The 2025 Massachusetts Poetry Festival

Join us for an hour-long, hands-on crafting session where we make bookmarks! In this workshop, you’ll pick your favorite thread colors and learn simple stitching techniques to create a unique keepsake. Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned crafter, this session offers a fun, stress free environment to stitch and design your own creation. All materials will be provided- just bring your creativity!

Mass Poetry’s Teen Council presents Mental Health & Politics: A Generative Workshop. A generative, discussion based workshop in which participants will explore the intersection between politics and mental health.

*For poet-educators/youth coaches/teachers looking to form a team/teaching artists looking to coach.

Join us for a workshop hosted by Mass Poetry’s Teen Spoken Word Coordinator Anthony Febo. This workshop will focus on a variety of teaching/coaching practices, warm up/circle up activities, an overall poetry club/and slam team curriculum building. This will also be an opportunity for anyone looking to form a poetry slam team for next year’s Write Here | Write Now | Speak Loud!

The mind has let most things go, the body has forgotten nothing. To make someone feel is to feel something yourself. In this workshop SW@MP members Maria Zaki and Voula Flessas will divulge what about writing and performance sets stages and crowds aflame.

Whether you are causing an uproar or bringing a room to silence, this workshop will zoom in on how poetry can be felt in the body as an audience member and writer.  Come for what is sure to be one of the hottest workshops of the summer. Bring the lines that make your stomach drop, make your skin tingle, make a truly lasting impact.

Come and let your voice be heard on our youth only open mic (ages 13-19). This open mic is here to inspire you—to remind you that your voice matters and that poetry is a powerful way to stand up for yourself and the things you care about. However you express it, your voice is needed, and we can't wait to hear it!

This open mic is a non-competitive opportunity to share your work, but if you just want to listen, come basque in the work of your peers! An open mic would not be an open mic without a supportive audience to snap, clap, cry and deeply sigh. We'll have a first come, first served sign up list for those who'd like to read, and Brave New Voices Team members Maria and Voula will serve as hosts to guide the experience.

Earlier this year, Mass Poetry hosted its second annual Teen Spoken Word Festival—Write Here | Write Now | Speak Loud!—in collaboration with Emerson College. This showcase will feature three of the top-performing teams, who not only delivered powerful poetry but also embodied the spirit and values of the festival. Each team will share their work and reflect on their experience. The event will be hosted by one of the festival’s organizers, Anthony Febo, Mass Poetry’s Teen Spoken Word Coordinator.