Marie Gauthier

For those of you in the area, it’s that time again: the next reading in the Collected Poets Series is this Thursday, 7:30pm at the usual spot, Mocha Maya’s in Shelburne Falls. This month, our featured readers are Ellen Doré Watson and Kimberley Rogers.

Ellen Doré Watson serves as Director of the Poetry Center at Smith College and poetry editor of The Massachusetts Review. She is the author of four books of poems, including We Live in Bodies and Ladder Music, winner of the New England/New York award from Alice James Books and, most recently, This Sharpening, from Tupelo Press. Among her honors are a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artists Grant, a Rona Jaffe Writers Award, two Pushcart nominations, and a National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowship. Watson has translated a dozen books from the Brazilian Portuguese, including The Alphabet in the Park: Selected Poems of Adélia Prado (Wesleyan University Press), and also co-translates contemporary Arabic language poetry with Saadi Simawe. She makes her home in Conway, MA.

Kimberley Rogers is a Northampton native and winner of the Ruth Olin Corbin Prize for Poetry (2007). Rogers has been published in several local and national magazines, including American Writing, and she won Pulp City Magazine’s Short Story Prize in 2000. Rogers’ poems center on woman’s issues — often exploring mother-daughter relationships, social issues, especially Native American concerns, and women-focused historical narratives.

I’m not familiar with Ms. Rogers’ work, but I particularly love Ellen’s latest book. If I get a chance this week, I’ll try to post a bit from it.

We expect another great turnout, so come early to get a seat — last time it was standing room only!