Poetry News November 10, 2014

Easthampton City Arts+ presents UNBUTTONED
An Evening of Spoken Word, with featured performer, Ben Hersey
Tuesday, November 11 from 7:00 – 8:30PM
at Luthier’s Co-Op, 108 Cottage St., Easthampton, MA.
This event is free and open to the public.

Weekly Poetry Open Mic at The Deuce

Every Tuesday Night 8pm – 10pm
Open Mic Signup starts at 7pm.
World War II Club, Conz St. Northampton,MA
Upcoming Featured Poets:
11/4 – Shira Erlichman and Open Mic
Please bring a 3-5 minute selection of your work to share
Fabulous website with featured poets http://www.northamptonpoetry.com/

Writers Night Out!
by Straw Dog Writers Guild.
Every first Tuesday of the month, 7-9 pm
The Basement, 21 Center St., Northampton.
Five minute open mike slots, then featured reader.

jubilat / Jones Reading Series 2014-2015 
Please join us on Sunday, November 9th, at 3 pm for our second fall reading of 2014!
SHANE McCRAE & CARYL PAGEL
in the Goodwin Room (formerly the Trustee’s Room)
Jones Librar, 43 Amity Street, Amherst

Shane McCrae is the author of Mule, Blood, Forgiveness Forgiveness, and The Animal Too Big to Kill (forthcoming from Persea Books). His poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in The Best American Poetry, Seattle Review, Pleiades, LIT and elsewhere, and he has received a Whiting Writer’s Award and a fellowship from the NEA. He teaches at Oberlin College and in the brief-residency MFA program at Spalding University.

Caryl Pagel’s first collection of poetry, Experiments I Should Like Tried At My Own Death, was published in 2012 by Factory Hollow Press and her second, Twice Told, was published last summer by H_NG M_N Books. Caryl teaches in the NEOMFA program in eastern Ohio and is the Director of the Cleveland State University Poetry Center. She is also the co-founder and editor of Rescue Press and a poetry editor at jubilat.

Reading will be followed by a Q & A session with the authors.

Hedgerow Books of Levellers Press presents
Fred Pelka
November 13th, Thursday, 7 pm
Florence Civic Center
90 Park Street (next to Lilly Library)
Fred Pelka will read from his newly published book, “A Different Blaze”.
Celebration, discussion, and refreshments will follow.

Visiting Poets Conspiracy
November 14, Friday, 7pm
Amherst Books, 8 Main St, Amherst

Chris Hosea’s first book of poems, Put Your Hands In (LSU Press 2014), was selected for the Walt Whitman Award by John Ashbery. He is a graduate of Harvard and the University of Massachusetts Amherst MFA in poetry. He lives in Brooklyn.

Jeannie Hoag’s work has appeared in The Blue Letter, GlitterPony, NOO Journal, and notnostrums. Her chapbook New Age of Ferociousness was published by Agnes Fox Press, and Informal Invitation to a Traveler, a collaborative project with Kyle McCord, was published through Gold Wake Press. She received an MFA in creative writing at UMass Amherst and is a librarian.

Simeon Berry has been an Associate Editor for Ploughshares, and won a Massachusetts Cultural Council Individual Artist Grant and a Career Chapter Award from the National Society of Arts and Letters. His work has appeared in Crazyhorse, AGNI, Colorado Review, Blackbird, DIAGRAM, The Iowa Review, American Letters & Commentary, and many other journals. His first book, Ampersand Revisited, won the 2013 National Poetry Series (Fence Books), and his second book, Monograph, won the 2014 National Poetry Series (University of Georgia Press). He lives in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Check out https://www.facebook.com/events/308195242701461/ for more info.

Bad Atmosphere by John Ogden Book Launch and Reading
Saturday, November 15, 4pm
Off the Common Bookstore at
Collective Copies, Amherst
Bad Atmosphere is the culmination of decades worth of writing by Don Ogden focusing on aspects of climate change that moved him to put into words, feelings and thoughts evoked by “the greatest crisis of our time”. Joining in the celebration are local singer/songwriters Tom Neilson and Lynn Waldron. Both collaborated recently with Ogden on the song “Clearcutting the Trees” which is the soundtrack for a Youtube video about logging in the Quabbin Reservation. The preservation of forests, forest soils and even individual trees in the struggle to confront climate chaos is raised often in Ogden’s work.

As renowned environmentalist, Bill McKibben remarks: “As we face the climate crisis, we need art as well as science to help us reach the deepest parts of ourselves and fight the necessary fight. Thank heaven for the leadership of poets!”

Ogden, known by many as d.o., has been active in environmental issues for most of his life. His poetry and commentaries have appeared in a wide variety of publications and on national and local radio. “This work is really just another manifestation of the outreach I’ve been doing all along”, d.o. notes. “Poetry takes the critical issues surrounding the Climate Crisis deeper. I’m hoping people will internalize the information of climate disruption, not to become paralyzed and disempowered but instead to act upon their feelings creatively and productively, getting involved in the struggle to literally save the planet.”

Discussion and Refreshments follow the reading.

Vitamin P for Poetry Workshop-Objects of Meaning
Saturday, November 15, 2014, 12:30 pm – 2:30 pm
Springfield City Library, Indian Orchard Branch
44 Oak St., Indian Orchard, MA

Once a month, get a dose of poetry.  In the first hour, come prepared to read and to discuss poems by established poets. Also bring with you a portable/small object of meaning to serve as inspiration. In the second hour, engage in writing prompts inspired by the very poems we read together and the objects we’ve brought in. Then share aloud your ideas for new poems. (18+)

Facilitated by local award-winning multilingual poet, educator, and first Poet Laureate of Springfield (MA), María Luisa Arroyo (marialuisaarroyo.weebly.com).

FREE raffle for a poetry-related book.

The Gallery of Readers Series presents
Alison Smith and Cris Beam
reading from their recent work
Sunday, November 16, 2014, 4 PM
Neilson Library Browsing Room, Smith College
Northampton, Massachusetts
Refreshments will be served.

Poetry Performance & Discussion with Magdalena Gómez

November 17th, Monday, 6pm
Faculty Lounge, FPH, Hampshire College

Magdalena Gómez is a playwright, performer, storyteller, actor, educator, and local artivist. In addition to reading from her new book of poetry, Shameless Woman (Red Sugarcane Press, 2014), she will also talk about her work with youth of color in Springfield, MA through Teatro V!da, a performance space that allows youth to develop and enact their creative talents on stage.

For questions and event details, contact Dr. Wilson Valentín-Escobar: wvalentin@hampshire.edu

Smith Poetry Center Fall Reading Series
presents Annie Boutelle
November 18th, Tuesday, 7:30 pm
Stoddard Hall, Smith College
Annie Boutelle’s poems are elegant, fierce, gorgeous, and spare—all at once. This reading celebrates the release of her fourth collection, How They Fell. Eleanor Wilner writes that “a fiery intelligence, at times a fury, empower this remarkable book,” and Fred Marchant praises its brimming “artistic exhilaration and vitality.” Retired from teaching since 2013, Annie Boutelle founded of the Poetry Center at Smith.
Please note that there will be no Q&A for this event.

30 Poems in November for Center for New Americans

Poetry News supports Center for New Americans’ annual 30 Poems in November,
and we invite you to do the same!  30 Poems in November is open to all of you.

The Center For New Americans, a Northampton-based organization which provides literacy, citizenship, and support services for the immigrant communities of Western Massachusetts, is now sponsoring its 6th annual 30 Poems in November. Poets commit to writing a poem a day for the month of November, and raise money from family and friends against that commitment (just like when people pledge by the mile for a charity 10K).