A solstice note, Harvard Bookstore in Boston, Matthew E. Henry's new poems, the Roxbury Poetry Fest
New England Literary News
Dear everyone, dear all, hello and happy Summer Solstice to you, longest light of the year, and so begins the summer season. The days last forever, the light lasts forever, that’s the strange fleeting gift of the Summer Solstice, its long-lit trick. Believe it for a minute. Savor it, why not. Fresh strawberries, new lettuce, the nectarines arrive sweet and juicy. I haven’t been swimming yet, but I had my first grilled hotdog of the season last week. What marks the start of summer for you? What books will you read in the shade? I’m wishing you ease in the warm months ahead, all the fireflies and thunderstorms and pond swims and hotdogs the season offers. And now for the literary news.
Faith, love, and anger in Matthew E. Henry’s new collection
“The day of reckoning / has arrived,” writes Matthew E. Henry in his new collection, Promises To Keep (Wayfarer). That day is each day, and this book serves as a reckoning itself, with the contradictions, the inequity, the many and varied iterations of violence and hate. Wrath and love hold hands in these poems, many of them voiced by a man who’s been called to be a prophet. Prophethood’s hard going right now; it’s not easy “to be a spiritual being when shit is shaking / what you believe in.” Henry shows some of the shit that shakes us, the intimate violence, the societal violence, the historical violence, hate taking so many forms (“privileged is your child’s prom dress never going viral on right-wing / social media, being blown up and scrutinized by a klan of mouth- / breathing douchebags searching for a bulge”). Henry, an educator and editor of The Weight Journal, a literary magazine for high school students, reveals the contradictions, the lies, the discriminations, and asks the ongoing question: where do we place our faith? And he does so balancing a seething frustration with deep tenderness and wise humor showing what it is “to see between thin spaces with eyes attuned / to the sacred simplicity altar-ed in daily life: bread / and water, sex and cartoons.”
New chapbook award honoring late poet Jennifer Martelli
Lily Poetry Review Books has just announced the new Jennifer Martelli Chapbook Award, honoring Massachusetts poet Jennifer Martelli who died last year. They’re looking for manuscripts with “emotional depth, precision of language, and a bold, compassionate imagination,” they note, welcoming “poems unafraid of contradiction, beauty, grief, humor, sensuality, or the strange intimacies of being alive,” which is a beautiful encapsulation of Martelli’s own work. Submissions are open now through September 15; the judge is January Gill O’Neil; and the winner will receive a chapbook contract and a $250 honorarium. To submit to the Jennifer Martelli Chapbook Award, click here.
Harvard Bookstore to open a Boston location
Harvard Book Store announced this week that they’ll be opening a second location in Boston. The new location, occupying 3500 square feet at 33 Union Street near tourist hub Faneuil Hall, is in the former Yankee Publishing Building on a block rich with literary history. A letter to customers promises the Cambridge store isn’t changing, and that this new outpost will serve the neighborhood it’s in, with the addition of a children’s play area, an adjoining 1500 square foot café, and wine offered at readings and events. “We view Harvard Book Store in Boston as an opportunity to serve the public, while honoring New England’s great literary heritage,” wrote general manager Lisa Jayne, and co-owners Linda Seamonson and Jeff Mayersohn in their letter to customers. They’re doing work on the space now and anticipate at fall opening. This follows an announcement in 2022, two years after billionaires John and Linda Henry bought the store, that the bookstore would be opening a 30,000 square foot location at the Prudential Center in Boston, plans for which fell through in 2024. At the time, unionized Harvard Book Store booksellers were negotiating for fair wages, frustrated that rent was being paid on a massive empty store and they weren’t being offered a living wage. Writing the New England Literary News column at the Boston Globe at the time, I was told by my editors not to report on the union (the Henrys also own the Globe). Long live independent bookstores. Long live Harvard Book Store and here’s to success in their second home. Also, no one should be a billionaire.
Riches at the Roxbury Poetry Festival
The Roxbury Poetry Festival unfolds this Saturday with an outstanding line-up of readings, conversations, and workshops. Some workshop highlights: Amanda Gunn on “Nourishing the Body and Spirit: Poets Writing Food”; Jill McDonough on writing funny poems; Boston poet laureate Emmanuel Oppong Yeboah on “Surveying the Soil: A Generative Poetry Workshop”; and Maria Pinto on the art of creative nonfiction. Tatiana Johnson Boria, Perpetua Cannistraro, Jenny Molberg and Lin Flores will discuss publishing and the literary ecosystem. Quintin Collins, Matthew E. Henry, and Sarah Kersey will give a panel reading called “Goin’ Up Yonder: Religion in Black Poetics.” “Homosexual Intifada: A Queer Palestinian Reading” includes George Abraham, Mejdulene Shomali, and Hannah Moushabeck. Keith S. Wilson will give a lunchtime craft talk and Kwame Dawes will give the keynote address. For the complete schedule click here.
Booksellers’ best: Staff picks from New England independent bookstores
Andrew at Books on the Square in Providence, Rhode Island, recommends The Flower Bearers by Rachel Eliza Griffiths (Random House): “There are three main characters in this memoir, besides the author herself: her longtime friend and fellow poet, Aisha; her husband, the novelist, Salman Rushdie; and the city of New York. It is an achingly beautiful memoir anchored by tragedy and love, for this is the human experience, to be uncompromising in love, but with the knowledge that to do so is to prepare yourself for tragedy. Griffiths is open and raw and moving with all of this, as befits a poet, and by the end you will absolutely understand why Rushdie walked into a door when meeting her.”
Happy Summer Solstice again and thank you as always for being here, for helping maintain the health of the literary scene. Please, if you can, help me keep this work going with a paid subscription.
“Long live independent bookstores. Long live Harvard Book Store and here’s to success in their second home. Also, no one should be a billionaire.” Amen!
Happy solstice! To light!
So, are the Henrys no longer owners of the Harvard Book Store? ... When this announcement was made I thought back to that 2022 announced new store that never happened. . . . . Summer books: "Happening" by Annie Ernaux, "Stauf: A Tragedy" by Mary Gaitskill, both very short. And then my long-deferred reading of Henry James's "The Portrait of a Lady," which is very long, and begins with afternoon tea in "the perfect middle of a splendid summer afternoon."