The 2025 Massachusetts Poetry Festival

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!

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!

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.

Danielle Legros Georges (1964-2025) was one of our poetry community’s most beloved members and one of our finest poets. Born in Haiti and raised in Boston, Danielle served as Boston’s poet laureate from 2015 to 2019. During her lifetime, she published four collections of poems and two collections of translated Haitian women’s poetry, edited or co-edited two anthologies, and completed a fifth collection. Her awards and fellowships were many, including an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Emerson College, and in 2024 she was inducted into the American Antiquarian Society and named a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France’s Ministry of Culture. The panelists will honor Danielle by discussing her life and work, and reading some of her exquisite poems.

Common Threads: Weaving Worlds Together
A Community Poem for the 2025 Massachusetts Poetry Festival

Come visit the Small Press Fair to contribute in-person to our Common Threads Community Poem! Details below! Folks who are not able to visit the table in person are welcome to submit online, more details below!

Mass Poetry is seeking submissions for our community poem, “Common Threads: Weaving Worlds Together,” written in celebration of the 2025 Massachusetts Poetry Festival. Participants are asked to write a couple lines of poetry in response to the questions: What do you hope for the future of America? What are your hopes? Your worries? Your predictions? Your demands? Your aspirations? Whether you are a professionally published poet or someone trying to find their creative spark, we welcome all voices. 

Contributions are welcomed from writers across the country–not just Massachusetts residents–and the submission deadline is June 8, 2025. 
 
Mass Poetry staff will assemble contributed lines of poetry into one or more large poems to be published online. For the purpose of cohesion, small changes such as punctuation or tense changes may be made to the lines. 

This project was created for the 2025 Massachusetts Poetry Festival, but we would like to include as many folks as possible even those who cannot attend. Please share this form with your community and literary circles! Anyone is welcome to contribute regardless of location; you do not need to be connected to Massachusetts. 

Please submit the form only once. Add your lines here: 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc_UzF7Xjw9wwfWpTlt9h7Js6KN7YleiNiYPkkTz0FlVfNUqw/viewform?usp=sharing

By submitting this form, you give Mass Poetry permission to arrange and publish your lines and your name. Please refrain from explicit content that may not be appropriate for a general audience. Any form of hate speech will not be tolerated. Though we will strive to include everyone’s words as far as possible, Mass Poetry reserves the right to exclude lines for any reason. We are collecting emails to verify that folks are submitting only once; your email will not be published. 

To see the announcement when the poem is published, please make sure you are signed up for our newsletter at masspoetry.org. 

Please join us for our new event series: Mass Poetry Presents: Poets You Ought To Know, featuring poets selected for their distinctive voices and perspectives. This session will include readings by John Bonanni, María Luisa Arroyo Cruzado, and Barbara Fant.

25 years of the Massachusetts Book Awards in Poetry! This event will feature six incredible award-winning poets who will read selections from their work, dive into the craft of poetry, and share some of their favorite poetry collections. Whether you're a long-time poetry lover or just curious about the genre, this event promises to inspire and spark new thoughts.

For this year's State of Poetry Panel, WBUR senior arts and culture reporter moderates a panel discussion with renowned poets Carmen Giménez, Executive Director of Graywolf Press, January Gill O'Neil, Chair of the AWP Board of Trustees, and Emmanuel Oppong-Yeboah, recently announced Poet Laureate of Boston. From writing and performing to publishing and organizing, these poets will share their insights on the world of contemporary poetry in America. The panel will begin with a recorded statement from Ricard Alberto Maldonado, Executive Director of the Academy of American Poets.

Witness the words on the page become embodied through dance. This session will present six choreographer's work that have been inspired by poems from Mass Poetry Festival poets. The performance will conclude with a question and answer session focusing on their creative and collaborative process.

Please join us for our new event series: Mass Poetry Presents: Poets You Ought To Know, featuring poets selected for their distinctive voices and perspectives. This session will include readings by Amy Alvarez, Noah Davis, and Susan Rich.

Join us with your favorite sundae for this delicious Festival open mic! Bring your poems about ice cream, chocolate, jelly beans, or anything else sweet you'd like to share. Bring your sweet-tooth as well; ice cream will be provided!