Join us for an evening of poetry at the Library. This poetry series meets in September, November, February, and April. Each event features readings by three prominent, published poets, followed by an open mic. All attendees are welcome to participate in the open mic. Sign up for the open mic at the reading, limit of one short poem per person.

This month's featured poets are Quintin Collins, Matthew E. Henry, and Tatiana Johnson-Boria.

The poetry series is hosted by Elizabeth Lund, co-director of Haiku Newton and host of Poetic Lines at NewTV and Bronx TV. Elizabeth also interviews major poets for The Christian Science Monitor. From 2015 through 2019, she wrote a monthly column about poetry for The Washington Post. 

About the featured poets:

Quintin Collins (he/him) is a writer, editor, and associate director of the Solstice Low-Residency Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program. His work appears in many print and online publications, such as Sidereal Magazine, Superstition Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Solstice Literary Magazine, and others. Winner of a Pushcart Prize and the 2019 Atlantis Award from the Poet's Billow, Quintin's publishing accolades include multiple Best of the Net Nominations, and he was a finalist for the 2020 Redivider Beacon Street Prize.

Quintin's first full-length collection of poems, The Dandelion Speaks of Survival, which was a finalist for the 2020 Alice James Award and the 2021 Sheila Margaret Motton Book Prize, is available from Cherry Castle Publishing. His second collection of poems, Claim Tickets for Stolen People, selected by Marcus Jackson as winner of The Journal's 2020 Charles B. Wheeler Poetry Prize and Honor Book for the Black Caucus of the American Library Association’s 2023 Best Poetry Literary Award, is available from Ohio State University Press/Mad Creek Books.

Matthew E. Henry (MEH) is an educator, essayist, and the author of the forthcoming poetry collection Promises to Keep (Wayfarer Books, 2026). His previous collections include the Colored page (Sundress Publications, 2022), The Third Renunciation (New York Quarterly Books, 2023), and said the Frog to the scorpion (Harbor Editions, 2024), as well as the chapbooks Teaching While Black (Main Street Rag, 2020), Dust &Ashes (Califorinos Press, 2020), and Have you heard the one about…? (Ghost City Press, 2023). He’s editor-in-chief of The Weight Journal and nonfiction editor at Porcupine Literary. MEH’s poetry and prose has appeared in ASP Bulletin, Barren Magazine, The Florida Review, Had, Lily Poetry, Massachusetts Review, Mom Egg Review, Ninth Letter, Nixes Mate, Pangyrus, The Pedestal Magazine, Ploughshares, Redivider, Stone Circle Review, Terrain, Whale Road Review, The and Worcester Review. MEH earned an MFA yet continued to spend money he didn’t have completing an MA in theology and a PhD in education. He writes about education, race, religion, and burning oppressive systems to the ground at www.MEHPoeting.com.