Phosphorescence December 2021 featured poets:
Julia Lisella and Cammy Thomas
VIRTUAL PROGRAM
This virtual program is free to attend. Registration is required.
To Emily Dickinson, phosphorescence, was a divine spark and the illuminating light behind learning — it was volatile, but transformative in nature. Produced by the Emily Dickinson Museum, the Phosphorescence Poetry Reading Series celebrates contemporary creativity that echoes Dickinson’s own revolutionary poetic voice. The Series features established and emerging poets whose work and backgrounds represent the diversity of the flourishing contemporary poetry scene. The 2021 Series will be a virtual event to ensure the health and safety of participants. While we are disappointed not to gather together in Amherst, we are excited to connect with a global community of friends and writers. Join us on the last Thursdays of each month to hear from poets around the world as they read their work and discuss what poetry and Dickinson mean to them.
Amherst Books is the preferred book seller for the Phosphorescence Poetry Reading Series.
About this month’s poets:
Julia Lisella is the author of two full-length collections of poetry: Always and Terrain (both from WordTech Editions) and the chapbook, Love Song Hiroshima (Finishing Line Press, 2004). Her poems are widely anthologized and have appeared in Ploughshares, Alaska Quarterly Review, Antiphon, Ocean State Review, Literary Mama, Salamander, Prairie Schooner, Valparaiso and many others. She has received residencies from the Vermont Studio Center, MacDowell, Millay, and Dorset colonies, and has received a number of grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council to lead community poetry workshops. Her scholarship focuses on American women modernists. She is Professor of English at Regis College in Massachusetts where she teaches literature and creative writing. She co-curates the Italian American Writers in Boston Literary Series (originally in Boston’s North End and now on Zoom!). Lisella’s book, Our Lively Kingdom, was named a finalist for the Lauria/Frasca Prize and is due out from Bordighera Press in Fall 2022
Cammy Thomas’ first book, Cathedral of Wish, received the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America. A fellowship from the Ragdale Foundation helped her complete her second, Inscriptions. Her third collection, Tremors, is forthcoming in 2021. All are published by Four Way Books. Her work appeared recently in the anthology, Poems in the Aftermath. Two of her poems under the title Far Past War were set to music by her sister, composer Augusta Read Thomas. The premiere of this choral work will be performed by the Cathedral Choral Society at the National Cathedral in Washington DC on Oct. 17, 2021. She lives in Lexington, Massachusetts.
cammythomas.com
Support Phosphorescence and Honor Someone Special:
Admission to all Phosphorescence events is free, but online donations, especially those made in honor or memory of family, friends, or colleagues are heartily encouraged and vital to the future of our programs. All gifts are tax deductible.