Massachusetts Statewide Poetry Calendar

Rescue Press authors, Tessa Micaela, Caren Beilin, Hanna Brooks-Motl, & Melissa Dickey, will read from recent work.   Micaela writes poems & letters, often to inanimate objects.   They are the author of there are boxes and there is wanting, Crude Matter, & Where Bells Begin .   Beilin is the author of Spain, Blackfishing the IUD, & The University of Pennsylvania.   Brooks-Motl is the author of the poetry collections The New Years, M, & Earth.   Dickey is the author of two books of poems, Dragons & The Lily Will.   Her poetry, nonfiction, & reviews have appeared recently in Bennington Review, the Spectacle, the Laurel Review, & Kenyon Review Online, among other publications

Shayla Lawson will read as part of the UMass Visiting Writers Series.   Lawson is the poet in residence at Amherst College.   She is author of the poetry collection, I Think I’m Ready to See Frank Ocean & the forthcoming collection of essays, This Is Major: Notes on Diana Ross, Dark Girls, & Being Dope.

The poets Fatimah Asghar and Franny Choi will read from their work and talk about poetry on Wednesday, March 11th, at 8 p.m. at Amherst Books (8 Main Street). The event, sponsored by the Amherst College Creative Writing Center, is free and open to the public and will be followed by refreshments. 

Asghar is poet, filmmaker, educator and performer, as well as the creator of the Emmy-nominated Web series Brown Girls. She is the author of the poetry collection If They Come For Us and the co-editor of Halal If You Hear Me, an anthology celebrating Muslim writers who are also women, queer, gender nonconforming and/or trans. Choi is the author of two poetry collections, Soft Science, which Monica Youn called “raw and radiant” and Floating, Brilliant, Gone. She edits for Hyphen Magazine and co-hosts the podcast VS alongside fellow Dark Noise Collective member Danez Smith.