March 21st – Jennifer Barber and J. D. Scrimgeour – in person
Jennifer Barber’s new book of poetry is A Prevalence of Angels (The Word Works, 2026). Her previous collections include The Sliding Boat Our Bodies Made, Works on Paper, Given Away, and Rigging the Wind. She served as poet laureate of Brookline, Massachusetts from 2021 to 2025, and edited the literary journal Salamander from 1992 to 2018. She is the current series editor for The Tenth Gate Prize and is co-editor, with Linda Cutting and Tehila Lieberman, of Blood Moon, a posthumous collection of poems by Carol Dine, published by Cervena Barva Press in 2025. She co-edited the anthology Tree Lines: 21st Century American Poems with Fred Marchant and Jessica Greenbaum (Grayson Books, 2022).
Salem State Professor J.D. Scrimgeour is the inaugural poet laureate of Salem, Massachusetts. He is the author of six books of poetry, the most recent being Small, Rectangular, Reflected World (Nixes Mate, 2025). He’s also written two books of nonfiction, including Themes for English B: A Professor’s Education In and Out of Class, which won the AWP Award for Nonfiction. A longtime resident of Salem, Scrimgeour has written in many genres about the city, work that is collected in Poet in High Street Park: Prose & Poetry for Modern Salem (Loom Press, 2026). Mary Towne Eastey, an ancestor in his direct line, was put to death during the Salem Witch Trials. Another ancestor, Thomas Perkins, sat on the jury that found her guilty.