Massachusetts Statewide Poetry Calendar

Celebrate the release of HOW TO TIE & UNTIE MIST by Daniel Hales, with readings by CAConrad & Daniel Hales, followed by live music (& a chance to sing along) with The Frost Heaves & Hales.

Daniel and CA will read their poetry, followed by an intermission to greet friends, make new friends, enjoy snacks & drinks, and buy books. Then The Frost Heaves & Hales will lead a "Mystical Song Singalong," playing a short set of songs that have a mystical dimension, including Somewhere Over The Rainbow, Under The Milky Way, Big Rock Candy Mountain, Visions of Johanna, and more. Lyrics will be provided if you feel like singing along. Part of the event may take place outdoors in Unnameable Books' courtyard, weather permitting.

HOW TO TIE & UNTIE MIST has an official release date of 5/13, but is already available for pre-order from Frayed Edge Press https://www.frayededgepress.com/how_to_tie.html

Of the new book CAConrad says: "Daniel Hales has written a brilliant page-turner! "Let's erode & sell / our wisdom teeth to Alchemy," the poet suggests between swan warnings and mice eating the candles on his porch. By the time you reach "How To Be Mist," you will want to begin reading these poems over the phone. Call your lover and your friends, and don't forget to call your mother! I love this book!

On the surface, How To Tie & Untie Mist seems to pick up where Hales' previous book, ¿Cómo Hacer Preguntas? or How To Make Questions: 69 Instructional Poems in English, left off. But this new exploded annex of poetry goes further, deeper, wilder, weirder, once more into the breach, "explaining" everything from how to tie a tie, get a job promotion, resign from your job, pray, find redemption, grieve, approach swans, die, and make a sandwich.
The book's third section deconstructs selected poems in the previous two sections through partial erasures: new skeletal poems emerge from the mist to contradict the original poems--or to untie their knots, revealing their essence.

The Mill is right off Rt 190, has a spacious parking lot, serves delectable apps, entrees, and desserts with a full bar. We’ll have a seperate room for our monthly shenanigans. Admission will still be free. All of the Tip Jar proceeds go to the Feature.

The Poetry Extravaganza (PE) is the 3rd Wednesday of the month from 6:30-8;30 pm. Sign up for the open mic at jfjr6969@gmail.com, Five minute maximum,There are no language restrictions. We are not kid-friendly!

Our featured writer on May 21st will be the very talented Irena Kaçi.
Lewandowski Painters still sponsors our event. That’s how we pay the poets! Join the Fun on May 21st!

Martín Espada has published more than twenty books as a poet, editor, essayist, and translator. His new book of poems, Jailbreak of Sparrows, is forthcoming from Knopf in 2025. His previous book, Floaters, won the National Book Award for Poetry and a Massachusetts Book Award. His poetry collections from W.W. Norton includes Vivas to Those Who Have Failed (2016), The Trouble Ball (2011), The Republic of Poetry (2006), Alabanza (2003) and Imagine the Angels of Bread (1996). He is the editor of What Saves Us: Poems of Empathy and Outrage in the Age of Trump (2019). Espada has received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Shelley Memorial Award, an Academy of American Poets Fellowship, the PEN/ Revson Fellowship, a Letras Boricuas Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. The title poem of his collection Alabanza, about 9/11, has been widely anthologized and performed. His book of essays and poems, Zapata’s Disciple (1998), was banned in Tucson as part of the Mexican-American Studies Program outlawed by the state of Arizona. A former tenant lawyer, Espada is a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

An immersive evening of poetry, music, and reflection.

Join us for Them Poems Alone Won’t Save Us, an exploration of poetry as a form of radical love and resistance, led by Carmin Wong, Castle of our Skins’ Shirley Graham Du Bois Creative in Residence.

Carmin Wong is a Guyanese-born poet, playwright, and digital humanist whose work deeply explores themes of homeland, heritage, and community freedom. A dual-title Ph.D. student in English Literature and African American and Diaspora Studies at Pennsylvania State University, Carmin’s work has been recognized by the Academy of American Poetry and performed at leading cultural institutions across the country. Her plays and poetry weave archival research with personal storytelling, reclaiming lost narratives while offering a space for reflection and healing.

In this 90-minute experience—part art gallery, part poetry reading—you’ll be immersed in Carmin’s antidisciplinary creative practice, where poetry, music, and dance intersect to create a powerful space for self-reflection and communal connection.

Poetry alone won’t save us—but it can open the door to deeper connection and action.

Event Details:
May 24, 2025
Goethe-Institut Boston (170 Beacon St., Boston, MA 02124)
Tickets: $25 general admission | $10 students & seniors | $5 Card to Culture
Limited seating available—secure your spot today!
Doors open at 7:00

Exhibition Only Viewing (Bonus Addition!):
May 30, 2025 | 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Goethe-Institut Boston
Free with suggested donation

The Massachusetts Poetry Festival will be back in Salem, MA on May 31st and June 1st, 2025! The Festival features over 100 poets and performers from across Massachusetts and beyond. There are headline readings, workshops, panels, a small press fair, multimedia events, open mics, and more.

A reading with authors Linda Dini Jenkins and Barbara Worton. Lifelong friends and professional writers for five decades, Linda and Barbara each grew up in New York with one Italian parent and one non-Italian parent, a situation which shapes their writing to this day. Linda — a Salem resident for more than 20 years — is the author, most recently, of Becoming Italian: Chapter & Verse from an Italian American Girl; Barbara's most recent book is Chatterbox: Stories from a Noisy Life. Together, they create an evening of humor, nostalgia and insights. And the first person to buy both their books goes home with an Italian gift basket!

Linda Dini Jenkins is the author of Becoming Italian: Chapter and Verse from an Italian American girl, Up at the Villa: Travels with my Husband, and Journey of a Returning Christian: Writing into God. Her poetry has been published in Voices in Italian Americana, Ovunque Siamo, Touchstone, Tampa Review, South Florida Poetry Review, Vermont Voices I and II, and Poeti italo-americani e italo-canadesi, among others. She is the author of the one-act play, Things I Never Told My Mother and, with lifelong friend Barbara Worton, she coauthored the choreopoem, If I’m Talking, Why Aren’t You Listening? She is a contributing writer and Copy Editor for Abruzzissimo Magazine and writes occasionally for The Adventures of The Baker’s Daughter. She lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire and Sulmona (Abruzzo), Italy.

Barbara Worton is an author, poet, playwright, blogger and songwriter. Her books include Chatterbox: Stories from a Noisy Life, Bedtime Stores: The Short, Long and Tall Tales of a Sleepwriter, and the award-winning children's book Too Tall Alice. She coauthored the choreopoem If I'm Talking, Why Aren't You Listening with Linda Dini Jenkins and the web memoir and blog The Adventures of the Baker's Daughter with Rochelle Udell. Her writing has appeared in The Haight-Ashbury Literary Review, VIA: Voices in Italian Americana, Platform Review, Ovunque Siamo,. and The Paterson Literary Review.