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A New England Archive of Jewish History revives the past for all of New England
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While I was having my usual bagel at the Bagel Bin on Shirley Ave., City Councilman Ira Novosesky told me about an event that was presented by the Wyner Family Jewish Heritage Center. The program was a presentation regarding Jewish life and history in the city of Revere.
July 29
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Rachel Kushner writes poems, children’s books, and research papers. The research papers and briefs focus on Boston’s public pre-K programming. The poems and children’s books are sick of hiding. She works for the Boston Public Schools Department of Early Childhood as a data analyst and research coordinator. Rachel lives in Union Square with her six housemates in an unofficial co-op. She really likes jumping on her mini trampoline.
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‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ presides for Boston’s Commonwealth Shakespeare Company’s 30th-Year Presentation
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By Michael Todd Steffen
Shakespeare’s wonderful fantasy comedy of otherwise and elsewhere, all about the confusion of young lovers and the curative transformations brought about by the woodland fairies – A Midsummer Night’s Dream is back, for its third performance in the 30-year life of Shakespeare on the (Boston) Common, directed by Steven Maler.
July 22
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Zvi A. Sesling, Poet Laureate of Brookline, MA, 2017-2020, has published poetry and flash fiction nationally and internationally. He won First Prize in the Reuben Rose International Poetry Competition held in Israel and was featured at the 2010 and 2019 Jewish Poetry Festivals. He edited Muddy River Poetry Review and edits 10×10 Flash Fiction. He reviews for The Boston Small Press and Poetry Scene. He is a five-time poetry Pushcart Prize nominee. His flash fiction story was also nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
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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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