Chapter and Verse

Chapter and Verse is a free literary reading series sponsored by the Jamaica Pond Poets, usually on the second Friday of the month, from October through May. The events take place at the Loring Greenough House in Jamaica Plain at 7:30 PM (for map and directions, see below). The operating committee members are  Dorothy Derifield, Sandra Storey, Susanna Kittridge, Jennifer Markell, and Alan Smith Soto

There are three readers followed by free refreshments. Open to all. Please join us. A $5.00 donation is requested but not required.For more information, contact dorothy.derifield@gmail.com

Biographies of Our Next Readers 

March 8, 2019,   Friday, at 7:30 PM

 Mary Birnbaum                   

Mary Birnbaum was born, raised and educated in New York City. She attended the Cooper Union Art School and the New School for Social Research. She has studied poetry with Fred Marchant, Martha Collins, Yusef Komunaaka, Danielle Legros Georges, and other poets at the William Joiner Institute at UMass Boston. Mary is fascinated by translation and her translation of the Haitian poet Felix Morriseau-Leroy has been published in the anthology Into English (Graywolf Press). She has participated in poetry readings in New England and is a member of Jamaica Pond Poets.

 Heather Derr-Smith

Heather Derr-Smith is a poet with four books, Each End of the World (Main Street Rag Press, 2005), The Bride Minaret (University of Akron Press, 2008), Tongue Screw (Spark Wheel Press, 2016), and Thrust, winner of the Lexi Rudnitsky/Editor’s Choice Award (Persea Books, 2017). She is founder and director of Cuvaj Se/Take Care, a nonprofit supporting writers in conflict zones and post-conflict zones and divides her time mostly between Iowa and Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

 Helena Minton

Helena Minton published a chapbook, The Raincoat Colors, in 2017 with Finishing Line Press. Other collections include The Canal Bed (Alice James Books) and The Gardener and the Bees (March Street Press). Her poems have recently appeared in The Tower Journal, Sou’wester, The Paddock Review, The Listening Eye, and Ibbetson Street. Her poetry has also been anthologized in Nasty Women Poets: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse and Raising Lilly Ledbetter: Women Poets Occupy the Workspace. She has taught English composition and worked as a librarian. She is on the board of the Robert Frost Foundation in Lawrence and lives north of Boston.