FINAL HASTINGS ROOM READING this Wednesday May 31st at 7:30pm

FINAL HASTINGS ROOM READING this Wednesday May 31st at 7:30pm

First Church Congregationalist 11 Garden Street, a few blocks north of Harvard Square

The final reading of the Hastings Room Poetry Reading Series in the Hastings Room proper,

a beautiful early 20-th century salon-style room that has served many years as a meeting and reading space in one of Harvard Square’s oldest churches, the First Church Congregationalist on Garden Street, will be held this Wednesday, May 31st at 7:30pm.

Readers will include Harvard Divinity Students JB Fields, Walter Smelt III, and series

co-founder Michael Todd Steffen author of the poetry collection Partner, Orchard, Day Moon.

The event will be hosted by series founder Steven Brown.

The interruption of the use of the Hastings Room is due to planned renovations at First Church.

THIS IS NOT TO BE THE END OF THE HASTINGS ROOM READING SERIES, however. The series will continue to be held in other ambient spaces of First Church, such as the McKenzie Library, the Choir Room and Sage Hall (where we have already held some of the readings). Our 4th annual Seamus Heaney Memorial Reading is scheduled for Wednesday August 30th at 7pm, with readers Denis Daly, Valery Duff and Aidan Rooney.

The series began in April of 2015 and has run continuously with quarterly readings, including improvised readings. We mark the occasion by extending our thanks to the willing participation of some of the area’s best poets, with visitors to Cambridge in the mix, including

Daniel Tobin  David Ferry   late Pulitzer Prize poet Franz Wright   Frank Bidart  

Michael Dickman     Deborah Garrison     Dan Wuenschel    Alex Green

Frannie Lindsay       Elizabeth Oehlkers Wright             Fred Marchant           David Blair

Lloyd Schwartz      Joan Houlihan        Martha Collins           Doug Holder

Simeon Berry       Natasha Sajé              George Kalogeris       Meg Tyler     Marc Vincenz

Mark Pawlak     Louise C. Callaghan      Kevin Cutrer               Bert Stern

Ernest Hilbert          Gloria Mindock          Lo Gallucio      Toni Bee        

Jean Denis Joachim    Peter Payack     Denise Bergman         Jennifer Formicelli

Irene Koronas          Jaime Bonney    Brother Nicholas Bartoli        Mary Buchinger       

and members of the Woodberry Translation Group Monika Totten, Adnan Adam Onart, Gwendolyn Jensen and Kathryn Hellerstein.

While we are glad to be carrying our series onward, it will be a moment for pause to say goodbye to this lovely space as we know it. Come and join us.