Plein Air: Poetry of Nature, Environment and Place

Join us as we celebrate the beauty and power of nature through poetry, and kick off National Poetry Month, April 1st from 6:30-8 p.m. at the Shelburne-Buckland Community Center, located at 53 Main Street in Shelburne Falls. Our lineup of acclaimed poets will read their work, exploring themes of ecology and placemaking.

Romeo Romero (they/them) is a Boricua/Jewish poet based in Florence, MA. Romeo's poetry includes themes of belonging, diaspora, spirituality, and being a being in a body. Their first full-length collection of poetry, descendant, was published in 2018. Their second collection, thresheld, will be released in 2023. You can also find their work in Anomaly/ANMLY, Trans Bodies, Trans Selves, Mother Tongue: Ki Li Ha'aretz Vol. 2, and La piel del arrecife: la antología de poesía trans puertorriqueña.

Abbot Cutler (he/him) has published three chapbooks: 1843  Rebecca 1847, published by Rowan Tree Press of Boston, MA., The Dog Isn’t Going Anywhere by Mad River Press of Richmond, MA., and Say Dance, Say Night, with Slate Roof Press of Franklin County. His poems have appeared in numerous publications including Orion Magazine, Ploughshares and Blue Sofa Review, and in several anthologies, among them What Have You Lost, edited by Naomi Shihab Nye. He lives in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, with his wife, the photographer, Sarah Holbrook.

Rebecca Hart Olander (she/her) has had her poems appear most recently in Jet Fuel Review, The Massachusetts Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and elsewhere, and her collaborative visual and written work has been published in multiple venues online and in They Said: A Multi-Genre Anthology of Contemporary Collaborative Writing (Black Lawrence Press, 2018). Her books include a chapbook, Dressing the Wounds (dancing girl press, 2019), and her debut full-length collection, Uncertain Acrobats (CavanKerry Press, 2021). Rebecca teaches writing at Westfield State University and Amherst College and works with poets in the Maslow Family Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Wilkes University. She is the editor/director of Perugia Press. Find her online at rebeccahartolander.com or @rholanderpoet.

Nathan McClain (he/him) is the author of two collections of poetry—Previously Owned (2022) and Scale (2017)—both from Four Way Books, a recipient of fellowships from The Frost Place, Sewanee Writers Conference, Bread Loaf Writers Conference, and a graduate from the M.F.A. Program for Writers at Warren Wilson. A Cave Canem fellow, his poems and prose have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Plume Poetry Anthology 10, Poetry Daily, The Common, Guesthouse, and Poetry Northwest, among others. He teaches at Hampshire College and serves as poetry editor of the Massachusetts Review.