Poetry at the Manse: Libby Maxey, Nina Rubinstein Alonso, Matthew Henry

The NEPC’s summer season continues at The Old Manse in Concord, Mass. This free reading will be held under a tent outdoors, at an accessible venue.

Make a day of it! Arrive early or linger after the reading to explore the orchard, stroll along the Concord River, or enjoy a picnic on the grounds. You can also deepen your visit by joining a guided tour of the historic house before or after the event.

Learn more and pre-register for a tour: https://thetrustees.org/place/the-old-manse/.

Libby Maxey is a senior editor and poetry editor at the online journal Literary Mama, where she has been a member of the staff for over a decade. Her poems have appeared in Crannóg, Stoneboat, Whale Road Review, Blue Unicorn, and elsewhere. She is among the winners of the Princemere Poetry Prize, the Helen Schaible International Sonnet Contest, and the Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest, and her chapbook, Kairos (2019), won the Finishing Line Press New Women’s Voices Contest. Her full-length collection, Indwelling (Resource Publications), was released last year. She lives with her family in the hills above the Pioneer Valley, where she sings classical repertoire and wrangles bells with the Western Massachusetts Guild of Change Ringers.

Nina Rubinstein Alonso’s work has appeared in The New Yorker, Sumac, The New Boston Review, Southern Women’s Review, Broadkill Review, Writing in a Woman’s Voice, Peacock Journal, Wilderness House Literary Review, Nixes Mate, etc.  Her book This Body was published by David Godine Press. Riot Wake was published by Červená Barva Press and her story collection Distractions En Route by Ibbetson Street. Her novel Balancing On One Leg is about to be published by Wilderness House, also her chapbook The Ones I Could Tell Anything, all available on Amazon. She’s also the editor of Constellations: a Journal of Poetry and Fiction (constellations-lit.com).

Matthew E. Henry (MEH) is the author of six poetry collections, most recently said the Frog to the scorpion (Harbor Editions, 2024). He is editor-in-chief of The Weight Journal, the creative nonfiction editor at Porcupine Literary, and an associate editor at Rise Up Review. MEH’s publications include Barren Magazine, Had, Lily Poetry, Massachusetts Review, Mayday, Mom Egg Review, Nixes Mate, Pangyrus, Ploughshares, Redivider, Stone Circle Review, Terrain, Whale Road Review, and The Worcester Review. MEH is a high school teacher who received his MFA yet continued to spend money he didn’t have completing an MA in theology and a PhD in education. You can find him at www.MEHPoeting.com writing about education, race, religion, and burning oppressive systems to the ground.