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Getting to Know Michael Ansara, Author of What Remains

Getting to Know Michael Ansara, Author of What Remains

When did you first encounter poetry? How did you discover that you wanted to write poems?  I fell in love with poetry in high school but as a reader, not a writer. Over the years I would read poetry, primarily what I think of as the “classics” for well-educated...

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Getting to Know Dianne C. Braley, Author of Unheard Whispers

Getting to Know Dianne C. Braley, Author of Unheard Whispers

“What excites me most about Unheard Whispers, my collection of poems on growing up in an alcoholic home, is that part of the proceeds is going to the Robert F. Kennedy Community Alliance here in Massachusetts and their division that helps children and families affected by addiction. In the disease of addiction, so much funding and support go to the addicts themselves. While this is needed, the children of addicts often are forgotten.” — Dianne C. Braley

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Getting to Know Jon D. Lee, Author of IN/DESIDERATO

Getting to Know Jon D. Lee, Author of IN/DESIDERATO

“IN/DESIDERATO is a book-length poem that, at its heart, is a meditation on the nature of the world we’re leaving behind, both in terms of our collective successes and our failures. The title is a Latinate mangling of my own that loosely translates to ‘un/desirable,’ meaning both the light and dark opposites of that phrasing, and the book is dedicated to and largely addressed to my children.” — Jon D. Lee

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A Cento by Erica Charis-Molling

A Cento by Erica Charis-Molling

“Dear child of the near future, / Here’s my permission. Take it. It’s alright to replace sirens / with the light shot through them. / All the old gray gods have fallen / in a field of decapitated corn stalks. / I’m trying to tell you that the world is beautiful.” — Erica Charis-Molling

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Getting to Know Martin Edmunds, Author of Flame in a Stable

Getting to Know Martin Edmunds, Author of Flame in a Stable

“I fell in love with words; they ran away with me. Discipline followed, born of delight—in ‘getting the words right”: a slow apprenticeship. It takes time to learn how to name your gait, ask for a lead on a canter, command a lope, a trot, a fourteener, scuttle the chatter to trip a tetrameter, settle back into ballad measure.” — Martin Edmunds

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Getting to Know Kristian Macaron, Author of Recipe for Time Travel in Case We Lose Each Other

Getting to Know Kristian Macaron, Author of Recipe for Time Travel in Case We Lose Each Other

“I wasn’t just writing about the earth, but the earth as a body, deep time and time travel, but more so about myself and my heart—learning to see myself through stages of recognition, voice, transformation and renewal. In retrospect, much of this was a study of spending time in the unfamiliar to allow what feels like disaster or quest to turn into a renewed understanding of strength, certainty and self-love.” — Kristian Macaron

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Disability Justice Folio

Disability Justice Folio

For the last two years, Mass Poetry has been bringing you the “Hard Work of Hope,” a series of poems from members of our community that tell the story of the pandemic and all its ripple effects in our lives. But we cannot tell the full story without hearing from...

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Getting to Know José Araguz, Author of Rotura

Getting to Know José Araguz, Author of Rotura

“One of the things I like to make time for is writing out a poem by hand. It’s something I recommend to folks as it places us in a similar silence as the act of writing a poem ourselves. It also slows us down and has us paying attention to words.” — José Araguz

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Grace Mattern’s “An American Elegy”

Grace Mattern’s “An American Elegy”

An American ElegyGrace Mattern We go back to not dying,wherever we fall is the beginning —an allée of elms planted to createa lace of sunlight and shadow.What separates branches from windin designing their dance? Nothing.We carry our own seasons wonderingwhen we will...

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Elisa Rowe’s “Grounding Lavender”

Elisa Rowe’s “Grounding Lavender”

Grounding Lavender Elisa Rowe Wrap a scarf likekneading dough, poola little lavender to grazemy cheek.My body, a slippingfinger on a piano. Mybody, trembling into tune.I want to be soft likebelonging. I wantmy neurons to fire acountry into memory.Routine is like a...

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