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: Pamela Alexander + Ellie O’Leary

When: Thursday, June 26, 2025 | 6:30 to 8:00 p.m.
Where: JG Whittier Home & Museum, 86 Friend Street Amesbury, MA 01913 or Zoom

Pamela Alexander: Pamela Alexander is the author of five collections of poetry, including Left, winner of the Chad Walsh chapbook prize from Beloit Poetry Journal in 2024. Her other books are Slow Fire (Ausable/CopperCanyon, 2007); Inland, which won an Iowa Poetry Prize (1997); Commonwealth of Wings (1991); and Navigable Waterways, which won the Yale prize (1984).

Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies, including American Alphabets, The Best American Poetry 2000, The Extraordinary Tide, American Voices, Poetry for a Small Planet, and Cape Discovery, and in many periodicals, including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Orion, TriQuarterly, Poetry, The Journal, Plume, and The New Republic.

Ellie O’Leary: Ellie O’Leary’s writing has been a series of opportunities that include teaching poetry and memoir as well as organizing a writing program at the Pyramid Life Center - an Adirondacks retreat center, hosting a radio show, teaching at the Belfast (Maine) Senior College, curating the Freedom (Maine) Summer Reading Series and earning an MFA in Maine’s Stonecoast program. She grew up in the village of Freedom, Maine and is now on the Board of Directors of the Freedom Community Historical Society. She’s a resident of Amesbury, Massachusetts where she serves on the Amesbury Cultural Council and is Poet Laureate Emerita. She’s also the former Education Director of the Gloucester Writers Center. Ellie is the author of Breathe Here (2020, poetry) and Up Home Again (2023, memoir) both with North Country Press. She has always lived in New England, either Maine or Massachusetts, except for one year in Israel.

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