Events, 2011:
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Upcoming Events
Saturday, May 21
3:00 PM
Book Signing for
Girl In Cap and Gown
by Harriet Levin
At the Grolier Poetry Book Shop
6 Plympton Street
Cambridge, MA
Friday, May 6th:
Keith O’Shaughnessy,
winner of the 2011 Grolier Discovery Award, reading from his book, “Incommunicado”,
published by The Grolier Foundation, and Grolier Poetry Books.

Clips from the event (Click on the links below to bring up video clips in Windows Media Player):

Before the Bullfight

The Fountain

Sunday, May 1, 2011
Jim Moore reading from his new book
Invisible Strings, Graywolf Press
at The Grolier Poetry Book Shop

Saturday, April 30th, 2011, 7:pm
40th Anniversary Celebration of Cross-Cultural Communications
Readings by Stanley H. Barkan (founder of Cross-Cultural Communications,
New York City), Kristine Doll (translator of Catalan Poetry),
Tino Villanueva (reading in Spanish and English), Ifeanyi Menkiti.
Grolier Poetry Book Shop

Sunday, April 17, 2011, 4:pm
Lisa Taylor and Geraldine Mills
Reading from their book ,
The Other Side of Longing

Wednesday, April 13,2011
7:30pm Harvard Hillel
Richard Fein reading from his new book:
B’klyn

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Events, 2010:
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Sunday March 14th:
Henri Cole
at Pierre Menard Gallery
www.pierremenardgallery.com
Sponsored by Grolier Poetry Book Shop, Pierre Menard Gallery and Back Pages Books
www.backpagesbooks.com/poetry-pierre-menard

Sunday March 21
Vera Pavlova
Sponspred by Grolier Poetry Book Shop, Pierre Menard Gallery and Back Pages Books

Saturday April 3rd
Edward Hirsch
Sponsored by Grolier Poetry Book Shop, Back Pages Books, and Pierre Menard Gallery

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Events, 2009
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Monday, January 19th
Martin Luther King Day
Gather at the Out of Town News kiosk in the middle of Harvard Square at 1pm for…
A reading of MLK’s “I Have A Dream” speech by Cambridge police officer,
Carl Pilgrim, joined by four students from Community Charter School of Cambridge,
plus Ifeanyi Menkiti reading “Middle Passage” by Robert Hayden, and “Before A Common Soil” by Menkiti.
Officer Carl Pilgrim, the son of Barbara Pilgrim, memorized MLK’s speech when he was 9 years old.
Ifeanyi Menkiti is a poet and owner of the Grolier Poetry Bookshop and teaches philosophy at Wellesley College.

January 20th, 2009
Inauguration Day
Come visit the Grolier Poetry Bookshop and see our Inauguration Window, with poems for the occasion

Excerpts from the Inaugural Poem
by Elizabeth Alexander,
Praise Song for the Day

“Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each other’s
eyes or not,
about to speak or speaking.
All about us is noise. All about us is
noise and bramble, thorn and din, each
one of our ancestors on our tongues…
I know there’s something better down the road.
We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.
Say it plain: that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here
who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,
picked the cotton and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.
Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables….
praise song for walking forward in that light.”

An excerpt from Forty Acres,
a poem for Barack Obama by Nobel winner Derek Walcott

“…beyond the moaning ground
the lynching tree,
the tornadoes
black vengeance,
and the young ploughman feels the
change in his veins,
heart, muscles, tendons
till the land lies open like a flag
as dawn’s sure light streaks the field
and furrows wait
for the sower.”

Monday, February 16th
The Grolier Poetry Bookshop
and Ruth Lepson
invite you to a book launch, featuring live jazz music,
in celebration of Ruth’s new book, “I Went Looking for You”
at the Democracy Center 2-5 pm, 45 Mt Auburn St., Cambridge
Ruth Lepson is Poet-in-Residence at the New England Conservatory of Music. She has published several books of poetry and has appeared in numerous journals. In recent years Ruth has been exploring the meeting places of jazz and poetry, collaborating with jazz musicians and poetry group, Low Road. She will be reading with some jazz musicians from NEC at the Book Launch.

Monday, March 30th
“Reconfiguring Romanticism: A Reading and Discussion of Experimental Poetics”
Poets: Fanny Howe, Gerrit Lansing, Keith Waldrop,
Jerome Rothenberg, Jeffrey Robinson
Respondents: Sonia Hofkosh, Virginia Jackson
Thompson Room
Sponsored by The Woodberry Poetry Room, The English Dept., & The Grolier Poetry Bookshop

Thursday, April 30
Harvard Arts Medal Ceremony honoring poet
John Ashberry
New College Theatre, 10-12 Holyoke St.
Harvard Square, Cambridge
Pultizer Prize-winning poet, John Ashbery, class of ‘49, is the fifteenth recipient of the Harvard Arts Medal which recognizes excellence in the arts by Harvard and Radcilffe graduates.
The medal will be presented by Drew Gilpin Faust, President , Harvard University. Host ed by actor John Lithgow ‘67, discussion moderated by Dan Chiasson GSAS ‘01, professor of English, Wellesley College.
Admission free, but tickets required; available through the Harvard Box Office beginning Tuesday, April 14.

Friday, May 8
Judith Valente, reading from her book, “Discovering Moons”.
“Judith Valente’s poems are deeply rooted in the everyday world, and yet transport us to a place in the soul, a place that C.S. Lewis once described as “the real, real world”. She is a poet concerned with those moments that telescope the sacred in the ordinary, offer a clarifying vision of what it means to be human, and remind us we are part of something larger than ourselves. These are love poems to life…”

Charles Reynard reads also.

Saturday, May 9
Day long poetry retreat:
>”Lecto Divina: Discovering Signs of the Sacred in Everyday Life”

led by Judith Valente and Charles Reynard, sponsored by the CSPC committee of St. Paul Catholic Church. Held at Youville Hospital Cullinane Conference Center on Cambridge St. Space is limited to 60.
To defray the cost of food there is a $20 donation.

Tuesday, June 9th
Steven Riel reading from his book, “Post Card from P-Town”, and
Edison Dupree
reading from his book, “Prosthesis”
at Grolier Poetry Book Shop, 6 Plympton St., Cambridge.
Harvard Square

Saturday, June 13th
Reading and Book Signing
Fred Marchant
reading from his book,
“The Looking House Poems”, and
Teresa Cader
reading from her latest book, “History of Hurricanes”,
sponsored by the Grolier Poetry Book Shop
held at the Pierre Menard Gallery
10 Arrow St., Cambridge

Friday, July 31st
Grolier Poetry Book Shop presents
To Be Here Again
a poetry reading by
Anna Frajlich & James McCorkle , and an installation and discussion
by artist, Wlodzimierz Ksiazek
at The Democracy Center,45 Mt. Auburn St., Cambridge, 7:00pm to 9:30pm
Reception and book signing
following the reading and discussion

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Events, 2008
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Wednesday, February 6th
The Grolier Poetry Book Shop and Harvard Advocate invite you to
A Reading and Reception
Harvard Advocate Building
21 South Street, Cambridge featuring
Kate Schapira Jennifer Karmin
Jaye Bartell Laura Sims
Adam Golaski John Cotter
Matthew Klane Deborah Poe

Tuesday, February 26, 2008
The Grolier Poetry Book Shop and The Harvard Advocate
invite you to a reading and reception featuring
Aidan Rooney and Mary O’donoghue
Aidan Rooney celebrates the publication of his second collection of poetry, Tightrope. Rooney has taught French and English for the past twenty years at Thayer Academy in Braintree. His work has been recognized by various awards and anthologies on both sides of the Atlantic.
Mary O’Donoghue has a second collection of poetry, Among These Winters. She has been recently included in the anthology, The New Irish Poets. She is an assistant professor of English at Babson College.
The poets will be introduced by Thomas O’Grady, professor of English and director of Irish Studies at th University of Massachusetts, Boston.

Thursday, March 6th
“Theology on Tap”
presents
Ifeanyi Menkiti
Catholic Spirituality and Poetry: A Reading and Discussion
Tommy Doyle’s Restaurant
96 Winthrop Street, Harvard Square
sponsored by Harvard Catholic Student Center

Tuesday, April 15, 2008
a reading and discussion of the poetry of Dylan Thomas
featuring Welsh poets
Aeronwy Thomas
born in 1943, is the daughter of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. She has been the leading figure in the movement to honor the memory of Dylan Thomas. She is also well known for her translations of Italian poetry. Her first book published in America is Burning Bridges.
Peter Thabit Jones
is author of The Lizard Catchers. He wa born in Wales. He has received several awards and tutors Literature at the University of Wales, Swansea. He is the founder and editor of The Seventh Quarry, a poetry book and press based in Swansea, Wales. His latest book which he shares with American poet Vince Clemente is Bridging the Waters:Swansea to Sag Habor.
Adams House, 26 Plympton St., Cambridge, 7:30 pm

Saturday, June 21st
Vice Mayor Brian Murphy and the Cambridge City Council dedicate
Louisa Solano Square
Corner of Bow and Plympton Streets, 11:00 a.m.
Congratulations, Louisa!

November 21, 2008
Poetry Reading
Frederick Feirstein
a practicing psychoanalyst living in New York City has been a Guggenheim Fellow in poetry and Pulitzer Prize nominee twice. He will be reading from his eighth book of poems, Fallout.
and Dennis Nurkse,
the author of nine books of poetry, most recently The Border Kingdom, Burnt Island, and The Fall. He teaches at Sarah Lawrence College.
The Democracy Center, 7:00 pm

Saturday, December 6th
Kathleen Spivack
celebrates her 30 years association with the Grolier Poetry Book Shop, and those who have shared in her literary journey, by giving back to the poetry community with a special birthday celebration.
Democracy Center, 45 Mt. Auburn St., 3-7pm
Party and open mike reading, gift certificates

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Events, 2007
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February 5, 2007
Andre Monson is the winner of the first Graywolf Nonfiction Prize for his collection of essays on poetry, Neck Deep and Other Predicaments. He is also author of the novel Other Electricities and the poetry collecion Vacationaland. He lives in Michigan and edits the magazine DIAGRAM and the New Michigan Press.
Joan Houlihan is founder of the Concord Poetry Center and author of Hand-Held Executions:Poems & Essays and The Mending Worm, winner of the Green Rose Award from New Issues Press. She writes a series of essays on contemporary American poetry called The Boston Comment and is staff reviewer for the Contemporary PoetryReview.
Reading: 7:30pm The Democracy Center
45 Mt. Auburn St., Cambridge, MA.

March 14, 2007
Ben Mazer and Stephen Sturgeon
introduced by Benjamin Paloff, poetry editor, Boston Review
Ben Mazer’s poems have appeared in many international periodicals. Johanna Poems is his second collection. He is also the editor of Landis Everson’s Everything Preserved: Poems 1955-2005 (Graywolf Press), and is a contributing editor to Fulcrum.
Stephen Sturgeon’s poems have appeared in Fulcrum, Harvard Review, Jacket and Agenda. He is Associate Editor of Fulcrum and has recently completed a critical edition of Wyndham Lewis’ first novel, Tarr.
Reading and Reception: 7:30-9:00pm
The Democracy Center 45 Mt. Auburn St. Cambridge, MA

March 28, 2007
Reading and Reception, featuring
Susan Eisenberg, reading from her newest book, Blind Spot, published in 2006. Her poems are included in many anthologies, most recently Oxford University Press’ American Working-Class Literature. A pioneering tradeswoman licensed as a master electrician, she has addressed audiences in a wide range of venues from union halls to universities. She holds an MFA in poetry from Warren Wilson College and teaches at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She is Visiting Research Associate at the women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis, developing Perpetual Care, a photo/poetry project on chronic illness.
Susan Donnelly has two poetry collections Transit and Eve Names the Animals (the Samuel French Morse prize winner), as well as three chap books. Donnelly teaches poetry both in classes and individual consultatons from her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
7:30-9:00 at The Democracy Center,
45 Mt. Auburn St. Cambridge, MA

April 24, 2007
The Grolier Poetry Book Shop and Perugia Press
featuring:
Frannie Lindsay Faye George
Janet Aalfs Carol Edelstein
Reading and Reception:
7:30 Grolier Poetry Book Shop
6 Plympton St., Cambridge, MA

May 2007
Reading and Reception
Denise Bergman, the author of
“Seeing Annie Sullivan”
poems based on the early life of Helen Keller’s teacher. The book has been translated into Braille and into a Talking Book. She was the editor of City River Voices and her poems are widely published. Denise has been the poetry editor of Sojourner, a Women’s Forum and hosted a cable TV series called “Women in the Arts”.
Majorie Agosin is a renowned poet, fiction writer, memoirist, anthologist, professor and human rights activist. A descendant of European Jews who escaped the Holocaust and settled in Chile in 1939. She was born in Bethesda, Maryland and raised in Santiago, Chile. The family settled in Athens, Georgia after fleeing Chile following Pinochet’s rise to power. Agosin’s numerous literary awards include the Letras de Oro Prize, the Latina Literature Prize, and the Gabriela Mistral Medal of Honor for Lifetime Achievement. She teaches in the Latin American Studies Department of Wellesley College.
The Democracy Center 45 Mt. Auburn Cambridge, Ma. 7:30pm

May 4, 2007
“On Poetry and Spirituality”
a Panel Discussion
Ifeanyi Menkiti, poet/philosopher, Moderator
Judith Valente, poet/Journalist
Charles Reynard, poet/judge
7:30-9:00pm St. Paul Parish
29 Mt. Auburn St., Cambridge, MA
sponsored by St. Paul’s Lay Committee on Contemporary Spiritual & Public Concerns

May 5, 2007
Book signing:
Charles Reynard and Judith Valente
“Twenty Poems to Nourish Your Soul”
Grolier Poetry Book Shop, Saturday, 2:00 pm

August 14, 2007
Muhammad Haji Salleh
reading from his original poems
Salleh is one of Malaysia’s leading poets and her best-known bi-lingual poet. Since 1978 he has been a professor in the Department of Malay Letters at the National University of Malaysia. Salleh attended University of Singapore to study with poet D.J. Enright. He earned his master’s degree on the strength of his thesis examining the history of modern Malay-Indonesian poetry. His PhD is from the University of Michigan in Southeast Asian Literature. He lives with his family near Kuala Lumpur. He was awarded the title of National Writer, Malaysia’s highest literary honor. He is finishing his year at Harvard University as a visiting scholar at the Yenching Institute.
Reading and Reception 7:30 Grolier Poetry Book Shop

September 2007
Reading and Reception:
featuring
Frannie Lindsay, the author of “Where She Always Was” and “Lamb”, the latter of which was chosen as a runner-up for the Laughlin Award. Her work has appeared in many journals. She has won numerous award for her poetry including the May Swenson Award, The Perugia Press Intro Award and an NEA Fellowship and a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist’s Grant.
and Lynne Thompson
Born and raised in Los Angeles, California by parents born in the Windward Island, West Indies, Lynne Thompson received her B.A. from Scripps College and a J.D. from Southwestern University School of Law. She currently serves as the Director of Employee and Labor Relations at the University of California, Los Angeles. An active member of the Los Angeles poetry scene and a 2007 Pushcart Prize nominee. She has published in many journals as well as anthologies.
Democracy Center, 45 Mt. Auburn St. Cambridge 2:30pm

September 2007
Reading and Reception:
Stewart Florsheim, “Short Fall From Grace”, and Richard Michelson, “Battles and Lullabies”
8:00-9:30 at the Grolier Poetry Book Shop, 6 Plympton St., Cambridge.

September 13, 2007
A Reading and Reception:
featuring Carlos Martinez
at the Grolier Poetry Book Shop 7:30

September 19-23, 2007
Christopher Okigbo
International Conference
a multidisciplinary Celebration of Okigbo’s Poetry
hosted by: Harvard University, Boston University, Universityof Massachusetts, Wellesley College, in association with Christopher Okigbo Foundation, Brussels, Belgium and the Grolier Poetry Book Shop, Cambridge, MA.

Poetry readings by: Dubem Okafor, Steven Vincent, Ijeoma Azuonye, Sly Cheney Coker, Con Burness, Michael Echeruo, Dennis Brutus, Ihechukwu Madubuike, Amatoritsero Ede, Ossie Onuora Enekwe, Esiaba Irobi, Olu Oguibe, Chimlum Nwankwo, Ije Okigbo, Tanure Ojaide, Sofiw Dati Okigbo, Rebecca Saunders, Obi Okigbo, Ifi Amadiume, Chinyere Okafor, Michael Odokara-Ikigbo, Obiora Udechukwu, Ifeanyi Menkiti, Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe.

Christopher Okigbo was by far the greatest postcolonial, modern African poet of the twentieth-century. Born on August 16, 1932 to a prominent Igbo Roman Catholic family in Ojoto, Nigeria and educated at Government College Umuahia and later at the University College, Ibadan where he majored in Greek and Latin Classics. His earliest published poem was “Song of the Forest”. He died August 1967 while fighting as a field-commissioned Major on the Biafran side of the Nigerian-Biafran War. He established himself as a commanding force, not only in modern Africa poetics, but in world literature at large.
Okigbo’s greatness rests on his all-inclusive multicultural sensibility; his mythopoetic imagination;his infusion of ritual seriousness into the praxis of his poetyr; his masterly fusion of a wide diversity of poetic modes from traditions across the world;and above all, his all-encompassing vision of reality-the phenomenal and the imaginative–in the fortunes of his poet-hero, the Prodigal, through whose “burden” and “journey” of “several centuries” he has constructed a complex “fable of man’s perennial quest for fulfillment” in cycles of poems.

Among the speakers are:
Chinua Achebe: “Christopher Okigbo and His Time”
Ifeanyi Menkiti: “A Comparative Examination of the poetry of Christopher Okigbo and Ezra Pound”
Wole Soyinka: “Soldiering on: Arms and the Poet”

October 2007
Reading and Reception:
Roy Jacobstein, “A Form of Optimism”,
and Cammy Thomas, “Cathedral of Wish”
7:00-8:30 Grolier Poetry Book Shop,
6 Plympton St., Cambridge, MA

October 6, 2007
A Celebration of “Allforme“, a collection of poems by Brian Sheridan
cosponsored by The Grolier Poetry Book shop and The Sheridan Family
”…the thought was that the gift that he gave of his life and his words could be multiplied and sent forth–multiplied and sent forth to readers, some of whom knew him, but others that did not. But none of this would have been possible were it not for an older sister who believed strongly in her younger brother to want to do something about his writings.”
at the Democracy Center,45 Mt. Auburn St. Cambridge, MA 7pm

“Show me your light
the light which illuminates the apocalyptic sky
defeating the gods with your beauty
gracefully, invigorating
an angel so divine
peace of mind
Show me your light”
by Brian Sheridan

November 2007
Grolier Poetry Book Shop and Adams House invite you
Poetry Reading with Musical Accompaniment
F.D. Reeve, performing “The Blue Cat Walks The Earth”
with musicians Don Davis and Joe Deleault
Adams House, 26 Plympton St., Cambridge, MA

November 10, 2007
Launching of:
Kathleen Spivack’s “Moments of Past Happiness”
A collection of poems that forms a quilt of memories. Kathleen Spivack has five books to her credit both prose and poetry. She was nominated for the Pultizer Prize. Earthwinds Editions is proud to present this book length collection.
Ifeanyi Menkiti will also be reading from his recent book
“Before a Common Soil”
Karyl Klopp is the designer of both books for Earthwinds Editions.
info@earthwindseditions.com
Democracy Center 45 Mt. Auburn St. Cambridge 2:30-5:30pm

November 17, 2007
The Grolier Poetry Book Shop and The Greek Institute present Book Readings and Signings
Lili Bita, author and actress, will read from her memoir, Sister of Darkness. It is the powerful story of a woman’s journey of self-discovery and personal liberation, describing her birth and childhood on an idyllic island, her escape from her traditional upbringing in Greece and her survival from domestic violence in America.
Robert Zaller, poet, critic and historian, will read from his latest volume of poetry, Islands, inspired by his annual visits to Greece.
They will also read from their co-translation of Thirty Years in the Rain:The Selected Poetry of Nikiforos Vrettakos. Vrettakos is one of the outstanding Greek poets of the twentieth century.
For more information about these books please visit www.somersethallpress.com