Our Readers & Writers Guild meets select months to hear a featured reader, as well as, share open mic time and peruse attendee's books for sale.  All are welcome!  For further information, please contact Betsy Retallack.

Next meeting: 7:00 p.m. on Friday, October 14th

Featured Reader: Tin Box Poets of Swampscott Group

Brought together by Revere native, turned New Hampshire resident, turned Swampscott resident Allen Marquis around 1993, the Tin Box Poets of Swampscott are a major force amongst the North Shore poetry and spoken word community. As a workshop / critique group our mission -- through gentile critiquing, solid friendship and camaraderie, is to turn lousy poets into amazing poets. We also strive to make poetry more accessible to the entire world and to spread our love of the craft to anyone who is interested.

Composed of a hearty band of wordsmiths of all ages and skill levels, among our rank and file Tin Box members boast: Poets Laureate, Pushcart Prize Nominees, Naomi Cherkofsky Prize winners, other contest winners, both published and unpublished poets, spoken word artists and many who write for themselves and purely for the love of words. 

Tin Box has played an active role in the Swampscott community of poets by hosting open mics, judging teen student poetry contests, conducting in-school elementary student workshops, and public readings at town dedications. In the larger North Shore and beyond communities, Tin Box has sent representatives to the Mass Poetry Festival, Improbable Places Poetry Tour (Montserrat College of Art), Taos Institute of Arts (Taos, New Mexico), A Celebration of the American Voice (Ring of Bone Press, Ipswich, MA) and many other amazing experiences and venues.

Tin Box Poets of Swampscott is an amazing group of not only poets but of close and caring friends. Tin Box in a nutshell:  eclectic, acclaimed, gothic, psychedelic, line-breaking, em-dashing, enjambed, folksy, spiritual, hilarious, quatraining, coupleting, iambic, musical, honest, genial, craggy, crabby & bitchy, witty, a roller-coaster ride of “we don’t care where this takes us, but we love it anyway”, Vermontophilic, rebellious, non-conforming, hair-raising (or lack-of), conissuering and almost, but not often, very, very niveous.

                        10/4/2022: Lee Eric Freedman, President, Tin Box Poets of Swampscott, MA

Upcoming meetings: November 18