New England Poetry Club

NEPC @ The Menino: Barbara Cassidy, Jennifer M Phillips, Vijaya Sundaram
2026-05-16 15:00 - 16:30 (America/New_York) | Menino Arts Center, 26 Central Avenue, Hyde Park, MA, 02136, United States
On May 16, please join the New England Poetry Club in a return to the Menino Arts Center in Boston’s Hyde Park neighborhood. The reading begins at 3:00 p.m. and is free and open to the public. An open mic will follow the featured poets.
The Menino Arts Center, located at 26 Central Avenue, is an accessible venue, with a wheelchair ramp into the building and an elevator to the second floor. We’re grateful to Home Scholars of Boston for their generous sponsorship.
Barbara Cassidy is a poet, singer-songwriter, and Sean-nós singer who resides in Massachusetts. Her poems have appeared in Open Doors Review, The Journal of Undiscovered Poets, The Stonecoast Review, on the 2023/2025 Martin Poetry Path in Newton, among others, and have been set to music by composer Eric Chasalow. She is also the author of the poetry chapbook, Divination (Dancing Girl Press, 2026).
Jennifer M Phillips is a boundary-crosser, retired skydiver, and bonsai-grower, and has authored three chapbooks, Sitting Safe In the Theatre of Electricity, A Song of Ascents, and Sailing to the Edges, and a collection, Wrestling with the Angel. Phillips’ work has appeared in over 140 journals, recently Spoon River Poetry Review, London Grip, and The Alembic), and was thrice-nominated for a Pushcart Poetry Prize and an Eyelands Book Prize. She is moved to write poetry these days by changing landscapes during climate shift and the need for a new communitarianism to forge connections in our time of fragmentation.
Vijaya Sundaram is an Indian-born, Medford-based poet, musician, artist, and community college professor. She served as Medford’s second Poet Laureate between 2023-2025. Her first collection of poems, Fractured Lens, was published in 2023 by Červená Barva Press. Her second poetry book, Reverberations, was published in 2025 by Ibbetson Street Press. Aside from poems, she has written short stories, plays, and a short novel. Her poetry and short pieces have appeared in publications like The Rising Phoenix Press, the Stardust Review, and TELL Magazine, among others. She has read her poems at poetry events in and around the Boston and Greater Boston areas, and currently runs an Open Mic for Poetry and Original Song at the Arts Collaborative Medford, as well as a Medford Poetry Club at the Medford Public Library. She is a recipient of the Mass Cultural Council Grant for Creative Individuals for 2026.

Poetry at the Manse: Diana Cole, Paula J. Lambert, Gail Hanlon
2026-05-31 14:00 - 15:00 | Old Manse, 269 Monument St, Concord, MA, 01742
The NEPC’s 2026 season at The Old Manse in Concord, Mass., kicks off on Sunday, May 31. 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/.
Diana Cole, a Pushcart Prize nominee, has been published in over 60 poetry journals, including Poetry East, Spillway, The Public’s Radio 89.3, Friends Journal, Verse Daily, and Orison Books. For five years, she was a senior editor for The Crosswinds Poetry Journal. In 2025, she was awarded first place in the Notable Works Poetry Initiative, judged by Tina Cane, RI Poet Laureate Emerita. As a singer and vocal coach based in Massachusetts for over 40 years, she offers workshops to poets in Reading Aloud. In addition to her writing, she is a stained-glass artist working in Warren, RI. To connect artists and poets, she organizes Ekphrastic events for various galleries in Rhode Island. Her chapbook, Songs by Heart, was published by Iris Press, and in 2018 her full-length book, Between Selves, was released in 2023 by Indian Press (Cyberwit.net). More information at dianacolepoets.com.
Paula J. Lambert has published five full-length poetry collections, including Terms of Venery, Revised (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions 2025), and six chapbooks, including Sinkhole (Bottlecap Press 2025). Lambert, a native of Shirley, Massachusetts, and winner of the New England Poetry Club’s 2023 Amy Lowell Prize, is also a literary translator, small press publisher, and visual artist. Now living in Columbus, Ohio, her work has been supported by the Ohio Arts Council, the Greater Columbus Arts Council, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. Her mentorship has been recognized by PEN America. She lives in Columbus with her husband, Dr. Michael Perkins, a philosopher and technologist. More at www.paulajlambert.com.
Gail Hanlon’s poetry has appeared in The Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, Cincinnati Review, CutbankOnline, The Iowa Review, Pittsburg Review, New Letters, Verse Daily, and BEST AMERICAN POETRY, among other journals and anthologies. She has published Silent Letter (Cornerstone 2023) and two chapbooks, and also edited Voicing Power: Conversations with Visionary Women. Her work received the National Writer’s Union Poetry Prize and has been shortlisted for the Iowa Review Award and CutBank’s Patricia Goedicke Prize, and long-listed for Cutbank’s Chapbook Award, the Tomaž Šalamun Prize at VERSE, and OSU’s The Journal Wheeler Prize, among others.
