Massachusetts Statewide Poetry Calendar

Join us for an afternoon of poetry and music as we celebrate the launch of Kate Hanson Foster's recently released book of poems, Crow Funeral, as well as new work by Matt W. Miller, Todd Hearon, and Michael Kleber-Diggs.

Kate Hanson Foster is the author of Mid Drift, a finalist for the Massachusetts Center for the Book Award. Her writing has appeared in Birmingham Poetry Review, Comstock Review, Harpur Palate, Poet Lore, Salamander, Tupelo Quarterly, and elsewhere. A recipient of the NEA Parent Fellowship through the Vermont Studio Center, she lives and writes in Groton, Massachusetts.

Matt W. Miller was born and raised in Lowell, Massachusetts. He is the author of Tender the River (Texas Review Press), The Wounded for the Water (Salmon Poetry) , Club Icarus (University of North Texas Press), selected by Major Jackson as the 2012 Vassar Miller Poetry Prize winner, and Cameo Diner: Poems (Loom). He has published work previously in Slate, Harvard Review, Notre Dame Review, Southwest Review, Southeast Review, Florida Review, Third Coast, The Rumpus, Poetry Daily, and other journals. He teaches English and coaches football at Phillips Exeter Academy where he also co-directs the Writers’ Workshop at Exeter.

Award-winning poet, playwright and songwriter, Todd Hearon is the author of three collections of poems—Strange Land (Southern Illinois University Press, 2010), No Other Gods (Salmon Poetry, 2015) and Crows in Eden (Salmon, 2022)—a novella, DO GEESE SEE GOD (Neutral Zones Press, 2021), and the studio album, Border Radio, which was listed as “Best Music of the Seacoast” in 2021. His poems, essays and plays have appeared widely in this country and abroad. He is the recipient of a PEN/New England “Discovery” Award, the Friends of Literature Prize (Poetry magazine and the Poetry Foundation), the Rumi Prize in Poetry (Arts & Letters), and the Campbell Corner Poetry Prize (Sarah Lawrence College). Born in Texas and raised in North Carolina, he lives in Exeter, New Hampshire, and teaches at Phillips Exeter Academy.

Michael Kleber-Diggs (KLEE-burr digs) (he / him / his) is a poet, essayist, literary critic, and arts educator. His debut poetry collection, Worldly Things (Milkweed Editions 2021), won the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize, the 2022 Hefner Heitz Kansas Book Award in Poetry, and is a finalist for the 2022 Minnesota Book Award. His poems and essays appear in numerous journals and anthologies. Michael is married to Karen Kleber-Diggs, a tropical horticulturist and orchid specialist. Karen and Michael have a daughter who is pursuing a BFA in Dance Performance at SUNY Purchase.