Imagine the Angels of Bread by Martín Espada This is the year that squatters evict landlords, gazing like admirals from the rail of the roofdeck or levitating hands in praise of steam in the shower; this is the year that shawled refugees deport judges, who stare at...
Taking Stock by Jennifer Garfield We’ve stocked the pantry with tomato sauce,broth, chickpea pasta for protein. The fridge casts her blue halo upon crowns of broccoli,cottage cheese, a dozen lemons. Toilet paper soldiered in the basement. Clean underweartucked into...
Reading series interview: The New England Poetry ClubInterview with Wendy Drexler and Mary Buchinger of the New England Poetry Club. Does your series happen on a regular schedule, such as the second Tuesday of the month? If so, what is it?We have three reading series,...
Reading series interview: Everyone Has a Voice at the Brockton Public Librarya conversation between Frances Donovan and Paul Engle, Director of the Brockton Public Library Does your series happen on a regular schedule, such as the second Tuesday of the month? If so,...
When did you first encounter poetry? How did you discover that you wanted to write poems? I was a latecomer to poetry really, outside of the limited exposure in grade school and high school. I remember one Old English Poetry class in college in 1979. But really it...
Attention is Prayer, Curative by Jenny Grassl burn cinnamon your remorse I will attend your systole and flu favor speckle for heart take foxglove burden in its tonic please don’t die I do beseech you beloved and strange bowed with soft shoulders of penitence charcoal...
Ledger of Doubts, Unmasked by Amanda Grace Shu At CVS, a woman toes the tape linemarking a safe six feet from where I stand.She stares at me slantwise, suspicious,and turns away when I meet her gaze. Mom chats with the grocery checkout girl,thanking her for her...
When did you first encounter poetry? How did you discover you wanted to write poems? It began with Bob Dylan’s lyrics at the age of thirteen and then Charles Bukowski was the first poet I read—no, no— I could “relate to” somehow. From there, my whole high...
Bref Double Written for Central Park During the Pandemic by Jenna Le Magnolias, long-fingered like a thief,their knuckles purple fading to pale pinktoward their fingertips, reach out to stirthe robin’s-egg-blue basin of the sky, to swirl their fingers lazily...
Love in the Time of Corona by Charles Coe (with apologies to Gabriel García Márquez) In ancient Greece, men shook handsas a demonstration of good faithto show they weren’t armed. In these days of fever and fearwe keep our distance, resistthe timeless call of flesh to...
a conversation between Lip Manegio and Bradley Trumpfheller It seems fitting to begin an interview with the beginning of your book, so I wanted to ask about your epigraph, which is half critical text quote and half song lyric. That kind of mixing of the “high” with...
torrin a. greathouse’s “Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination Before a Diagnosis Can be Determined” May 27, 2020 Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination Before a Diagnosis Can be Determinedby torrin a. greathouse after Natalie Diaz Antonym for me a medicalbook....
The God Structure by Chloe Martinez "It has a god structure. I think it will resist a long time.” —customer review of the Uniqlo Beauty Light bra, $19.99 O keep me up, keep me going. Keep it together. Smooth me. Reduceexcess movement....
Daal/In the Midst of a Pandemic, by Kathryn Petruccelli it began to snow, the weather having no use for calendars, nor mercy. After erasing the spring crocuses, it continued—flakes that could scarcely be called so, formidable, dressed in slippery white taffeta that...
Hard Workby Kathleen Aguero Hope springs eternal, but I couldn’t imagine how hope, before it gets to that bubbling place, forces itself through miles of dirt packed hard, then around, over, under rocks, willing itself not to dry up in the desert or to merge with the...
A conversation between Frances Donovan and Holly Guran, Co-organizer of Rozzie Reads
Poets Laureate Across Massachusetts A note from the interviewer, Alice Kociemba Martha’s Vineyard is a just short ferry ride from Woods Hole, a village of Falmouth. As a resident of Falmouth, I have been lucky enough to visit the Vineyard frequently. I have always...
I read your interview with Frontier Poetry, & in it you talked about the joy you felt when Bury Me in Thunder was accepted for publication, and during revision. I’m wondering if you could talk about moments of joy you encountered in the process of writing the...
poetry coalition 2020in this place : Poetry & Protest “In This Place (An American Lyric)” features a stirring choral recitation of a protest-themed poem of the same name by National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman. This short film, released in conjunction with...
Resources for Poetry Lovers During COVID-19Are you a poetry lover feeling the sting of canceled readings and open mics? Or just looking for another way to spend some new found free time? We at Mass Poetry are feeling both of those things, so we put together this list...
Keeping the word alive: supporting small presses during covid-19It is very hard to overstate the importance of small, independent presses in our current literary scene - they are most poets’ first home, and play host to a diverse range of voices that might be...