Monthly Poetry Readings

Next Reading: Paul Marion and Alfred Nicol

When: Wednesday, September 25, 2024, 6:30 to 8:00 p.m.
Where: J. G. Whittier Home & Museum, 86 Friend St., Amesbury + Zoom

Paul Marion is the author of Union River: Poems and Sketches and Lockdown Letters & Other Poems and editor of Jack Kerouac’s early writing, Atop an Underwood. His book Mill Power chronicles the modern revival of the historic textile factory city in which he was born, Lowell, Massachusetts.

His new book is Portraits Along the Way: 1976-2024, a collection of 55 profiles of memorable people he has met or encountered on stage, in books, through history, and otherwise. Among the subjects are Maya Angelou, Bob Dylan, Bette Davis, Stephen King, and Johnny Depp, along with people who are not household names.

His work has appeared in anthologies and literary magazines in the U.S., Canada, Japan, and England. He is featured in The Grifter, The Poet, and The Runaway Train: Stories from a Yankee Writer’s Notebook by Geoffrey Douglas.

He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, and studied in the MFA Program in Writing at the University of California, Irvine. His career work involved communications and cultural affairs in state and federal government positions.

In 1978, he founded a small publishing company, Loom Press, which has released more than fifty titles: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, photography, and anthologies.

He lives in Amesbury with his wife, Rosemary Noon.

Alfred Nicol worked in the printing industry for over twenty years after graduating from Dartmouth College and published his first book of poems, Winter Light, in 2004. His other publications include Animal Psalms, Elegy for Everyone and Brief Accident of Light, a collaboration with Rhina Espaillat. With Espaillat, classical/flamenco guitarist John Tavano, and bassist/cellist Roget Kimball, he is part of the music-and-poetry ensemble, The Diminished Prophets. Nicol's translation of the lyrics for "Sing the Triumph of the Lord" were used for the official anthem of International Eucharistic Congress convened in 2021 by Pope Francis in Budapest. His translation of One Hundred Visions of War by Julien Vocance, has been called “an essential addition to the history of modernist poetry.”