Poetry and Music at Medford Brewing Company

Join the New England Poetry Club for poetry, music, and a touch of surrealism, at the Medford Brewing Company! Regie Gibson will headline the afternoon, which will also highlight NEPC member poets based in Medford. We’ll have original songs from Max Heinegg. And be prepared for the game of Exquisite Corpse …

Literary Performer, poet, and educator, Regie Gibson has lectured & performed in the United States, Cuba, and Europe. Representing the U.S. in Italy, Regie competed for and received both the Absolute Poetry Award in Monfalcone and The Europa in Versi Award in LaGuardia di Como. Himself and his work appear in love jones, a film based on events in his life. He is a National Poetry Slam Champion, has featured on HBO, several TED X events, and various NPR programs including On Point and Radio Boston. He’s served as consultant for both the National Endowment for the Arts “How Art Works” initiative and “The Mere Distinction of Color”: an exhibit at James Madison’s Montpelier, examining the legacy of slavery. Regie has performed with and composed texts for The Boston City Singers, The Mystic Chorale, and the Handel+Haydn Society. His volume of poems, Storms Beneath the Skin, received the Golden Pen Award and his work appears in Poetry Magazine, Harvard’s Divinity Magazine, and The Iowa Review, among others. He’s received the Walker Scholarship for Poetry from the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, a YMCA Writer’s Fellowship, a Mass Cultural Council Poetry Award, a Lexington Education Foundation Grant, a Brother Thomas Fellowship,  two Live Arts Boston Grants to develop his first play, The Juke: A Blues Bacchae, two commissions to create texts for the World Bank regarding racism and climate justice, and an Eliot Norton  Theatre Award for “Best Ensemble” for the play Black Odyssey, Boston. He performs regularly with Atlas Soul: a world music ensemble, Shakespeare to Hiphop, and is co-creator of the Shakespeare Time-Traveling Speakeasy: A multi-media performance focusing on the influence of William Shakespeare. He teaches for Clark University & lives in Lexington, Massachusetts. www.convergenceensemble.org/artists/regie-ohare-gibson

Max Heinegg is the author of Good Harbor (2022), which won the inaugural Paul Nemser Prize, Going There (2023), and Keepers of the House (forthcoming 2025), all published by Lily Poetry Review Books. His work has appeared in 32 Poems, The Cortland Review, Thrush, Nimrod, and Crab Creek Review, among others. He will perform some classic poems (from Keats to Frost) that he adapted into song, giving a brief talk about each poem and the way in which a great lyric can be read or sung. He is the Medford Brewing Company’s co-founder, co-owner, and brewmaster.

Julia Lisella’s books include Our Lively Kingdom (Bordighera Press 2022), named a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Book Prize 2023, Always, and Terrain both from WordTech Editions, and a chapbook, Love Song Hiroshima. Her poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Alaska Quarterly, The Common, Nimrod, Pangyrus, The Rupture, and many others. She has received writing residencies at MacDowell, Millay and the Vermont Center for the Arts. She teaches at Regis College and co-curates the IAWA Literary Reading Series in Boston. For more, see www.julialisellapoetry.com.

Marlena Merrin is a playwright, songwriter, poet, and sometimes actor. She was an invited writer/performer in the 2021 “teXt moVes” dance-poetry event at the Starlight Square Theatre in Cambridge, MA for her piece “The Careful Line” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkRdRJfaRzM ) . She’s performed as an improviser at Brandeis University and as devised theater actor at Mobius (https://vimeo.com/34201973) . Her poems have been published in Ibbetson Street and The Somerville Times. A selection of her songs can be found on collegeboundthemusical.com. Her soon-to-be-live website is marlenamerrin.com.

Leticia Priebe Rocha (she/her) is a poet, visual artist, and editor. She is the author of In Lieu of Heartbreak, This is Like (Bottlecap Press, 2024). Leticia earned her bachelor’s from Tufts University, where she was awarded the 2020 Academy of American Poets University & College Poetry Prize. Born in São Paulo, Brazil, she immigrated to Miami, FL at the age of 9, she currently resides in the Greater Boston area. Her work has been published in Salamander, Rattle, Pigeon Pages, Protean Magazine, and elsewhere. Leticia is also a Reader for Yellow Arrow Journal and served as Guest Editor for the EMBLAZON issue. For more information, visit her website: leticiaprieberocha.com/

Vijaya Sundaram (she/he/hers) is the current Poet Laureate (2023-2025) for the City of Medford, Massachusetts. Originally from India, she lived in Arlington, MA, for ten years, and has been living in Medford since 2001. She has written short stories, plays and a short novel (not yet published). She is also a guitarist, sitarist, songwriter, singer, amateur digital artist, and educator. Her poetry and short pieces have appeared in publications like The Rising Phoenix Press, the Stardust Review, and TELL Magazine, among others. Her first collection of poems, Fractured Lens, was published in 2023 by Červená Barva Press.