Phosphorescence April 2022 featured poets:
Saida Agostini, Dr. Shauna M. Morgan and Dr. Tara Betts with guest host Lisa Pegram
VIRTUAL PROGRAM
This virtual program is free to attend. Registration is required.
To Emily Dickinson, phosphorescence, was a divine spark and the illuminating light behind learning — it was volatile, but transformative in nature. Produced by the Emily Dickinson Museum, the Phosphorescence Poetry Reading Series celebrates contemporary creativity that echoes Dickinson’s own revolutionary poetic voice. The Series features established and emerging poets whose work and backgrounds represent the diversity of the flourishing contemporary poetry scene. The 2021 Series will be a virtual event to ensure the health and safety of participants. While we are disappointed not to gather together in Amherst, we are excited to connect with a global community of friends and writers. Join us on the last Thursdays of each month to hear from poets around the world as they read their work and discuss what poetry and Dickinson mean to them.
About this month’s poets:
Saida Agostini’s first collection of poems, let the dead in, was a finalist for the Center of African American Poetry & Poetics’ 2020 Book Prize as well as the New Issues Poetry Prize. She is the author of STUNT (Neon Hemlock, October 2020), a chapbook exploring the history of Nellie Jackson, a Black woman entrepreneur who operated a brothel for sixty years in Natchez, Mississippi. Her poetry can also be found in the Black Ladies Brunch Collective’s anthology Not Without Our Laughter, Barrelhouse Magazine, Hobart Pulp, Plume, and other publications.
Dr. Tara Betts is the author of Break the Habit, Arc & Hue, and the forthcoming Refuse to Disappear. In addition to working as an editor, a teaching artist, and a mentor for other writers, she has taught at several universities. She is the Inaugural Poet for the People Practitioner Fellow at University of Chicago, an Artist in Residence at Northwestern University’s English Department, and founder of Whirlwind Learning Center. Tara can be found on twitter at @tarabetts. Her poetry has appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, including The Breakbeat Poets, Essence magazine, and Poetry Magazine.
Dr. Shauna M. Morgan is a poet-scholar and Associate Professor of creative writing and Africana literature at the University of Kentucky where she also serves as Director of Equity and Inclusion Initiatives in the Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching (CELT). Before joining the University of Kentucky, Morgan was tenured on the faculty of English at Howard University where she taught from 2012-2019. Both her scholarly work and her poetry are deeply engaged with traditions of global Black art and culture. Her poetry has appeared in A Gathering Together, Interviewing the Caribbean, A Literary Field Guide to Southern Appalachia, ProudFlesh: New Afrikan Journal of Culture, Politics & Consciousness, among other periodicals and anthologies. Morgan’s chapbook, Fear of Dogs & Other Animals, was published by Central Square Press.
April’s Phosphorescence also features guest host, Lisa Pegram. Pegram is a writer, educator, literary publicist and acquisitions editor. Her chapbook Cracked Calabash was published by Central Square Press and she is contributing author of The Next Verse Mixtape vol. 1. She has over 20 years of experience in high-level arts integration program design for such organizations as the Smithsonian Institute, Corcoran Gallery of Art and National Geographic. Passionate about the arts as a tool for activism, she served as DC WritersCorps program director for a decade, and as co-chair of United Nations affiliate international women’s conferences in the US, India and Bali. As a publishing professional, her mission is to amplify and celebrate the voices and stories of BIPOC authors. Find our more at https://ladypcoq.wordpress.com/
Support Phosphorescence and Honor Someone Special:
Admission to all Phosphorescence events is free, but online donations, especially those made in honor or memory of family, friends, or colleagues are heartily encouraged and vital to the future of our programs. All gifts are tax deductible.
Barbara DeCoursey Roy lives near St Louis, Missouri. Her work has been published in The Gal-way Review, Headstuff, Skylight 47, Pendemic, and Popshot Quarterly. Barbara collaborated on How Bright The Wings Drive Us, which won first prize in the 2021 Dreich Alliance Chapbook competition. She is a founding member of the international writing group Poets Abroad. 
Maeve McKenna is a poet living in Sligo, Ireland. Her poetry has been placed in several international poetry competitions, published in Mslexia, Orbis, Sand Magazine, Fly on the Wall, Channel Magazine among others and widely online. Maeve was a finalist in the Jacar Press Eavan Boland Mentorship Award 2020, and third in the Canterbury Poet of The Year in 2021. Her debut pamphlet will be published in February, 2022, by Fly On The Wall Press.
Morag Anderson is a Scottish poet based in Highland Perthshire. Her debut chapbook, Sin Is Due to Open in a Room Above Kitty’s (Fly on the Wall Press, 2021), explores human connections—concealed violence, love, and everything in between. Morag’s poetry has been published in many literary journals and anthologies.
Added Wald, “In addition to providing innovatively designed program space, the Carriage House will serve as a clear signal that the Museum is pivoting in important ways toward the public, is expanding Emily Dickinson’s outreach to the world from her home ground, and is committed to welcoming new Dickinson enthusiasts and tourists to Amherst.”
Digital Capacity and Resource Development ($200K)
Thematic Tour Development ($330K)
Enzo Silon Surin, Haitian-born poet, educator, speaker, publisher and social advocate, is the author of When My Body Was A Clinched Fist (Black Lawrence Press, July 2020) and two chapbooks, A Letter of Resignation: An American Libretto (2017) and Higher Ground. He is a PEN New England Celebrated New Voice in Poetry, the recipient of a Brother Thomas Fellowship from The Boston Foundation and a 2020 Denis Diderot [A-i-R] Grant as an Artist-in-Residence at Chateau d’Orquevaux in Orquevaux, France. Surin’s work gives voice to experiences that take place in what he calls “broken spaces” and his poems have been featured in numerous publications and exhibits. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University, teaches creative writing and literature at Bunker Hill Community College and is President and Director of Faraday Publishing.
Melanie Henderson is a Washington, DC native poet, editor, publisher and photographer. She is the author of Elegies for New York Avenue, winner of the 2011 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award. 
