Events

Due to an unforseen illness this event is canceled.

Please join Porter Square Books for an evening of poetry with Doug Holder and Elizabeth Kirschner.

Two poets with a common knowledge. Two points of view from a shared experience--the kept and the keeper--of life in the psych ward. Both know what it's like to be behind the red line six feet from the locked door of the unit. One could cross over it, go home, the other could not. Hence poet Elizabeth Kirschner as one of the kept. Hence poet Doug Holder as one of the keepers. Two separate books--My Life as a Doll--by Kirschner and From the Back Bay to the Back Ward by Holder, a pick of the month in the Small Press Review.

The lock-up, the ward. One reading. So just what goes on behind the red line? Kirschner's book, nominated for the Lenore Marshall Prize, is a survivor's tale, a memoir in verse which has devoted one of its four sections, "Tra-la-la," to depicting in detail the Dantesque inferno of the unit. The other three are a harrowing account of the childhood abuse that later erupted into terrifying flights into madness which have led and still lead her to life behind the red line, that holding tank of the damned.

Doug Holder founded the Ibbetson Street Press in the winter of 1998 in Somerville, Mass. Holder is the arts/editor for The Somerville News, a co-founder of "The Somerville News Writers Festival (founded in 2003)," and is the curator of the "Newton Free Library Poetry Series" in Newton, Mass. Holder's articles and poetry have appeared in several anthologies including: Inside the Outside: An Anthology of Avant-Garde American Poets, Greatest Hits: Twelve Years of Compost Magazine, and America's Favorite Poems edited by Robert Pinsky. His work has also appeared Rattle, Hazmat, The Boston Globe Magazine, Caesura, Poesy, Small Press Review, Northeast Corridor, and many others. He is the author of Of All The Meals I Had Before..., No One Dies at the Au Bon Pain, and The Man in the Booth in the Midtown Tunnel. In 2009 he released a collection of interviews: From the Paris of New England: Interviews with Poets and Writers.

Elizabeth Kirschner is the author of five books, Slow Risen Among the Smoke Trees, Postal Routes, Twenty Colors, Surrender to Light, and My Life as a Doll. She has collaborated with many composers both nationally and internationally and has had her lyrics set on two CDs The Dichterliebe in Four Seasons and New Dawn. She has taught at Boston College for many years and sponsors a mentorhsip program called "Wise Eye: Creating Poetry that Soars."

Like to knit, quilt, felt, bead, crochet, or practice some other handicraft. Keep the cold off and join us in our free heat for Knit One, Read Too, On the second Sunday of each month from 1 to 3 p.m. we host an in-store handwork session for knitters, quilters, crocheters, and other handwork enthusiasts.

At each session, we will feature selected books at 10 percent off, and mindseyeyarns.com will offer 10 percent off all yarn for session participants! In between meetings, check out frequent attendee Guido Stein's knitting blog and podcast at It's a Purl, Man.

The Porter Square Books Book Club will be discussing The Transit of Venus. Visit the Book Club page for more information.

Join Porter Square Books for an evening of poetry with Frannie Lindsay and Sabra Loomis.

Frannie Lindsay's third volume of poetry, Mayweed, to be released in January 2010, is the current winner of the Washington Prize. Her previous books are Lamb and Where She Always Was. She is the 2008 winner of the Missouri Review Prize. Her poems have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Georiga Review, Field, Salamander, The Harvard Review, and many other journals. They have also been featured on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily. She holds an MFA from the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop. She has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts Cultural Council, as well as residencies at Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and the Millay Colony.

Sabra Loomis is the author of Rosetree and two chapbooks of poetry. She has received awards from the Massachusetts Artists' Foundation, the Yeats Society, and the British Council, as well as fellowships from Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony. She teaches frequently at the William Joiner Center at the University of Massachusetts, and was on the faculty of the Poets' House, Donegal, for many years. She divides her time between New York City and Achill Island, Ireland.