Pages
Stay In Touch
More
© 2026 The Somerville Times. All rights reserved.
*
New England Poets in new anthology ‘Wag the Dog: Poems of Politics and Social Justice’
*
In Main St Rag’s blistering poetry anthology, Wag the Dog: Poems of Politics and Social Justice, New England voices contribute to a national chorus. The collection’s greatest strength is the range of ways its poets experience political life. Along the way, they confront encroaching authoritarianism, the military-industrial complex, the oligarchy and income inequality, and the erosion of access to health care, among other issues. The poems also display a warm immediacy; they move between public events and inner voices – through kitchens, medical appointments, offices, gardens, American history and personal memory. Some demand an honest appraisal of what one citizen’s vote can do in the face of this national peril, while others hint that saplings will live to outgrow the pines and oaks with their ominous institutional shadows.
October 21
*
Susan Isla Tepper has been a writer for twenty-plus years and is the author of fourteen published books of fiction and poetry, and seven stage plays. She writes in all genres, with stories, poems, interviews, essays, and opinion columns published extensively worldwide. CLANDESTINE, her stage play about food obsessions and disconnect in a long-term marriage, will go up for a full run in a red barn theatre, off, off, bdwy. Her latest book is a novella titled Girl Upside Down, from Wilderness House Press.
*
Nirmal Raja: A Somerville artist who archives beloved objects from immigrants
*
Recently, I caught up with Somerville artist Nirmal Raja to talk about a project she is working on that will be presented by the Somerville Museum in January.
October 14
*
Lee Varon is a social worker and writer. Her forthcoming co-authored chapbook MS Meets Parkinson’s will be published in 2027.
*
A Handpicked Poem
*
Presented by Off the Shelf Correspondent Michael Steffen
….from Rattle Fall 2026 (presented online 23 September 2026)
Psalm 131
by George David Clark
October 7
*
Christopher Cavallo is a writer living and working in the Merrimack Valley region of Massachusetts. He and his wife Amy make their home in Haverhill, MA, sharing all their love with two gorgeous and adopted “faun” greyhounds, Phoebe and Caliope. While poetry is his preferred genre of writing, Chris has interest in writing in the categories of both short fiction as well as screenplay.
*
Interview with author Joyce Wilson
*
Recently, I had the pleasure of interviewing New England Poetry Club advisory board member Joyce Wilson about her new book of poetry, The Morning After Burns Night.
September 30
*
Somerville poet Angelo D’Amato has earned MFAs in fiction and poetry from Lesley University and Albertus Magnus College, respectively. His Doctor (Who) is Peter Capaldi.
*
Counting Bricks Poems by Gary Metras
*
Review by Dennis Daly
Mnemonic sentiment, boiled down to its essential, tear-charged elements, cannot be ignored. It drives human nature. It mobilizes the emotions. It guides our unruly impulses toward goodness. Poets who completely excise sentimentality from their art do so at their own peril. Thankfully, Gary Metras is not one of those poets.
September 23
*
Deborah Leipziger is an author, poet, and advisor on sustainability. Born in Brazil, Ms. Leipziger is the author of several books on sustainability and human rights. Her second collection of poems, Tell Me, was published in 2026 by Lily Poetry Review Books. Her work appears in numerous anthologies, including The Nature of our Times and Tree Lines: 21st Century American Poems. Her poems have been published in ten countries in such magazines as Revista Cardenal, Inkwell, The Bombay Literary Magazine, On the Seawall, and Salamander.
*
Review of ‘Hope’ by BRM Evett
*
Review by Lo Galluccio
For those of you who loved the Netflix series The Last of Us, which took place in the middle of the 22nd century after a fungal pandemic had destroyed the government and devastated the country with tribal divisions and a band of rabid infected, called “Clickers,” striking the healthy survivors, you will want to read BRM’s novel, Hope, a sequel to his first novel, Joy.
September 16
*
Susan Sklan is a social worker and published poet, an Australian now living in the Boston area. Her poems have appeared in Constellations, Folio, Kalliope, Nixes Mate, Pleiades, Sojourner, Soul-Lit, The Centennial Review, The Muddy River Poetry Review, and other journals and anthologies. On passing an old lover’s address was chosen by the Cambridge MA, Sidewalk Poetry Program, 2018, and installed on a city sidewalk. Her poetry chapbook The Letters was published by Main Street Rag, 2023. Her poetry book The Lost Garden is to be published by Finishing LIne Press, 2026.
*
Poet Michael Minassian: Having a pint with Christopher Marlowe
*
I caught up with Michael Minassian about his latest poetry collection, 1,000 Pieces of Time. From his website:
Michael Minassian, a graduate of Dumont High School, Fairleigh Dickinson University (BA), and California State University at Dominguez Hills (MA) was born in New York and has lived in New Jersey, California, Florida, North Carolina, and Texas. A professor of English for 30 years at Broward College in South Florida, he also taught in Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Jamaica, England, and served as a consultant in Spain and Ecuador.
September 9
*
Michael Todd Steffen helps coordinate The Hastings Room Reading Series and frequently publishes articles about new and established poets on the Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene website. His poems have appeared recently in The Exacting Clam, Ibbetson Street, The Red Letters, and spoKe. Boris Dralyuk (managing editor for Nimrod Journal) writes, I have read [Steffen’s] poems with enormous satisfaction. His lines are supple and wear their unmistakable wisdom lightly.
*
On Being a Regular
*
By Off the Shelf Correspondent Jen Fries.
An acquaintance of mine, poet and columnist Doug Holder, recently posed a question on social media: Have you ever been a regular, and what does that mean to you?
September 2
*
Holly Chatelain is a writer and editor new to the Boston area, having recently moved from Denver to Revere. She is a managing editor of Ibbetson Street Press. This poem was inspired by her cross-country drive from Denver to Boston to make the move.
*
Memoirist Brittany Perham: Pens a poetic memoir that meets the demands of memory
*
Recently, I caught up with Brittany Perham, the author of the memoir Executrix. Brittany is an associate professor of English at Endicott College in Beverly, MA. She is an accomplished poet, and as she told me this memoir is very much a poet’s memoir. It is written in an original style, and exhibits the sensibility of a poet. Her publisher writes of the book:
Reader Comments