Phosphorescence August 2021 featured poets:
W.J. Herbert, Mary Robles and Dennis James Sweeney
VIRTUAL PROGRAM
This virtual program is free to attend. Registration is required.
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:
W.J. Herbert’s debut poetry collection, Dear Specimen, was chosen by Kwame Dawes as a winner of the 2020 National Poetry Series. Selected by Natasha Trethewey for inclusion in Best American Poetry 2017, her work also appears, or is forthcoming, in The Atlantic, Hudson
Review, Pleiades, Southwest Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Kingston, New York and Portland, Maine
wjherbertpoet.com
Mary Robles is from El Paso, Texas and grew up in northeast Ohio. Robles holds a BFA in Creative Writing from Bowling Green State University and was the recipient of a 2016 Creative Workforce Fellowship from the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture (CPAC) in Cleveland, OH. Robles’ most recent poetry publications include Glass Mountain, New England Horror Writers “Wicked Women” anthology, and Salt Hill.
maryroblespoetry.
Dennis James Sweeney is the author of In the Antarctic Circle, winner of the 2020 Autumn House Rising Writer Prize and forthcoming in March 2021, as well as four chapbooks. His poems have appeared in The New York Times, Prelude, Poor Claudia, Quarterly West, and Territory, among others. A Small Press Editor of Entropy, he has an MFA from Oregon State University and a PhD from the University of Denver. Originally from Cincinnati, he lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.
dennisjamessweeney.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.
Nicole M. Young is a performer, poet, playwright, director, event producer/curator, and nonprofit professional with over 20 years of experience combined in these areas. Nicole has worked across various disciplines, including theatre, poetry, and classical music. Originally from Detroit, Michigan, Nicole currently resides in Northern Connecticut and works in Western Massachusetts. 
Amina Jordan Mendez is a queer poet/performer. She works as a teaching artist for the award winning Enchanted Circle Theater of Holyoke, MA, and is a Ford Tubman Healthy Living Organizer. Her work is focused on community engagement through arts and activism. She is the recipient of the 2020 Emerging Writers Fellowship sponsored by the Straw Dog Writers Guild of Western Massachusetts.
Melissa Range is the author of two collections of poetry: Scriptorium, a winner of the 2015 National Poetry Series (Beacon Press, 2016), and Horse and Rider, a winner of the Walt McDonald Prize (Texas Tech University Press, 2010). Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Blackbird, Ecotone, The Iowa Review, The Nation, Ploughshares, and Poetry. Range is the recipient of awards and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the American Antiquarian Society, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Originally from East Tennessee, she teaches creative writing and American literature at Lawrence University in Wisconsin. 
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. 
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. 
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.
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.
