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Steve Ratiner: Mastermind of WE (too) THE PEOPLE series at the Longfellow House in Cambridge
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Steve Ratiner is the president of the New England Poetry Club. I talked with him about the WE (too) THE PEOPLE poetry series at the Longfellow House in Cambridge this summer. On July 12, the club hosts Tracy K. Smith, the former U.S. Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner. There will be readings throughout the summer.
July 15
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Gary Metras’s 10th poetry book, Counting Bricks, was just published by Dos Madres Press. His essays, reviews, and chiefly poems have appeared in hundreds of periodicals since the 1970s, including Chiron Review, English Journal, Ibbetson Street, Poetry, Poetry East, and Yankee. He has worked as tobacco picker, short order cook, mason tender, air traffic controller (U.S. Air Force), book store manager, high school English teacher, and college writing instructor. He fly fishes the rivers and streams of western Massachusetts for recreation and inspiration.
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Poet Lisa J. Sullivan has a ‘Theory of Impact’
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I caught up with New England Poetry Club poet Lisa J. Sullivan about her debut collection of poetry, Theory of Impact.
July 8
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Tom Driscoll is a poet and essayist who lives and works in Lowell, Massachusetts. His poetry has appeared in Abraxas Review, Rock Salt Journal, Scapegoat Review, The Worcester Review, Oddball Magazine, Carcosa Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, Decadent Review, Drawn To The Light, What Rough Beast and Second Coming from Indolent Books and in several Moonstone Arts Center’s Poetry Anthologies. Tom’s poem Leave Home won the Robert P. Collén Poetry Prize in 2017. Notes on Demolition was selected as an Editor’s Choice for the Allen Ginsberg Prize, and This isn’t the first time received Third Place in The Frank O’Hara Prize, both in 2021. Upon Stealing Smithsonian Folkways from Franklin Library, Summer 1974, won The Letter Review Poetry prize in 2024. His most recent book is Echoes, A Collection of Ekphrastic Poems.
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Review of ‘The Only Song We Have’ by Lawrence Kessenich
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Review by Off the Shelf Correspondent Marcus Breen
Creative lives offer insights into the human condition that are not replicated elsewhere. No one reads a biography of a business executive to discover insights about the meaning of life and relationships: at least I don’t. Then again, if I was obsessed with learning the nefarious ways of making money by robbing the poor and enriching myself, then business biographies would take me to the ethically challenged world of all-money-all-the-time, or more technically “economism.” Somewhat ironically, artists and creative people offer insights to the human condition because their work reaches the public through the commercial processes of business.
July 1
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Our poet writes: “My name is Lizzie Rutberg. I’m a local artist and sometimes-poet living in Somerville.”
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Meg Pallis: A Communicator for a Vibrant Somerville
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Meg Pallis works in communications/community outreach for the city of Somerville. She also freelance writes and has been published in local publications from The Boston Compass (interviews/community creative nonfiction) as well as for a local publication called the Quinobequin Review. She has two creative works that will be published in their May 2026 edition about being from Massachusetts, and the other about a portal inside the Market Basket parking lot.
June 24
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Kevin Gallagher is a political economist, poet, and publisher living in Greater Boston with his wife Kelly, their children Theo and Estelle, and Rexroth, the family’s German shepherd. Gallagher edits spoKe, a Boston-based annual of poetry and poetics, and works as a Professor of Global Development Policy at Boston University’s Pardee School for Global Studies.
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The Depths of ‘Great Pond’ by Ed Meek
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Review by Off the Shelf Correspondent Laura Cherry
As in the eponymous Great Pond, there is much more going on beneath the surface of Ed Meek’s most recent poetry collection than first meets the eye. What begins as a series of lyrical meditations on nature evolves into a commentary on relationships, longing, grief, missed chances, art, and the fraught political landscape.
June 17
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Mike Burgess is a Cambridge-based hobbyist writer. After growing up in New Hampshire, he moved to Cambridge for college and has stayed in the area since. All the while, he writes in his free-time as motivated by fortunes and troubles in his personal life alike.
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‘Unbecoming’ by Suzette Bishop
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Reviewed by Sarah Stern
In Suzette Bishop’s Unbecoming, the reader is reminded of this: “how thin the border is between health/ and illness.” In her profoundly moving and deeply felt chapbook, Bishop makes art from her life with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS).
June 10
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Chad Parenteau hosts Boston’s long-running Stone Soup Poetry series. His work has appeared in journals such as Résonancee, Molecule, Ibbetson Street, Pocket Lint, Cape Cod Poetry Review, Tell-Tale Inklings, Off The Coast, The Skinny Poetry Journal, The New Verse News, dadakuku, Nixes Mate Review, and The Ugly Monster. He has also been published in anthologies such as French Connections, Sounds of Wind, Reimagine America, and The Vagabond Lunar Collection. His newest collections are All’s Well Isn’t You and Cant Republic: Erasures and Blackouts. He serves as Associate Editor of the online journal Oddball Magazine and co-organizer of the annual Boston Poetry Marathon. He lives and works in Boston.
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Poet Michael T. Steffen sees his own life flash before his eyes
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I had the privilege of interviewing the accomplished poet and respected Boston/Cambridge/Somerville literary figure, Michael T. Steffen. Steffen has a new collection out titled I Saw My Life. His publisher (Lily Poetry Review Press) writes of this collection:
June 3
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Susan Tepper is a widely published poet and an accomplished playwright.
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‘Lost in the Bardo’ by Carolynn Kingyens
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Review by Off the Shelf Correspondent Ed Meek
Lost in the Bardo is Carolynn Kingyens’ third book. I reviewed her previous book, Coupling. In her new volume, Kingyens continues to develop as a poet well worth reading. Full disclosure, Kingyens gave a positive review to my book, Great Pond.
May 27
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Meg Smith is a writer, journalist, dancer and events producer living in Lowell, Mass., and who spent part of her childhood in Somerville. In addition to The Lyrical Somerville, her poetry has appeared in The Cafe Review, The Lowell Review, Muddy River Poetry Review, Poetry Bay, Acropolis Review, and many more. She is a 2025 nominee for the Stanley Kunitz poetry medal. Her journalism work has been honored by the New England Newspaper and Press Association, including with first-place awards for reporting on religion, race and ethnic issues and social issues. She is creator of Poe in Lowell, honoring Edgar Allan Poe’s three visits to Lowell, and a board member of Lowell Celebrates Kerouac. She is author of six poetry books and a short fiction collection, The Plague Confessor. Her new short fiction collection, Night’s Wheel, is due out from Emu Books. She welcomes visits to megsmithwriter.com.
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5AM – Dunkin’ Donuts – Somerville
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I wrote this piece in 2016, so I thought I would bring it back from the dusty archives…
At 62 it is a lot harder to get up for the class that I teach at Endicott College on the North Shore – especially in the winter. I like to do a lot of my prep at the office – so I bite the bullet – and get ready at 4 a.m. I meet the morning demands of my cat – Ketz – brush my crowned teeth, take a brush to the remains of my hair – and I am out the door. I am a man of ritual – my day starts at the Big D Tuesday and Thursday mornings – for almost a decade now – at the Dunkin’ Donuts on Somerville Ave., adjacent to Central Street.
May 20
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Valerie Quercia is a Massachusetts-based poet and storyteller. She is the author of In Gratitude, a chapbook published by Finishing Line Press in 2013 (written under the name Valerie Anne Prescott). Val loves literature, history, baseball, old movies, generous pots of tea, and, most of all, animals. She currently lives in Acton, MA, with four rescued pets, in a house built in 1844. Val calls their home “The Pink House”– for obvious reasons. But local historians say the color of the house is, was, and ever will be … “Chippendale Rose.”
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