Southcoast poets will read original poems exploring themes of family attachments, memory, the natural world, and saying the unsayable. They will discuss the connections and resonances in their work.

POETS’ BIOS

Vivian Eyre is the author of Ishmael’s Violets (Kelsay Books) and a community member at Imago Foundation for the Arts. Vivian’s work explores the endangerment of marine life with its scientific and literary connections.

John Heavey. A newly retired English teacher of 48 years, John loves to write haikus and tankas. He credits his growth as a poet to the Mattapoisett Poetry Group, from whom he has gotten such helpful critiques of his work.

Eileen Paccia, a New Bedford poet, enjoys membership in several writing communities, including the Mattapoisett Poets and the Martha’s Vineyard Poetry Collective. Her narrative poems explore the connection between humans/nature in urban/ocean settings.

Susan Pizzolato is a retired librarian with poems published in literary journals. Ampersand Press chose her chapbook, Give & amp; Take, to publish in a hand letterpress edition. Susan studied for an MFA at Brooklyn College and earned a degree in Writing from Vermont College while raising her three sons.

Elizabeth Sylvia is an award-winning poet and teacher based in Mattapoisett. The author of None But Witches: Poems on Shakespeare’s Women (2022), My Little Book of Domestic Anxieties (2025), and Scythe (2026), Elizabeth's work explores women's lives through personal, historical, and cultural connections. 

Margot Wizansky’s chapbook, Wild for Life, a chronicle in poems of her near-death and coma, was published with Lily Poetry Review Books (2022). The Yellow Sweater was published by Kelsay Books in 2023 and Random Music in a Small Galaxy in 2025.