In honor of National Poetry Month, join us for a poetry reading from four local poets. Featuring Anastasia Vassos (Nostos and Nike Adjusting Her Sandal), Monica McAlpine (Winter Bride), Aimée Sands (Signatories in a Darkened Field), and Jim Henle, followed by a brief Q & A.

Hosted by Brookline poet laureate Jennifer Barber.

The poems of Anastasia Vassos have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best New Poets. She is the author of Nostos and Nike Adjusting Her Sandal. Find her work in RHINO, Whale Road Review, Thrush, Comstock Review, Lily Poetry Review, and elsewhere. Her poems about the Greek-American diaspora have been translated into Greek. She speaks three languages and rides her bicycle in Boston.

Monica McAlpine published her first volume of poems, “Winter Bride” (2020) at age eighty. She has been writing poetry seriously for twenty years. In her previous career as a teacher and researcher, she published books and articles on medieval literature.

Aimée Sands’ second manuscript, Signatories in a Darkened Field, was a semi-finalist for the Tupelo Press 2018 Dorset Prize, and a finalist for The Word Works Washington Prize in 2022.  Her first collection The Green-go Turn of Telling was published by Salmon Poetry, Ltd. in 2012.   Individual poems from these collections have appeared in FIELD, Missouri Review Online, Beloit Poetry Journal, Poetry Ireland, Salamander, Saranac Review, Poet Lore, Measure, and other literary journals. She has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony, and holds an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars.  She is a Co-Director of the Brookline Poetry Series, a 23-year old Boston area venue, and a Writing Coach at the Harvard Business School. Previously, she was an Emmy Award-winning reporter and documentary producer for WGBH Radio and Television in Boston.

Jim Henle’s poems and translations have been published in Salamander, LEON Literary Review, Consequence, Sanctuary and elsewhere. He lives in Jamaica Plain.