Monthly Poetry Readings

Join upcoming readings, register for the Zoom broadcast, and watch past readings.

Amesbury’s Monthly Poetry Reading Series is hosted by Lisa Usani Phillips, Amesbury’s current Poet Laureate, in partnership with the John Greenleaf Whittier Home. During the summer, readings are held in the garden at the Whittier Home, 86 Friend Street, Amesbury, as well as broadcast virtually on Zoom.

Readings are broadcast via Zoom all year round.

Live poetry, every month

Watch Past Readings

About the Poet Laureate Program

Next Reading: Alfred Nicol + Rhina Espaillat

When: Wednesday, May 21, 2025 | 6:30 to 8:00 p.m.
Where: JG Whittier Home & Museum, 86 Friend Street Amesbury, MA 01913 or Zoom

Alfred Nicol: Alfred Nicol’s new collection of poetry, "After the Carnival", was published in March 2025 by Wiseblood Books. Nicol, who worked in the printing industry for over twenty years after graduating from Dartmouth College, published his first book of poems, "Winter Light", winner of the Richard Wilbur Award, in 2004. His other publications include "Animal Psalms", "Elegy for Everyone" and "Brief Accident of Light", a collaboration with Rhina Espaillat. With Espaillat, classical/flamenco guitarist John Tavano, and bassist/cellist Roget Kimball, he is part of the music-and-poetry ensemble, The Diminished Prophets. Nicol's translation of the lyrics for "Sing the Triumph of the Lord" were used for the official anthem of International Eucharistic Congress convened in 2021 by Pope Francis in Budapest. His translation of "One Hundred Visions of War" by Julien Vocance, has been called “an essential addition to the history of modernist poetry.”

Rhina Espaillat: Rhina Espaillat has published ten full-length books and three chapbooks, comprising poetry, essays, and short stories, in both English and her native Spanish, and translations from and into both languages. Her work appears in many journals, anthologies, and websites, and has earned national and international awards, including the T. S. Eliot Prize in Poetry, the Richard Wilbur Award, the Howard Nemerov Prize, the May Sarton Award, the Robert Frost “Tree at My Window” Prize for translation, several honors from the New England Poetry Club, the Poetry Society of America, the Ministry of Culture of the Dominican Republic, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from Salem State College.

Espaillat’s most recent publications are two poetry collection in English titled Playing at Stillness and Her Place in These Designs; a book of Spanish translations titled Oscura fruta/Dark Berries: Forty-Two Poems by Richard Wilbur; and a book of Spanish translations titled Algo hay que no es amigo de los muros/Something There Is That Doesn’t Love a Wall: Forty Poems by Robert Frost.

She is a frequent reader, speaker and workshop leader, and is active with the Powow River Poets, a literary group she cofounded in 1992.

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