“5+ Questions With” is a new series in which we learn more about Mass Poetry’s partners throughout the region, particularly those that are also members of the Poetry Coalition. This week we’re hearing from Jennifer Benka of the Academy of American Poets, which oversees the Poetry Coalition.
10+ Questions! is a series in which we catch up with poets who have been featured in our programming. Below, we speak with Krysten Hill and Kurt Klopmeier.
featured project: New Post occupancy In the building industry, post-occupancy evaluations are commonly used to understand how a building performs. It's been eighty years since the New Deal when the federal government built a slew (1,500) of new post offices among...
by Heather Hughes On July 18, “Breath and Matter” opens at the Boston Sculptors Gallery in the South End. The exhibit—which grew out of Murray Dewart’s anthology Poems About Sculpture and draws its title from a Robert Pinsky quote, "What has art made of breath...
Available now from Presa Press When did you first encounter poetry? How did you discover you wanted to write poems? The songs of Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Dion and the Belmonts were the first poems I paid attention to, though none of them would admit they were...
Breath and Matter Exhibit Brings Together Poetry and Sculpture (Part 1) by Heather Hughes On July 18, “Breath and Matter” opens at the Boston Sculptors Gallery in the South End. The exhibit, which grew out of Murray Dewart’s anthology Poems About...
Available now at Amazon When did you first encounter poetry? How did you discover that you wanted to write poems? I fell in love with poetry as a high school senior in Ms. Benz’s English class. It was an immediate and sudden revelation. We were each assigned a poet to...
Flowers for Sarah by Talia Grossman David says “flowers might be nice.” His face, a worn map of waiting rooms.His eyes, reels of prescriptions,tired of doctors playing the slots. He can’t decide between tulips or canterbury bells,between yellow, pink, or purple. I...
Angel Oak by Therese Gleason CarrGreat treeteach me how to live,to bear thousands of days and nights,how to witnessand survive.What your hollow eyes have seen—how heavy your twisted limbsoutstretched in tortuous pursuit of heaven,how sinewy your rootsmooring you to...
When did you first encounter poetry? How did you discover that you wanted to write poems? I began writing poems in a high school creative writing class. Back then I thought I wanted to write fiction, but as soon as I started writing poems, I was hooked. There...
Marjorie Thomsen’s “Haloed” & Christine Jone’s “This, Too, Shall Pass”
When did you first encounter poetry? How did you discover that you wanted to write poems? I slunk into my first open mic when I was 18. Some guy read and everyone responded with “Mmm”s and claps and snaps. People started talking with each other about his poem! I...
Nevertheless Jessica Jacobs This time is sacred for the good or bad it could become but isn’t yet. For the 4 a.m. phone that doesn’t ring but might. Ma nishtana ha’laila ha’zeh mi-kol ha’leilot? Why is this night different than all other nights? It’s not. It’s only...
Killer Fruit by Emily Cooper I.God created the animal spirits,the beasts, and then his man. Four legscleaved so two might reach in awefor the heavens while two might tamp the earthhe came from. II.The serpent saw a lie in the eye of God, knowing the...
When did you first encounter poetry? How did you discover that you wanted to write poems? My journey into poetry began with my love of writing as a kid. After that first magical encounter, my writing was encouraged as an extracurricular activity, dropped during my...
Corvid Spring by Elizabeth Moore Bird-watching soars amid COVID-19 as Americans head outdoors— AP headline, May 2, 2020 Since I cut your hair on the patiothe backyard birds have been threadingit into their nests. Now chicks comeof age in your curls. Early morningsI...
When did you first encounter poetry? How did you discover that you wanted to write poems? I first encountered poetry, as many do, in children’s books: nursery rhymes and other illustrated poems and stories in verse. I loved the music and the wordplay, rhymes and puns...
Sheltering: Family Notebook by Mia Ayumi Malhotra for my daughters, with lines from Louise Glück Ready or not, here we are. We’ve been lost and found, gone underground. We’ve raised cardboard cities, pounded flowers to pulp. Danced like seeds, sprouting. We’ve been...
Even After by Janelle Tan the dead bat in the hallway –wings folded, shriveled on its side, the year we greetedbats with terror and asians with diseased and spit.even after a car turned burning meteor in the FDR tunnel, the smell of rubber on firedispersed seven...
Gathering Ingredients for Sancocho in Appalachia During a Pandemic by Amy M. Alvarez I find platanos easily enough I can do without cassava,but no one here has heard of chayote,even after I look online and findthe ugly English word for it. It’s not that I like...
Equinox by Tamiko Beyer Dear child of the near future,here is what I know—hawks soar on the updraft and sparrows alwaysreturn to the seed source until they spot the circling hawk. Then they disappearfor days and return, a full flock, ready. I think we all have the...