The 2025 Massachusetts Poetry Festival

Come see this exhibit hanging in the PEM's atrium alcove featuring photos of Revere Beach by Stephenie Young, with poems by Kevin Carey and Jennifer Martelli set as wall text.

Poets Kevin Carey and Jennifer Martelli grew up in Revere, Massachusetts in the 60’s. They’ve both written extensively about this city and its three-mile beachfront, which is the first public beach in America. Stephanie Young, a Somerville photographer, originally from California, was drawn to the east coast ocean and began taking pictures of people on the beach and the brilliant landscapes presented there. A chance conversation one day over a few of those photographs and a few poems and this artist collaborative was born.

In the shadow of the Boston skyline, Revere Beach is a life in pictures, the natural horizon of blue ocean, the restaurants and the bars, cars cruising up and down, teenagers in packs on hot summer days, retired folks walking the boardwalk. There’s also the poetic stories that the urban beachfront carries: a honkytonk history, a revolving door of immigrants, gangsters and gamblers, an often overcrowded scene with beachgoers brimming with energy.

This collection attempts to capture the complicated nature of this place, with the combination of a somewhat outsider’s eye and the personal reflections of those poets with history here. At times beautiful, though not always pretty, we feel it’s a true portrait of a place that has influenced each of us in different ways.