Phosphorescence April 2021 featured poets:
Jennifer Franklin, Philip F. Clark, Fred Marchant and Mervyn Taylor
VIRTUAL PROGRAM
This program is free of charge, but participants must register in advance and donations are encouraged.
Click here to register!
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:
Jennifer Franklin (AB Brown University, MFA Columbia University School of the Arts) has published two full-length collections, most recently No Small Gift (Four Way Books, 2018). Her third book, If Some God Shakes Your House, will be published by Four Way Books in 2023. She was nominated for a Rona Jaffe Award and a Pushcart Prize. Her work has been published in American Poetry Review, Blackbird, Boston Review, Gettysburg Review, Guernica, JAMA, Love’s Executive Order, The Nation, Paris Review, “poem-a-day” on poets.org, and Prairie Schooner. Her poem, “Memento Mori: Pistachios,” will be featured in Poetry Society of America’s Poetry in Motion, RI in February 2021. She teaches in the MFA Program at Manhattanville College. For the past seven years, she has taught manuscript revision at the Hudson Valley Writers Center where she serves as Program Director and co-edits Slapering Hol Press. jenniferfranklinpoet.com
Philip F. Clark is the author of The Carnival of Affection (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2017), and teaches at City College, New York, where he received his M.F.A. in Creative Writing in 2016. He is a Poetry Editor at The Night Heron Barks, A&U Magazine, and The Poet’s Grin. His poetry and writing has been published in Tiferet Journal (nominated for a 2021 Pushcart Prize), Vox Populi, Re: An Ideas Journal, Lambda Literary and other publications.
philipfclark.wordpress.com
Fred Marchant is the author of five books of poetry, most recently Said Not Said (Graywolf Press, 2017). Graywolf also published his collections Full Moon Boat (2000) and The Looking House (2009). His first book, Tipping Point, won the 1993 Washington Prize from the Word Works. In 2002 Dedalus Press of Dublin Ireland brought out House on Water, House in Air, a new and selected poems. For over thirty years, he taught at Suffolk University in Boston, and is now an Emeritus Professor of English and the founding co-director of the Suffolk University Poetry Center. He continues to teach writing workshops in a number of other venues, including the Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Hudson Valley Writers Center, and the SF Bay Area Veteran Writing Group.
fredmarchant.com
Mervyn Taylor a Trinidad-born poet and longtime Brooklyn resident, is the author of seven collections of poetry, including No Back Door (2010), Voices Carry (2017), and most recently, Country of Warm Snow (2020), a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, which has also been long listed for the Bocas Prize. His chapbook, News of the Living: Corona Poems was published by Broadstone Books in 2020. Currently, he serves as co-editor on the Advisory Board of Slapering Hol Press, Hudson Valley, New York.
mervyntaylor.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.
Teri Ellen Cross Davis is the author of a more perfect Union, awarded the 2019 Journal/Charles B. Wheeler Poetry Prize and Haint, awarded the 2017 Ohioana Book Award for Poetry. She is the winner of the Poetry Society of America’s 2020 Robert H. Winner Memorial Award. She has received fellowships and scholarships to Cave Canem, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Hedgebrook, Community of Writers Poetry Workshop, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Hermitage Artist Retreat, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. She is the Poetry Coordinator for the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington D.C.
Amy Dryansky has published two poetry collections; the second, Grass Whistle (Salmon Poetry) received the Massachusetts Book Award. Her first, How I Got Lost So Close to Home, won the New England/New York Award from Alice James. Her work is included in several anthologies and individual poems appear in Harvard Review, New England Review, Memorious, Orion, The Sun, Tin House, and other journals. She’s received honors from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, MacDowell Colony and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and is a former Poet Laureate of Northampton, MA. She directs the Culture, Brain & Development Program at Hampshire College and parents two children. 
W. Todd Kaneko is the author of This Is How the Bone Sings (Black Lawrence Press 2020) and The Dead Wrestler Elegies (New Michigan Press 2021), and co-author with Amorak Huey of Poetry: A Writers’ Guide and Anthology (Bloomsbury Academic 2018) and Slash / Slash, winner of the 2021 Diode Editions Chapbook Contest. His work has appeared in Poetry, Alaskan Quarterly Review, The Normal School, Barrelhouse, DIAGRAM, and many other places. A Kundiman Fellow, he lives with his family in Grand Rapids, Michigan and teaches at Grand Valley State University.
