Massachusetts Statewide Poetry Calendar 2

Join poet and Artist-in-Residence, Carolyn Oliver, for a celebratory outdoor reading of poems composed during her residency.  

We will begin in Bigelow Chapel with an introduction and brief Q&A between Carolyn and Public Events Producer, Julie-Anne Whitney. Then we’ll make our way outdoors together for a multi-stop reading tour during which Carolyn will read several poems in the locations that inspired them.

Check-in will be at Bigelow Chapel. After the Roaming Reading, we’ll return to Bigelow Chapel for an audience Q&A with the poet.

Event Capacity: 35 people

April is National Poetry Month and what better way to celebrate than with a panel discussion with Porsha Olayiwola, Danielle Legros Georges, Chen Chen, and Dara Wier, moderated by the host of PBS' "Poetry in America," Elisa New. They will discuss diversity in contemporary poetry and how poets use their art form to respond to the world around them.

Join WGBH and Mass Poetry, on April 12th, 2021, at 7 PM EDT for this live, interactive conversation with our panel of local poets. A general admission ticket ($25) includes access to the Zoom webinar discussion and a special digital collection of curated poems from the panel. If poetry is your passion and you want to support WGBH, please consider the Poetry Bundle ticket ($100) that also includes the printed collections of each poet featured at the event.

Armen Davoudian and Jendi Reiter, winners of Slate Roof's Glass Broadside Contest, will read their winning poems and other work. A craft talk follows the reading, featuring our master letterpress printer, Ed Rayher, and artist J. Hyde Meissner, who will describe the process of creating the woodcuts and producing the broadsides printed on a Vandercook Universal. The evening closes with an audience Q&A. Hosted by Slate Roof Press www.slateroofpress.com. To register go to https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZElcOurqTkoEtGVKMvNLQUk6xnO6-bg3Vpa 

Armen Davoudian is the author of Swan Song, which won the 2020 Frost Place Chapbook Competition. His poems and translations from Persian appear in AGNI, The Sewanee Review, The Yale Review, and elsewhere. He grew up in Isfahan, Iran and is currently a PhD candidate in English at Stanford University.

Jendi Reiter is the author of the novel Two Natures (Saddle Road Press, 2016), the short story collection An Incomplete List of My Wishes (Sunshot Press, 2018), and four poetry books and chapbooks, most recently Bullies in Love (Little Red Tree, 2015). Awards include a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship for Poetry, the New Letters Prize for Fiction, the Wag's Revue Poetry Prize, the Bayou Magazine Editor's Prize in Fiction, and two awards from the Poetry Society of America. Two Natures won the Rainbow Award for Best Gay Contemporary Fiction and was a finalist for the Book Excellence Awards and the Lascaux Prize for Fiction. Reiter is the editor of WinningWriters.com, an online resource site with contests and markets for creative writers. Visit JendiReiter.com.

As part of a multi-arts performance, the musical ensemble Harmony Grove will collaborate with visual artists Patrick St. Pierre and Samela St. Pierre, and poet Ketu Oladuwa. For the full the second half of the performance, Ketu will read from his original works while backed by the band playing freely improvised music in interplay with Ketu's poetry.