Poems on family, identity, and homeland—where these six Muslim women of MIT come from and how that shaped who they are now.

David Thorburn has been a teacher of literature for 57 years, 46 of them at MIT where he is Professor of Literature and Comparative Media and Director Emeritus of the MIT Communications Forum. Knots is his first book of poetry.

Andrea Cohen is the author of six poetry collections, including, most recently Nightshade and Unfathoming.

The inaugural event, featuring poets Ruth Lepson, Keith Jones, Daniel Bouchard, Fanny Howe, Roland Pease, Michael Franco, Patrick Pritchett, Ed Barrett.

David Rivard’s most recent book, Standoff, received the 2017 PEN New England Award in Poetry and was listed by The New Yorker in its “Books We Loved in 2016” roundup.

Raquel Salas Rivera is the 2018-19 Poet Laureate of Philadelphia. They are the author of while they sleep (under the bed is another country) from Birds, LLC and the inaugural recipient of the Ambroggio Prize from the Academy of American Poets for their book x/ex/exis.

Troy Jollimore is a poet, philosopher, and literary critic. His first collection of poetry, Tom Thomson in Purgatory, won the National Book Critics Circle award for poetry in 2006. Heather Altfeld's latest book, The Disappearing Theatre, won the Poets at Work Book Prize

Tyehimba Jess is the author of two books of poetry, Leadbelly and Olio. Olio won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, The Midland Society Author’s Award in Poetry.

Stephen Tapscott lives in Cambridge and is a professor (Literature) at MIT, and Erica Funkhouser’s newest book of poems, Post and Rail, was the recipient of the 2017 Idaho Prize and is due out in print this April.

An M.I.T. alumnus (B.S. Physics, 1970), Mark Pawlak is the author of nine poetry collections and the editor of six anthologies.

Fanny Howe's most recent collection of poetry is Second Childhood from Graywolf Press. She was a Finalist for the National Book Award.

Nicole Terez Dutton's work has appeared in Callaloo, Ploughshares, 32 Poems, Indiana Review and Salt Hill Journal.