The New England Poetry Club, Friends of Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters, and Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site are pleased to announce the 2021 Virtual Summer Poetry Festival: Poetry as a Voice for Activism. This year’s festival, which begins Sunday, June 27, will take place live online and connect poetry lovers across the country with remarkable poet-activists who will read and discuss their work.
Join the New England Poetry Club on April 11, 2021, 3 pm.for New Poetry & Open Mic with Kelly DuMar, Ruth Smullin, and Ann Taylor who will read from their new books of poetry. (Bios and book purchasing information below.)
This event is free and open to the public. Members will receive the zoom link information in a newsletter; please email info@nepoetryclub.org if you are not a member. Sign-up for the open mic in the chat box before the reading begins.
Kelly DuMar is a poet, playwright and workshop facilitator who is the author of three poetry collections, girl in tree bark, All These Cures, and Tree of the Apple. Her plays are published by dramatic publishers, and her poems, prose and photos are published in many literary journals including Bellevue Literary Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Crab Fat, Storm Cellar, Corium & Tiferet. Kelly serves on the Board of the International Women’s Writing Guild (IWWG), and produces the Bi-Monthly Open Mic Writer Series attended by women worldwide. Kelly founded and leads the Farm Pond Writer’s Collective, now in its fifth year, and facilitates a variety of creative writing workshops in person and online. She blogs her daily nature photos & creative writing at kellydumar.com/blog
Ruth Smullin grew up in inner city and suburban Boston where she currently lives. Her work has been published in Atlanta Review, Common Ground Review, Constellations, Crucible (winner of the Sam Ragan Prize), Ibbetson Street, Naugatuck River Review, Plainsongs, Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, The Aurorean, and is forthcoming from Main St. Rag. Her chapbook, The Open Door, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2020.
Purchasing information: If you wish to purchase The Open Door, please email Ruth Smullin at rasmullin@verizon.net.The cost is $10, which includes shipping to any address in the USA.
Ann Taylor is a Professor of English at Salem State University in Salem, Mass. where she teaches both literature and writing courses. She has written two books on college composition, academic and free-lance essays, and a collection of personal essays, Watching Birds: Reflections on the Wing (Ragged Mountain/McGraw Hill). Her first poetry book, The River Within, won first prize in the 2011 Cathlamet Poetry competition at Ravenna Press. A chapbook, Bound Each to Each was published in 2013. Her most recent collection, published in 2018, Héloïse and Abélard: the Exquisite Truth, is based on the twelfth-century story of their lives.
An extra-terrestrial visits earth and assumes human appearance. He is “curiously drawn to the Americans” yet, is unable to penetrate the essence of who they are. He finds that American literature helps him better understand them. Weaving together, music, visual imagery, story, and song, Here, Among the Americans… is a spoken word journalistic exploration into the modern poetic voice of this country—a voice, at this time in our history, needs so much to listen to.
Works by Robert Hayden, Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes, Emma Lazarus, Kent Forman, & Regie Gibson. Music by Guy Mendilow and Mazz Swift
Join us for a reading of poetry by NEPC members with new books!
Until further notice, all events will be online; this series is free and open to the public.
Members will receive the zoom link information in a newsletter; please email info@nepoetryclub.org if you are not a member.
Bios for New Poetry Reading, March 14, 2021
Linda Haviland Conte is the author of Seldom Purely (Ibbetson Street Press, 2020) and Slow As A Poem (Ibbetson Street Press, 2002). Her work also appears in several anthologies and magazines. She was a panelist at the Massachusetts and New Hampshire Poetry Festivals (2017). Linda is Treasurer and Membership Coordinator for The New England Poetry Club. Seldom Purely is available at Lulu, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.
People can message her through my website (lindaconte.net) to order my chapbook Slow As A Poem.
Timothy Gager is the author of sixteen books of fiction and poetry. His latest, an Amazon #1 Best Seller, Poems of 2020,is his ninth of poetry. Timothy hosted the successful Dire Literary Series in Cambridge, Massachusetts from 2001 to 2018, and as a virtual series starting in 2020. Timothy was the co-founder of The Somerville News Writers Festival. He has had over 600 works of fiction and poetry published, of which seventeen have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His work also has been nominated for a Massachusetts Book Award, The Best of the Web, The Best Small Fictions Anthology, and has been read on National Public Radio.
Eleanor Kedney is the author of the full-length collection Between the Earth and Sky (C&R Press, 2020) and the chapbook The Offering (Liquid Light Press, 2016). Between the Earth and Sky is a 2020 Best Book Award Finalist in Poetry (American Book Fest). Her work has appeared in Miramar Poetry Journal,New Ohio Review, Under a Warm Green Linden, Sliver of Stone, and other journals, and anthologies. Her poem “Bubbles Blown through a Wand” won the 2019 riverSedge Poetry Prize (University of Texas Rio Grande Valley). “A Park Bench in Prague” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Fjords Review. Kedney is the founder of the Tucson branch of the New York-based Writers Studio, and served as the director for ten years. She lives in Stonington, Connecticut and Tucson, Arizona. Learn more at eleanorkedney.com.
To purchase Between the Earth and Sky please visit C&R Press: C&R Press or email Eleanor Kedney at eleanorkedney@yahoo.com for a signed copy.
Please spread the word! The NEPC is accepting submissions for the Victor Howes Prize in Poetry. This is for undergraduate English majors studying in New England and comes with a $1000 prize and a reading (virtual this year) at the Longfellow House in Cambridge.
Join us for a reading of poetry by NEPC members with new books!
This event is free and open to the public. It will take place on Zoom; the link will be sent out via the newsletter or you can email info@nepoetryclub.org.
READER BIOS:
Krikor Der Hohannesian’s poems have appeared in over 175 literary journals including South Carolina Review, Atlanta Review, Louisiana Literature, Connecticut Review, Comstock Review and Natural Bridge. He is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, author of two chapbooks, Ghosts and Whispers(Finishing Line Press, 2010) and Refuge in the Shadows (Cervena Barva Press, 2013), as well as a full-length book, First Generation (Dos Madres Press, 2020). Ghosts and Whispers was a finalist for the Mass Book awards poetry category in 2011.
Anyone wishing to purchase a copy of his latest collection, First Generation, can do so by e-mailing him at krikorndh@verizon.net or, alternatively by telephone: 781-488-3933.
Alexis Ivy is a 2018 recipient of the Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship in Poetry. She is the author of Romance with Small-Time Crooks (BlazeVOX [books], 2013), and Taking the Homeless Census (Saturnalia Books, 2020) which won the 2018 Saturnalia Editors Prize. A Boston native, her poems have been displayed in City Hall and featured by Mass Poetry aboard the red line subway. Her poems have recently appeared in Saranac Review, Poet Lore and Sugar House Review. She works as an advocate for the homeless in Cambridge, and teaches in the PoemWorks community. Her website is alexisivypoet.com
Barbara Thomas grew up in the Last Green Valley. She earned a Masters Degree from Boston University in Education and taught English and Reading in the public schools for 35 years.
Barbara is an active member of The New England Poetry Club, the Greek Institute, and Glenbrook, an environmental writing group in New Hampshire. She was a Joiner Center participant for ten years and received the Jeff Mayle Award. Her most recent book is The Last Green Valley, Cedar Grove Press, 2019. Other publications are a chapbook, Seduced Sighs of Trees, Cloudkeeper Press, 2007, and her poems have appeared in the Paterson Literary Review, Fiele-Festa, Lalitamba, andinseveral of the Bagel BardsAnthologies,among others. Her recent book, The Last Green Valley, can be purchased on Amazon ( $19.00) from Cherry Grove Collections: The Art of the Lyric; cherry-grove.com/barbara_thomas.html.
Sign-up for the open mic in the chat box before the reading begins; each participant will read ONE poem (no longer than a page). Limit 12 readers.
