Poetry Reading

Join us for some poetry and beer at Distraction Brewery! Featured readers include Linda Carney-Goodrich, Tom Daley, Toni Bee, Matthew Henry, and Maureen McElroy.  Rozzie Bound will sell their books at this event.

Linda Carney-Goodrich is a writer and teacher from Boston. Her work has appeared in spoKe 10, Lily Poetry Review, The MacGuffin, Nixes Mate Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, Literary Mama, Muddy River, Wordgathering, Gyroscope Review, and City of Notions: An Anthology of Contemporary Boston Poems. Her work has been translated into Spanish and published in Columbia and Mexico. Several poems of hers have been displayed at Boston City Hall. Linda is the Poetry Coordinator for the Menino Art Center in Hyde Park and founder of Home Scholars of Boston. Her one-person shows include The Secret Childhood Diary of a Welfare Mother and My Life in Barbie. Dot Girl is her first collection of poetry, published in March 2024 with Nixes Mate Books. You can find her at lindacarneygoodrich.com

Tom Daley is a militant atheist who will be reading from a collection of psalms for his lost choirmates he has written, ironically, addressed to the God of the Old Testament. He worked for over two decades as a machinist and now leads online workshops for writers working in poetry and creative prose. Raised Roman Catholic and taught that the sin of self-pride is the fountain of all the other deadly sins, he will not list anything that smacks of self-aggrandizement for this biography.

Toni Bee is a poet, educator, and photographer raised in Boston, MA, educated in Roxbury. Bee was elected Poet Populist of Cambridge (2011-2013) and the first woman to grace that position. She was also selected as the Cambridge Inaugural Poetry Ambassador (2016.) Toni has been a teaching artist and storyteller at The Wang Theatre and received her BA from Simmons University. She self-published her first poetry book, 22 Again, and was on the Advisory Board of The New England Poetry Club. Toni is the founder of Poets In The Garden, where literary arts and diverse gardeners meet, as well as BeeFound Workshops, a dive into history, and a poetry writing session. This poet has featured at: The Lizard Lounge, The Cantab (Boston Poetry Slam), The New England Poetry Club, The Boston National Poetry Month Festival, The Boston Poetry Marathon; a panelist at The Massachusetts Poetry Festival and she has been awarded by YWCA Cambridge.

Matthew E. Henry (MEH) is the author of six poetry collections, including The Colored Page (Sundress Publications, 2022), The Third Renunciation (New York Quarterly Books, 2023), and Said the Frog to the Scorpion (Harbor Editions, 2024). He is editor-in-chief of The Weight Journal and an associate poetry editor at Rise Up Review. The 2023 winner of the Solstice Literary Magazine Stephen Dunn Prize, MEH’s poetry appears in The Florida Review, Massachusetts Review, Ninth Letter, Ploughshares, Shenandoah, and The Worcester Review, among others. MEH is an educator who received his MFA yet continued to spend money he didn’t have to complete an MA in theology and a Ph.D. in education. You can find him at www.MEHPoeting.com, writing about education, race, religion, and burning oppressive systems to the ground.

Maureen McElroy grew up in Boston as one of seven children. She attended Boston University and holds an MFA from Emerson College. She is the author of For Crying Out Loud (Kelsay Books 2024). Her chapbook Car Poems (Finishing Line Press) came out in March of 2020. Her work has appeared in numerous literary magazines, including Nixes Mate, Mothers Always Write, Trampset, Fickle Muses, Literary Hatchet, and Io. She is Co-Chair of the Rozzie Reads Poetry Series sponsored by the Roslindale Public Library.