The eighth annual Massachusetts Poetry Festival will take place April 29 to May 1 in historic downtown Salem. Each year, the festival showcases nearly 100 poetry readings and workshops, a small press and literary fair, panels, poetry slams, visual arts, and open-air performances. Panel topics range broadly from the state of poetry, poetry and gender, book publishing, and modernism in contemporary art, to the Common Threads Reading, where contemporary poets with Massachusetts ties discuss their literary connections.
This year's festival headliners are Sandra Beasley, Martha Collins, Mark Doty, Edward Hirsch, Marie Howe, Ada Limón, Gregory Pardlo, David Rivard, Charles Simic, and Ocean Vuong. The Small Press and Literary Fair will take place outside of the Peabody Essex Museum on Saturday, April 30. Literary journals, library organizations, academic programs, and other community centers are encouraged to participate.