Poetry News January 27, 2014

Here is your Poetry News for the week of January 27,  2014

Scroll down to see or link to more poetry in Worcester, the Berkshires, Boston, Vermont and other areas.
To receive Poetry News in your email or to request posting of events write to lori@thepoetrynews.com    

**THIS WEEK IN WESTERN MA**:
Tue. Jan. 28 – Hanif Abduraqqib and Open Mic at Hinge, Northampton, 8pm
Wed. Jan. 29 – Ignite the Mic! Youth open mic in Springfield, Bing Arts Center, 7pm

POETRY IN THE VALLEY AND BEYOND:

Ignite the Mic! Youth Open Mic in Springfield

Poets, Singers, Storytellers, Comedy
by youth for youth age 12-25
Wednesday, January 29, 7-9pm
performers come at 6:45 to sign up
Bing Arts Center
716 Sumner Ave. Springfield

Poetry at Elms College
Thursday January 30, 7:30pm
Alumnae Library Theater, Elms College
Love, hate and coffee. Lots of coffee.

Timothy Donnelly is the author of two books of poetry, Twenty-seven Props for a Production of Eine Lebenszeit, and The Cloud Corporation. He earned a B.A. from the John Hopkins University, an M.F.A. from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. from Princeton University. Donnelly is an assistant professor and director of undergraduate creative writing at Columbia University. He is also the poetry editor for Boston Review. Donnelly lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife and two daughters.

 Dorthea Lasky was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. She earned a B.A. at Washington University and an M.F. A. at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She has published three collections of poetry, AWE (2007), Black Life (2010), and Thunderbird (2012), as well as several chapbooks, including the polemical Poetry Is Not a Project (2010). Lasky’s poems have appeared in a number of prominent publications, including The New Yorker, Paris Review, and American Poetry Review. Lasky was awarded a Bagley Wright Fellowship in 2013, and she is an assistant professor of poetry at Columbia University.

*There will be a 7pm reception in the library well

Carolyn Forché in Albany, NY
Thursday, January 30^th, 8pm
Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center
University at Albany, NY 12222

Carolyn Forché has written poetry about her firsthand experiences of political strife and violent conflict around the globe. Most recently, she is the co-editor with Duncan Wu of a new anthology, Poetry of Witness: The Tradition in English, 1500 – 2001(2014), featuring 300 poems “composed at an extreme of human endurance.” The book is a companion to Forché’s landmark 1993 anthology, Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness. Forché received the 2013 Academy of American Poets Fellowship for “distinguished poetic achievement.”

The Collected Poets Series presents
George Drew, Ravi Shankar and Nancy White
Thursday, February 6^th, 7:00pm
Mocha Maya’s Coffee House
47 Bridge St. Shelburne Falls, MA 01370

George Drew is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently The View from Jackass Hill, 2010 winner of the X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize, Texas Review Press, 2011. His sixth collection, Fancy’s Orphan, will be published in 2015 by Tiger Bark Press. He was nominated in 2013 for a Pushcart Prize, and Texas Review Press will publish his chapbook, Down & Dirty, which was a finalist for its Robert Phillips Chapbook Prize, this fall. He currently lives in New York State.
Ravi Shankar is the founding editor and Executive Director of DrunkenBoat, one of the world’s oldest electronic journals of the arts. He has published or edited seven books and chapbooks of poetry, including the 2010 National Poetry Review Prize winner, Deepening Groove. Along with Tina Chang and Nathalie Handal, he edited W.W. Norton’s Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from Asia, the Middle East & Beyond, called “a beautiful achievement for world literature” by Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer. He is currently Chairman of the Connecticut Young Writers Trust, on the faculty of the first international MFA Program at City University of Hong Kong and an Associate Professor of English at Central Connecticut State University.

Nancy White‘s first book, Sun, Moon, Salt, won the Washington Prize for poetry and a second edition was issued by The Word Works in 2009. Tamarack Editions published her second collection of poems, Detour, in the spring of 2010. Her poems appear in many journals, including Antioch Review, Black Warrior Review, Cincinnati Review, Diner, FIELD, The Journal, Massachusetts Review, Nimrod, Poet Lore, Rattle, Seneca Review, Sojourners, and Washington Square. She has received grants or residencies from The MacDowell Colony, The Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, and The Lower Adirondack Regional Arts Council. She lives in upstate New York.

Poets Tim Mayo, Patricia Fargnoli, Rick Bates and James Fowler
will be reading from their most recent works.
There will be a book signing after the reading
February 9^th, Sunday, 4:00pm
Misty Valley Books
58 Common St.
Chester, VT 05143

Coming up at Smith College:
February 11^th, Tuesday, 7:30pm
Neilson Browsing Room

Meena Alexander – Born in India, raised in Sudan, educated in England, and currently a resident of New York City, Meena Alexander has drawn on her experiences of trauma, exile, conflicting identity, and the customs of four continents to produce eight books of poetry, a memoir, and two novels. A self-described “woman cracked by multiple migrations,” she finds her “I” in the power to construct sanctuary from a single memory. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and Fulbright foundations, and has been translated into Malayalam, Hindi, German, Swedish, Arabic and Spanish. In the words of Tracy K. Smith, Birthplace of Buried Stones, Alexander’s most recent collection, delivers us “into the presence of a stark beauty capable of swallowing us whole.”

The Gallery of Readers Series presents
Jonathan Wright and Aubin Tyler
reading from their recent work
Sunday, February 16, 2014, 4 PM
Neilson Library Browsing Room, Smith College
Northampton, Massachusetts
Refreshments will be served.

Jonathan Wright has been writing for more than 40 years and enjoys the work now more than ever, especially since he joined Robin Barber’s Wednesday workshop. While he has a day job as a Design-Builder, and a serious avocation in rowing, sculling, and teaching those skills, writing remains a passion of long standing, including essays and commentary, a bit of fiction, and especially poetry. The 21st century is time for poetry, because it is without rhyme or reason.

Aubin Tyler has written for the Boston Globe, Daily Hampshire Gazette, and other publications. She teaches writing and journalism at Westfield State University. She will read from The Silk Agent’s Wife, her novel in progress about a group of abolitionist utopians in Florence in the 1840s.

Silkworm is Open for Submissions

Silkworm, the annual review of Florence Poets Society, is open for submissions. Join us in celebrating the 10th anniversary of Florence Poets Society, and the 7th edition of Silkworm.

Please submit up to 3 poems of no longer than 50 lines each and include a 30-word bio with your submission. Deadline for submissions: March 15, 2014. Only electronic submissions will be accepted, as an MS Word document attached in an email toinfo@florencepoets.com. Members and non-members of Florence Poets Society are encouraged to submit; please visitwww.florencepoets.com for more information.

Slate Roof Press offers 2^nd Annual Poetry Chapbook Contest.
Limited-edition, art-quality publisher sponsors annual chapbook contest. Winner becomes active member of the press, a nonprofit collaborative; 3-year commitment, monthly meetings, shared publishing experience. $25 reading fee.  Manuscript length: 28 pp. Deadline (upload/postmark): March 31, 2014. Contest guidelines,: www.slateroofpress.com. or http://slateroofpresscontest.submittable.com/submit.

Submissions wanted–Poet’s Seat Poetry Contest, now in its 23^rd year!  Open to residents of Franklin County.  Youth and adult categories.  Excellent prizes. Terrific awards ceremony.  Submit up to 3 unpublished poems.  Sponsored by the Friends of the Greenfield Public Library.  Visit the library Web site for guidelines:http://www.greenfieldpubliclibrary.org/.  Deadline:  March 10, 2014.

Weekly Poetry Open Mic at Hinge
Every Tuesday Night 8pm – 10pm Signup starts at 7pm.
Upstairs at Hinge
48 Main St. Northampton,MA
Upcoming Featured Poets:
1/28 – Hanif Abduraqqib
2/4 – Cash Slam

Notable perks at Hinge: right in downtown Northampton,
close to bus stops! All ages, beer and wine, and modestly priced meals)
Please bring a 3-5 minute selection of your work to share
Fabulous website with featured poets http://www.northamptonpoetry.com/

Straw Dog Writers Guild presents Writers Night Out
First Tuesday of the month,
at The Elevens, Northampton, 7-9 pm.
For all lovers of writing.
Open mike – put your name in the hat until 7:10; reading begins at 7:15,
followed by time to schmooze, drink, make merry, and find out what’s
happening in the local writing world.
For more information, go to  www.strawdogwriters.org/events/

The Forbes poetry discussion series 

Our winter/spring semester will have a variety of poets under discussion through May, led by several different discussion leaders. Several of the evenings are timed to precede a reading by that poet in the area (including Jean Valentine and W.S. Merwin). As always, we’ll meet at 7 pm in the Calvin Coolidge Museum on the second floor of the Forbes Library.

Emily Dickinson International Society (EDIS) presents:
“Poetry Conversation” 

Jones Library, 43 Amity Street, Amherst, MA;
in the Amherst Room, 2nd floor
1st Friday of each month — 2pm – 3:30pm
2nd Thursday of each month — 5:45pm – 7:15pm
All who are interested in sharing thoughts and ideas in a group
discussion based on selected poems/letter by Emily Dickinson are welcome.

The next business/sharing meeting is Thursday, February 13, 2014 at 6:30pmPlease consider joining the Florence Poets Society.  Your $20 membership dues (Sept. – Aug.) support our annual journal, Silkworm, as well as public readings and events.  We meet monthly at the Lilly Library in Florence on the 2nd Thurs. of each month, and all are welcome.  Please visit our web site for more information: http://www.florencepoets.com or contact us at info@florencepoets.com.

POETRY A LA CARTE RADIO SHOW
on WMUA-Amherst 91.1 FM
Wednesdays at 5:00pm (Note change of day and time!)

WMUA is ably run by students, and the Programmer, who has the unenviable job of arranging a continuous, live, on-air series of shows, 24 hours a day, is hard-pressed to get coverage when the UMass students are on vacation. (DJs are usually about half students and half community members). Hence the change in schedule. Streamed live at http://www.wmua.org/.

The program, hosted by Daisy Mathias, includes reading aloud from past and contemporary poets, and occasionally features live interview and poetry-reading with a local poet.

Northfield Open Mic

You are invited to an evening of poetry
at Northfield Coffee and Books.
Northfield Coffee and Books is at 105 Main St., Northfield, MA.
The series will take place on the third Thursday of every month, and is hosted
by Bernardston poet and track and field coach Jim Bell. Arrive a little early to sign up.

All Small Caps at the Deja Brew in Wendell
Fourth Monday of the Month

Doors open at 7:00 and the first reader is at 7:30.
There are 10 – 5 minutes open mic slots
Two featured readers
$1 to $5 sliding scale donation
For anyone interested in being a featured reader
Contact paul@humanerrorpublishing.com

OUTSPOKEN!

Pittsfield’s Monthly Performance Series and Open Mic

– Outspoken! hosted by Matt Mcfadden, is held the 3rd Thursday of every month.
– Micro Theater (311 North St. in Pittsfield, Greylock Bldg. upstairs among the ArtOnNo studios –
Up the block from Jae’s Spice – Entrance to theater is around the corner on Union St. thru Orange door,
right next door to Mary’s Carrot Cake.
– 8 pm ($5 suggested donation)
– Interested open mic performers can sign up for 5 minute slot by
e-mailing matt at mcfaddensrus@yahoo.com
– Those needing more information can e-mail the same address

Power of Words, Open Mic

Third Tuesdays 7pm to 8:30 pm Hosted by Garfield Reed.
This is an open opportunity to share poetry, readings, music and other spoken word.
Free and open to the public at Berkshire South Regional Community Center
Crissey Rd.,Great Barrington, MA Every third Tuesday of the month.
Please call Garfield at 528 4127 for more information.

In Words, Out Words in Housatonic

In Housatonic, MA there is an open mic for poets and performers of all styles and ages.

1st Tuesday of each month at the Deb Koffman Gallery 137 Front Street, Housatonic, MA 01236. “In Words, Out Words.” is hosted by Francine Ciccarelli and there is usually a $1-6 suggested donation for heat and electricity. There are snacks there provided by whoever wants to bring them. The open mic begins at 7 and the featured performer goes on for about 20 minutes. It usually lasts until between 9 and 9:30.

Zeitgeist Gallery Pittsfield

Monday Poetry Nights 6 to10pm
648 North Street in Pittsfield
call Alan Nidle, the Director at (857) 991-8448 for details

WORD IN WORCESTER

Poetry, People!
Every Thursday 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm (sometimes later)
@ The Coffee Loft
406 Lincoln Street
Marlborough, MA
508.251.1431

Poetry, verse, and short stories are are welcome at this very friendly, informal open reading. Now booking for features to start in March. Please contact Jarad at CoffeeLoftBooking@gmail.com for more info or to become a featured poet.

The Little “a” Poetry Series 

Every Thursday night at 7pm, with an open mic preceding the feature. It is free and all ages, and will be held at The Strange Attractor, 97D Webster St, Worcester MA. Hosted by “Cowboy” Matt Hopewell, who also  does the booking and can be reached at themadcowboy@gmail.com or by phone at (508) 479 8311 .

More to follow as August and September dates are confirmed!

The d’Alzon Arts Series: Poetry Reading

takes place at Assumption College (500 Salisbury Street, Worcester) in the Emmanuel d’Alzon Library on the third Friday of each month during the academic year. The format is an open mic for the first half-hour or so, a short break with refreshments and then 2 featured poets.. The reading starts at 7:00 p.m. and typically runs for 2 to 2 1/2 hours. Readings run throughout the school year. See below for Sept’s reading:

The Dirty Gerund

The Dirty Gerund Poetry Show will be held every Monday night starting at 8:30 p.m. The reading is being held at Ralph’s Chadwick Square Diner (148 Grove Street, Worcester) and is hosted by Rushelle Frazier. There will be an open mic every week with a mix of poetry slams and featured poets. No cover; donations accepted. 21+ Please join us at our new home,

CONNECTICUT POETRY

Since CT has a wonderful and comprehensive newsletter online, I have decided to cut the CT Poetry section from Poetry News and only post special events that might be of interest to MA poets. Write to Terri Klein at ctpoetnews@yahoo.com to get the CT Poet newsletter in your email, or the CT Poetry Calendar is online at www.ctpoetrycalendar.com 

The Brockton Poetry Series

at The Fuller Craft Museum

455 Oak St. Brockton, MA  508-588-6000 fullercraft.org

Cambridge Common 1667 Mass. Ave., Cambridge

$5 Cover Every Sunday Poetry Slam: 8:00 pm, Feature: 9:30 pm, Open Mike: 10:30 pm

617-547-0759 http://poetryjam.org/

Stone Soup Poetry

meets from 8-10 pm. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art

Gallery at 106 Prospect Street in Cambridge with an open mic sign-up at 7:30

p.m. A featured poet follows the open mic.

For links to the feature’s work, information on future features and more, visit

the Stone Soup Web site: http://stonesouppoetry.blogspot.com

Last Thursday Open Mic at The Cultural Center of Cape Cod

307 Old Main St., S. Yarmouth, MA co-hosts Joe Gouveia and Barry Hellman:

The last Thursday of every month, 7pm. Open mic and featured poet.

Thu. May 30 – Lori Desrosiers

Bring your own refreshments.

Arrive early to sign up for open mic. For updated info on this and other

Cape activities go to:https://sites.google.com/site/barryhellmanspoetrywebsite/

Lowell Poetry Slam and Open Mic

Every FIRST Thursday at Brew’d Awakening! Only poets can compete in the slam and win the prize… but the mic is open to musical performers as well. Whether you come to perform, compete or just enjoy some coffee and great local talent,

don’t miss this event! 7:00pm – 9:30 pm *Sign-up between 6:30-7:00*

The event is free and open to the public—so come on down for an evening of good

company and some terrific regional voices!

Brew’d Awakening Coffeehaus, 61 Market Street, Lowell, MA 978-454-BREW

For more info, please email CIntern2@lowellma.gov

LETRA Poetry Nights

in LAWRENCE MASS Every TUESDAY at Julio’s 99 Club 99 Essex Street Lawrence, MA

Doors open at 7pm open mic starts at 8pm Admission $3.00 For more information or for directions please call Michelle Richardson at 978-423-7045

VERMONT POETRY

Poets Tim Mayo, Patricia Fargnoli, Rick Bates and James Fowler will be reading from their most recent works at Misty Valley Books in Chester, VT Sunday, Feb 9th, 4:00 p.m.:  There will be a book signing after the reading.

Brattleboro SLAM and OPEN MIC: 

Every first and third Wednesday of the month.

First is a poetry slam + open mic

Third is an open mic

Equilibrium

14 Elm Street

sign-up at 7:30 event is 8-10pm
www.facebook.com/BrattleboroPoetry

For a VT poetry events calendar go to: http://www.phayvanh.com/

For info on Brattleboro poetry and Write Action visit their website – www.writeaction.org

Poetry readings at the Putney Library

55 Main Street, Putney VT (802) 387-4407

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News for Poetry News should be sent to lori@thepoetrynews.com. Please send your announcements in text only – do not format (no special fonts, colors, etc.) and check it for errors. Send by Wednesday for Thursday publication. Thank you, Lori Desrosiers – Publisher, Editor, wearer of all hats.