Four Poets at the Waltham Historical Society

Prepare for a unique tapestry of history and verse! The Waltham Historical Society and the New England Poetry Club join forces on March 12th, 7:00 PM, to explore Waltham’s rich spirit, and more, through the voices of:

• Barbara de la Cuesta, poet and novelist, weaving Waltham tales that transcend time.
• Owen Lewis, Professor of Psychiatry and Narrative Medicine, bridging the gap between personal home and Berkshires history.
• Jessica Lucci, local author and poet, capturing the essence of Waltham in lyrical strokes.
• Gail Thomas, poet, painting vivid Swift River Valley portraits with words.

This captivating evening promises to be a journey through the past, present, and possibilities of diverse Massachusetts locales. Free and open to the public.

Barbara de la Cuesta taught and worked as a journalist in South America, and is now a teacher of English as a Second Language and Spanish. Out of this experience came her two prize winning novels, The Spanish Teacher, winner of the Gival Press Award in 2007, and Rosa, winner of the Driftless Novella Prize from Brain Mill Press in 2017. She has also published two collections of poetry with Finishing Line Press, as well as two novels, The Mists, and Henrietta Rose. Her collection of short stories, The Place Where Judas Lost his Boots, has recently won The Brighthorse Prize for short fiction.

Adam’s Chair is a peek into the City of Waltham, past, present—the future perhaps represented by the shuttle Columbia orbiting above on the day of April 11, 1981, when the book opens with an old French Canadian, Alcide Arsenault, retired from the Mill, entering Mt. Feake Cemetery, whose neighborhoods reflect the city’s own, just before dawn. Priscilla, descendant of the city’s founders, college drop-out, Socialist since thirteen, now home health aide, sets out on her rounds on her bicycle. Thus the day begins: A harpsichord arrives at city hall. A parachutist lands in Leary field. Participants in the daycenter are oriented to reality and the mayor visits to celebrate Adie Blakey’s hundredth birthday, the shuttle sends down messages …

Owen Lewis is the author of three collections of poetry and three chapbooks, most recently Knock-knock. Field Light, was a Distinguished Favorite, 2020 NYCBigBook Award and a 2021 “Must Read”, Mass Book Awards.  best man was the recipient of the Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize of the New England Poetry Club. Recent prizes include the 2023 Guernsey International Poetry Prize and the 2023 Rumi Prize for Poetry/Arts & Letters. He is also recipient of the International Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine.  At Columbia University he is Professor of Psychiatry in the Department of Medical Humanities and Ethics and teaches Narrative Medicine.

The epicenter of Field Light is the back porch of “The Dormouse,” 1922, home of Peggy Cresson, daughter of Daniel Chester French. In a photo she sits with her husband and the granddaughter-in-law of Harriet Beecher Stowe, a neighbor. The author, in 2018, sits on the same porch of the same house, his home for nearly thirty years, pondering that photo. He begins to question how one can know history, discovering personal connections to the history surrounding him. The book weaves a personal telling of Berkshire history, spanning the years when the land was “owned” by Munsie, to the trial in 1782 in Great Barrington that freed enslaved people of Massachusetts, to the years of the socially elite and beyond. In this historical collage, the writers, artists, musicians, and even some physicians, of the Berkshires speak.

Jessica Lucci is a poet, steampunk, and historical fiction author who writes about modern issues while maintaining historic integrity.  She makes her home in Waltham, Mass., where she serves as president of the Waltham Arts Council, and on the board of directors of the Waltham Museum and High Tech Waltham.  She also helps organize faires and festivals in Waltham, such as Waltham Pride, and Kaleidoscope. She was the featured artist for her poetry at Watch City Arts, May, 2023.

Her haiku were included in an installation commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Minuteman Bikeway.  More haiku have been installed in store windows in Arlington and Lexington.  Her poetry was included in the “Moody Street Art Walk” in 2023. Her works include the steampunk novellas Waltham Watch and Salem Switch, the soon-to-be published historical fiction novella Triangle House, and the poetry collections How Can I Steal a Purse and Graveyard Shift.

Gail Thomas’ books are Trail of Roots, Leaving Paradise, Odd Mercy, Waving Back, No Simple Wilderness, and Finding the Bear. Her poems have been widely published in journals and anthologies including CALYX, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, North American Review, Cumberland River Review, and Mezzo Cammin. Among her awards are the Seven Kitchens Press award for Trail of Roots, the Charlotte Mew Prize from Headmistress Press for Odd Mercy, the Narrative Poetry Prize from Naugatuck River Review, and the Massachusetts Center for the Book’s “Must Read” for Waving Back. She has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony and Ucross, and several poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She teaches poetry with Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshops, visits schools and libraries with her therapy dog Sunny, and works with immigrant and refugee communities in Western Massachusetts.

No Simple Wilderness: An Elegy for Swift River Valley is about the four towns and seven villages that were drowned and the 3,500 people who were displaced to build the Quabbin Reservoir. Thomas interviewed elders who grew up in the Valley, and their voices are represented throughout the book which has been used as a text in college courses.  From the book’s forward: “Sometimes a work of poetry is an act of reclamation as it is in No Simple Wilderness.  With these poems, Thomas attains a seamlessness not only between past and present but between personal and public, a seamlessness that is succinct, powerful, and entirely essential.” – Jane Brox