As we always say at The Word Barn, every month is Poetry Month, so let's keep the celebration going into May.
On Sunday, May 17, the Silo Series is excited to present a mid-afternoon reading featuring three poets: Jessica Purdy, Sam Aureli, & Meg Reynolds.
This will be an extra special event as it is a book launch for Jessica's new book, Lung Hours, published by Gunpowder Press in early April.
We will also be celebrating Meg's brand new collection, Condition, which was published this April as well.
This reading is free, but we ask that you register (so we can keep track of numbers). Let's fill the barn for these poets!
The reading will begin at 2 pm (doors at 1:30)
Can't wait to see you there!
The event is free ($5/person suggested donation), but we ask that you register to save yourself a spot.
ABOUT JESSICA PURDY
Jessica Purdy is the author of six books of poetry including Lung Hours, chosen by Marsha de la O as a winner of Gunpowder Press’ Dryden-Vreeland Book Prize. Her chapbook The Adorable Knife: Poems based on The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death (Grey Book Press) received the NH Writers' Project People's Choice Award. Her poems and microfiction have appeared in Action, Spectacle, About Place, On the Seawall, Radar, Litro, Gone Lawn, and elsewhere. She lives in Exeter, New Hampshire.
ABOUT SAM AURELI
Sam Aureli is a design and construction professional, originally from Italy and now calling the Boston area home. A first-generation college graduate, he has spent decades immersed in concrete and steel. Poetry is what truly feeds his soul these days. His debut novel, On the Edge of Knowing, was recently published. His work has appeared in The Berlin Review, Chestnut Review, and other literary journals. Sam was the Grand Prize Winner in The October Project’s 2025 Poetry Contest, a Merit Award winner in the Atlanta Review 2025 International Poetry Competition, and a finalist for The Good Life Poetry HoneyBee Prize.
ABOUT MEG REYNOLDS
Meg Reynolds is a poet, artist, and teacher from New England. An instructor in writing and humanities at Vermont Adult Learning in Burlington, her work has been published in a number of literary journals including Mid-American Review, RHINO, The Offing, Iterant, Prairie Schooner, New England Review and the Kenyon Review. A graduate of the Stonecoast MFA program, her poetry and comic work has been three times nominated for the Pushcart Prize and once for Best the Net. Her first collection of poetry comics, A Comic Year, was published in October 2021 from Finishing Line Press. Her second collection, Does the Earth, was published in May 2023 from Harpoon Books. Reynolds' poetry was published in Best New Poets 2023. Reynolds' was also the 2024 winner of Inlandia Institute's Hilary Gravendyk Prize with her collection, Condition, forthcoming April 2026. You can read more of her work via her biweekly publications on her Substack, Condition and Other Conditions.