carlise Poetry Reading and Book Signing
Wednesday September 13, 2023 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
IN ONE VERSION OF THE STORY is a lyric exploration of the ways human beings confront desire, loss and absence by creating stories. It begins with from the French folk legend of “l’Inconnue de la Seine”—the unidentified young woman who drowned herself in Paris in the 1880s, and whose (unauthorized) death mask was eventually cast as the face of Resusci-Anne CPR training dummies—but eventually the book encompasses a chronicle of personal loss, a history of photography, a study of the mechanics of breathing, and a solo climb to the rim of a Mediterranean volcano. Ultimately, it is story-making itself which is interrogated, however the book seeks not to recreate narratives, but rather to understand why they matter—why and how we give them the meaning that we do.
Wednesday September 13, 2023 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
Trident Booksellers & Cafe
 
Friday, September 15
 

7:00pm EDT

Caroline Smith Poetry Reading
Friday September 15, 2023 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
Friday September 15, 2023 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
Grolier Book Shop

7:00pm EDT

Caroline Smith
Friday September 15, 2023 7:00pm - 8:30pm EDT
Friday September 15, 2023 7:00pm - 8:30pm EDT
Grolier Book Shop
 
Sunday, September 17
 

4:00pm EDT

Boston AIR 2.0 Celebration
Sunday September 17, 2023 4:00pm - 7:00pm EDT
Join us at the Emerson Urban Arts Media Art Gallery on Saturday, September 16th, as we celebrate the culmination of the second year of Boston Artists in Residence.

Meet the artists and community members! Celebrate diverse art making in Boston! Join our conversation on the importance of civic practice, social justice, and resiliency!

Music, film screenings, light snacks, and beverages! 

Remarks by BCYF Commissioner Will Morales will begin at 5 PM. Followed by an artist panel moderated by BAC and Boston AIR Director Karin Goodfellow.
Sunday September 17, 2023 4:00pm - 7:00pm EDT
Emerson Urban Arts Media Gallery 25 Avery St, Boston, MA 02111-1004
 
Monday, September 18
 

2:00pm EDT

Brookline Poetry Series
Monday September 18, 2023 2:00pm - 3:30pm EDT
TBA
Monday September 18, 2023 2:00pm - 3:30pm EDT
TBA

2:00pm EDT

Plein Air Poetry Walk
Monday September 18, 2023 2:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
Monday September 18, 2023 2:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
Old Frog Pond Farm & Studio
 
Tuesday, September 19
 

4:00pm EDT

teXtmoVes
Tuesday September 19, 2023 4:00pm - 5:30pm EDT
A poetry/dance/music interdisciplinary adventure with live performances and 2 streamed videos of diverse stylistic and thematic collaborations of an individual poet, dancer(s), music sometimes recorded, sometimes live.
Tuesday September 19, 2023 4:00pm - 5:30pm EDT
Starlight Square
 
Wednesday, September 20
 

9:00am EDT

Kerri French, Jennifer Militello, and Sarah Sweeney
Wednesday September 20, 2023 9:00am - 9:30am EDT
Wednesday September 20, 2023 9:00am - 9:30am EDT
Trident Booksellers & Cafe
 
Monday, September 25
 

6:30pm EDT

A Celebration of Leonard Cohen In Song, Dance, & Poetry
Monday September 25, 2023 6:30pm - 9:00pm EDT
Speakers
Monday September 25, 2023 6:30pm - 9:00pm EDT
Arts and the Armory main stage
 
Tuesday, September 26
 

12:00pm EDT

Joanna Klink and Monica Youn Stratis Haviaras Poetry Reading
Tuesday September 26, 2023 12:00pm - 1:00pm EDT
Speakers
Tuesday September 26, 2023 12:00pm - 1:00pm EDT
Thompson Room
 
Wednesday, September 27
 

5:00pm EDT

Mass Poetry Unplugged at Prudential Center
Wednesday September 27, 2023 5:00pm - 7:00pm EDT
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.
Wednesday September 27, 2023 5:00pm - 7:00pm EDT
Boylston Plaza
 
Thursday, September 28
 

6:30pm EDT

6:30pm EDT

Why Thoreau Still Matters: Lessons on Environmentalism & Civil Disobedience
Thursday September 28, 2023 6:30pm - 8:00pm EDT
200 years after Henry David Thoreau’s birth in Concord, Massachusetts, a distinguished panel will consider Thoreau’s lessons for today’s world. Explore how Thoreau’s ideas have informed 21st-century civil disobedience and contemporary conversations about humans’ relationships with the natural world.
Panelists will include artist and filmmaker PAUL TURANO (Wander, Wonder, Wilderness), LAURA DASSOW WALLS, author of the new biography, Henry David Thoreau: A Life, acclaimed memoirist HOWARD AXELROD(The Point of Vanishing), MARIA MADISON, president of The Robbins House: Concord’s African American History historic site, and the Rev. FRED SMALL, Minister for Climate Justice at Arlington Street Church.
This event is part of the series “Boston is Thoreau Country: A Multimedia Series Celebrating Thoreau’s Legacy in the Hub,” Co-Presented by Old South Meeting House, The Thoreau Society, and the Boston Literary District and co-sponsored by The Walden Woods Project. CHRISTOPHER LYDON (WBUR Radio host, “Open Source with Christopher Lydon”) will moderate the event.
This program is made possible with funding from the Lowell Institute. Free and open to the public, registration is requested here.
Thursday September 28, 2023 6:30pm - 8:00pm EDT
Old South Meeting House

7:00pm EDT

Michelle Hoover, Patricia Horvath, and Sam Witt Poetry Reading
Thursday September 28, 2023 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
TBA
Thursday September 28, 2023 7:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
TBA
 
Friday, September 29
 

6:00pm EDT

Black Orators: By Word and By Pen
Friday September 29, 2023 6:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
Join us for an evening of history, poetry and music.  
The program is a poetic and musical dedication to the unwavering persistence shared in three literary giants:  Maria Stewart (1803-1879), David Walker (c.1797-1830) and Samuel Allen (1917-2015).
Maria Stewart was the first woman to speak to a mixed-gender audience in public to address political topics. David Walker wrote and published An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World.  As orators and publishers, both contributed to the African American literary canon. Maria Stewart and David Walker were good friends and neighbors on Joy Street.  After David died, Maria often quoted him and his efforts to unite black people. 
 
Samuel Allen, whose pen name was Paul Vesey, began his literary career in Europe where he was a contemporary of Richard Wright and James Baldwin.  First recognized in Europe in the late 1940s and early 1950s, his reputation spread to the U.S. in the 1960s.  His poetry books include Ivory Tusks and Other Poems and Paul Vesey’s Ledger.  Allen served on the Board of the Museum of African American History for over ten years.
 
L’Merchie Frazier, Director of Education, Museum of African American History will provide historical context.  Castle of Our Skins musicians will perform the work of black composers including String Quartets by Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson. Spoken word artist, Regie Gibson, will recite original poetry and select readings from the pens of Stewart, Walker and Allen. 

7:30pm EDT

 
Saturday, November 18
 

7:00pm EST

Evening of Inspired Leaders
Saturday November 18, 2023 7:00pm - 8:00pm EST
We are proud to announce Mass Poetry’s seventh annual Evening of Inspired Leaders, which brings together exceptional leaders from diverse fields to each read their favorite poem and reflect on its connection to their life and work. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are now planning a hybrid event, which will take place on Thursday, November 18, 2021, from 7-8 PM online and live at GrubStreet’s new Center for Creative Writing in Boston’s Seaport.

At Evening of Inspired Leaders we come together for inspiration, for poetry that speaks to our hearts, to our spirits, and to this moment, in all its complexity.

Funds raised at Evening of Inspired Leaders will help Mass Poetry produce its dynamic roster of free and low-cost poetry programs for thousands of people, young and old, across Massachusetts.
Saturday November 18, 2023 7:00pm - 8:00pm EST
GrubStreet's Center for Creative Writing
 
Thursday, December 14
 

7:30pm EST

Solidarity Salon: poems & stories with music & dance!
Thursday December 14, 2023 7:30pm - 9:30pm EST
The Solidarity Salon gathers together local poets, writers, and other artists to share their creations in community spaces. The series aims to especially amplify the voices of women, people of color, immigrants, and LGBTQ persons. Our event on December 14 will feature seven local writers, joined by musicians In Paik and Ju Hee Kang, plus dancer Liliana Jimenez. Donations collected at this event will go to On the Rise (https://www.ontherise.org/) in support of their Voices Together writing program. For more event info: https://thepoetpianist.com/home-2/music/
Thursday December 14, 2023 7:30pm - 9:30pm EST
The Lilypad 1353 Cambridge St. Cambridge
 
Friday, December 15
 

2:00pm EST

Brookline Poetry Series: Alan Shapiro and Dorian Kotsiopoulos
Friday December 15, 2023 2:00pm - 4:00pm EST
December 15, 2019
Featured Reader: Alan Shapiro
Alan Shapiro has published many poetry collections (including Reel to Reel, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and Night of the Republic, finalist for both the National Book Award and the International Griffin Prize), four books of prose, including The Last Happy Occasion, finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Winner of the Kingsley Tufts Award, LA Times Book Prize, an award in literature from The American Academy of Arts and Letters, and The William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America, he is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Recent books include Life Pig (poems), That Self-Forgetful Perfectly Useless Concentration (essays), and his latest, Against Translation (poems), all from University of Chicago press. Shapiro is the William R. Kenan, Jr., Distinguished Professor of English at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Opening Reader: Dorian Kotsiopoulos
Dorian Kotsiopoulos has been featured at various poetry venues in Massachusetts. Her work has appeared in literary and medical journals, including Poet LoreSalamanderNew England Journal of MedicineJAMAWomen’s Review of BooksThird Wednesday, and Smartish Pace. Dorian loves studying poetry at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA.

Friday December 15, 2023 2:00pm - 4:00pm EST
Hunneman Hall, Brookline Village Library 361 Washington St. Brookline
 
Sunday, December 17
 

7:00pm EST

Nina McLaughlin Reading
Sunday December 17, 2023 7:00pm - 9:00pm EST
Tue, December 17, 7pm – 9pm
Where: 6 Plympton St, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA (map)
Description: Join us for a reading Nina MacLaughlinn reading from Wake Siren

Sunday December 17, 2023 7:00pm - 9:00pm EST
Grolier Poetry Bookshop Plympton Street Cambridge
 
Tuesday, December 19
 

7:00pm EST

Translating Korean: Jake Levine and Sekyo Nam Haines in conversation with Janaka Stucky
Tuesday December 19, 2023 7:00pm - 8:00pm EST
Hysteria

The Transnational Series welcomes two Korean translators to discuss their work and their most recent translations with Janaka Stucky, the founding editor of Black Ocean.
About the translators:
Jake Levine is an American translator, poet, and scholar. He received his BA and MFA from the University of Arizona and is currently Abd in a PhD program in Comparative Literature at Seoul National University. He works as an assistant professor of creative writing at Keimyung University and as a lecturer at the Literature Translation Institute of Korea. He is the assistant editor at Acta Koreana, the editor for the Korean poetry series Moon Country at Black Ocean, and a group member of the experimental hip-hop / verse collective Poetic Justice.
Sekyo Nam Haines, born and raised in South Korea, immigrated to U.S. in 1973 as a registered nurse. She studied American literature and writing at the Goddard College ADP and poetry with the late Ottone M. Riccio in Boston, MA. Her poems have appeared in the anthologies Do Not Give Me Things Unbroken, Unlocking The Poem, and Beyond Words; and in the poetry journal Off the Coast. Her translations of Korean poetry has appeared in Harvard Review and The Seventh Quarry Poetry. She lives in Cambridge, MA with her family.
Speakers
Tuesday December 19, 2023 7:00pm - 8:00pm EST
Brookline Booksmith

7:00pm EST

A Window on the World through the Eyes of the Zimbabwean Poet Togara Muzanenhamo
Tuesday December 19, 2023 7:00pm - 8:30pm EST
A Window on the World through the Eyes of the Zimbabwean Poet Togara Muzanenhamo


Togara Muzanenhamo reads from his three collections of poetry. Muzanenhamo was born in Lusaka, Zambia and raised on a farm in Zimbabwe. He has studied in the Netherlands, France and the United Kingdom. His poems have been widely published in numerous international journals and broadcast on radio and television. His first collection, Spirit Brides (2006), was shortlisted for the Jerwood Alderburg First Collection Prize, his second collection, Gumiguru (2014), was shortlisted for the Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry and his third book, Textures ( 2014 -in collaboration with John Eppel) won the National Arts and Merit Awards for Literature. Muzanenhamo lives with his partner and children in Zimbabwe.
This event is co-sponsored by the New England Poetry Club.
Tuesday December 19, 2023 7:00pm - 8:30pm EST
Cambridge Public Library
 

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