Calendar Alert: Poets at Shelburne Falls, Mass., Thursday February 5

Here's a warm invitation courtesy of Leah Banks -- if I lived just a little closer, I'd be headed to Shelburne Falls for the Collected Poets Series myself!

Come if you're near to hear pitch perfect poetry. If you can't, that's okay...did you say the next round of drinks is on you? Stay warm …

On Thursday, Feb. 5th, at 7:30 pm, the Collected Poets Series presents Mary Clare Powell, a Greenfield, MA native and author of several books, and Diane Lockward, a New Jersey native < ! > whose latest collection is What Feeds Us. They both will read from their work. Free. Mocha Maya's Coffee House, 47 Bridge Street, Shelburne Falls, MA 01370, 413-625-6292. Wheelchair accessible. See www.collectedpoets.com or www.mochamayas.com for more information.

Dr. Mary Clare Powell is a professor at Lesley University, formerly Director of the Creative Arts in Learning Division. She is now an adjunct professor who teaches poetry to teachers across the country. She has published several books, including This Way Daybreak Comes: Women's Values and the Future, The Widow, Arts, Education and Social Change (editor). She is also the author of several books of poetry, including Things Owls Ate, Academic Scat, and In the Living Room. She lives in Greenfield, MA where she works on the Franklin County Arts and Culture Partnership, and is on the Board of the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter School in South Hadley. She writes articles on integrated arts in education, and poetry.

Just a little taste of Dr. Powell:

“Making a fashion statement,/ refusing to wear sackcloth and black./ Everyday the sock queen delights your eyes,/ drawing them down/ to where foundations rot,/ exalting dying toes.” ~ from “Celebrating What Remains”

Diane Lockward is the author of What Feeds Us (Wind Publications, 2006) which was awarded the Quentin R. Howard Poetry Prize. She is also the author of Eve's Red Dress (Wind Publications, 2003), and a chapbook, Against Perfection (Poets Forum Press, 1998). Her poems have been published in several anthologies, including Poetry Daily: 366 Poems from the World's Most Popular Poetry Website and Garrison Keillor's Good Poems for Hard Times. Her poems have appeared in such journals as the Harvard Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, and Prairie Schooner. Her work has been nominated for several Pushcart Prizes, featured on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily, and read by Garrison Keillor on NPR's The Writer's Almanac. She is the recipient of a 2003 Poetry Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. A former high school English teacher, Diane now works as poet-in-the-schools.

A little taste also of Ms. Lockward:

“I’m the screech of tires, slam of brakes,/ skateboard in front of wheels./Creaks/ in dark stairwells,/ a rock stuck in your cheek,/ I’m the bone that won’t heal.” ~ from “Fear”