The 2025 Massachusetts Poetry Festival: Full Schedule

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12:45pm EDT

Announcement of the Inaugural State Poet Laureate by Governor Maura Healey

Friday May 30, 2025 12:45pm - 1:15pm EDT

To kick off the 2025 Massachusetts Poetry Festival in Salem, Governor Maura Healey and Lt. Governor Kim Driscoll will announce the first-ever Massachusetts Poet Laureate live. Join Mass Poetry in witnessing this historic moment! Let's keep the love of poetry rolling all weekend!

Friday May 30, 2025 12:45pm - 1:15pm EDT

Special Event

6:30pm EDT

Kickoff Event: Common Threads: A Celebration of Massachusetts Poets

Friday May 30, 2025 6:30pm - 8:30pm EDT

Old Town Hall

Help us Kickoff the Festival with a celebration of poetry in the Commonwealth! This event will feature readings by distinguished poets and poet laureates as well as our First Poem Contest Winners, with special appearances by state, local, and non-profit officials!

Speakers

Elizabeth Bradfield

Poetry, Brandeis U, Western Colorado U

Elizabeth Bradfield’s seven books include: SOFAR: Poems, which includes poems that appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Sun, and Orion; Interpretive Work, which won the Audre Lorde Prize in Lesbian Poetry; Toward Antarctica; and the co-created Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecol... Read More →

J.D. Scrimgeour

J.D. Scrimgeour is the author of six poetry collections, the most recent being Small, Rectangular, Reflected World (Nixes Mate, 2025). Among his other collections is a book of bilingual poetry, 香蕉面包 /Banana Bread. With musician Philip Swanson, he released Ogunquit & Othe... Read More →

David J. Silva, Ph.D.

Provost and Academic Vice President, Salem State University

David Silva is Provost and Academic Vice President at Salem State University, overseeing academic programs, accreditation, and faculty support. Before joining SSU in 2015, he was Professor of Linguistics, Distinguished Teaching Professor, and Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs at The... Read More →

John Andrews

John Andrews is a locally renowned creative thought leader who directs the consultancy arm of Creative Collective. He is the go-to idea guy for implementing intricate creative projects, navigating new ground with municipalities and city leaders, figuring out clever solutions to complex... Read More →

Carmen Barefield

Carmen Barefield (she/her) is a poet and writer living in Salem, Massachusetts. She is also a fellow of Roots. Wounds. Words. and The Watering Hole. Some of her work can be found in Voicemail Poems, The Elevation Review, Popshot Magazine, Kissing Dynamite, and Poetry Quarterly... Read More →

Janet E. Aalfs

Founder and Director, Lotus Peace Arts

Janet E. Aalfs, poet laureate of Northampton, MA (2003-2005), and founder/director of Lotus Peace Arts at Heron's Bridge/Valley Women's Martial Arts, a non-profit community school since 1977, is a poet, performer, educator, dancer, and master instructor of Karate, Filipino Stick Arts... Read More →

Amy Wise Rothschild

Amy Wise Rothschild’s poetry has appeared in The Bellevue Literary Review, Tupelo Quarterly, ONEART, and Maudlin House, among others. The 2024 winner of the Bellevue Literary Review Prize for Poetry, she lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Theadora Siranian

Theadora Siranian is a graduate of the MFA Program at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Her poetry has appeared in Best New Poets, Ghost City Review, CONSEQUENCE Magazine, Rust + Moth, and Atticus Review, among others. In 2013, she was a finalist for The Poet’s Billow... Read More →

Porsha Olayiwola

Porsha Olayiwola is a native of Chicago who writes, lives and loves in Boston. Olayiwola is a writer, performer, educator and curator who uses afro-futurism and surrealism to examine historical and current issues in the Black, woman, and queer diasporas. She is an Individual World... Read More →

Anna Lucia Deloia

Anna Lucia Deloia is a White, queer writer, educator, and researcher. She has a PhD from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and she is co-founder of the intergenerational education initiative Imagining More Just Futures. Her poetry is published in Rattle, Midway Journal... Read More →

Gray Davidson Carroll

Gray Davidson Carroll is a white, transfemme writer, dancer, singer, cold water plunger and (self-proclaimed) hot chocolate alchemist hailing from Brooklyn by way of western Massachusetts and other strange and forgotten places. They are the author of the poetry chapbook Waterfall... Read More →

Friday May 30, 2025 6:30pm - 8:30pm EDT
Old Town Hall 32 Derby Square, Salem, MA 01970

Special Event