Poetry Events
See photos from our recent book launch of Poets of Manor Mill.
Our next Poetry Day is scheduled for Sunday May 19th, 2025. Watch this space for more information.
Please visit our free monthly writing workshops and open mic nights for all experience levels:
1. Open Mic and Featured Poetry Series: Manor Mill
First Monday of each month. Doors open at 6:15pm and readings start 6:30pm. Hosted by Monkton playwright and poet Robert R. Bowie Jr. and British poet Mel Edden.
Each open mic night begins with readings from guest Featured Poets (established writers with published work). See details below.
As the event grows in popularity open mic participants should limit their reading to one poem lasting a maximum of three minutes. Paper copies of poems are no longer requested.
Featured poets and participants are also encouraged to bring their books for sale.
2. “Get Your Poetry On” WORKSHOPS: HerEFORD LIBRARY
Third Saturday of every month 2:30 PM-4 PM at the Hereford Branch of Baltimore County Public Library. Work with poet and Professor Emeritus Michael Fallon, who has taught poetry for 35 years, to create and critically discuss each other's works in a welcoming and supportive atmosphere.
Please email one poem you’d like to review ahead of time to fallon [at] umbc.edu and bring eight hard copies to the workshop.
Please also review our Guidelines for how to prepare for the workshop, and for participation etiquette.
Registration required. To register for the next meet-up, search for “Get Your Poetry On” on the BCPL website.
Poetry & Prose joint HOLIDAY pot luck and open mic
december 2, 2024
This month we will have no featured poets. Instead, we’ll be combining forces with the Prose Night folks for an extended time of open mic, food and fellowship.
If you wish to read, please come prepared with one piece of writing - poetry or prose - of a maximum of five minutes in length.
Doors open 6:15pm, poetry & prose open mic begins 6:30pm with a break in the middle to eat, drink and mingle.
FIRST MONDAY OPEN MIC FEATURED POETS
ERIC D. GOODMAN
FEATURED POET - JANUARY 6, 2025
Eric D. Goodman is author of seven books, including Faraway Tables (Yorkshire Publishing, 2024), Wrecks and Ruins (Loyola University’s Apprentice House Press, 2022), The Color of Jadeite (Apprentice House, 2020), Setting the Family Free (Apprentice House, 2019), Womb: a novel in utero (Merge Publishing, 2017), Tracks: A Novel in Stories (Atticus Books, 2011), and Flightless Goose (Writer's Lair, 2008) and more than 100 published travel stories, short stories and articles. He’s also co-founder and curator of the Lit and Art Reading Series, Baltimore’s longest-running literary salon, and BrickHouse Books, Maryland’s oldest independent press. You can learn more about Eric and his writing at www.EricDGoodman.com. Watch the trailer for Eric’s latest book, Faraway Tables, on YouTube.
ASHLEY ELIZABETH
FEATURED POET - FEBRUARY 7, 2025
Ashley Elizabeth (she/her) is a winner of the 2024 Garden Party Collective Chapbook Contest. She is a Pushcart-nominated writer and teacher whose work has appeared in SWWIM, Voicemail Poems, Rigorous, and Sage Cigarettes, among others. Ashley is the author of A Family Thing (Redacted Books/ELJ Editions, 2024) and chapbooks red line (Garden Party, 2024), CHARM(ed) (Fifth Wheel Press, 2024), black has every right to be angry (Alternating Current, 2023), and you were supposed to be a friend (Nightingale & Sparrow, 2020). She lives on the original land of the Piscataway (Baltimore, MD) with her partner and their cats.
richard peabody
FEATURED POET - march 3, 2025
Richard Peabody, born in Washington, DC., raised in Bethesda, MD., and now living in Arlington, VA., is a poet, writer, editor, teacher, publisher. The author of a novella and three short story collections, he taught graduate fiction writing at Johns Hopkins University for 17 years. His Gargoyle Magazine (founded 1976) released issue 76 in August 2022. The magazine has since moved online. His most recent poetry volume, Guinness on the Quay, was published in Ireland (Salmon Poetry, 2019). The Richard Peabody Reader, a career-encompassing collection, was released in 2015 by Alan Squire Publishing.
NANCY MITCHELL
FEATURED POET - APRIL 7, 2025
Nancy Mitchell is a Pushcart Prize Winner and the author of three acclaimed collections of poetry: The Near Surround, Grief Hut, and The Out-of-Body Shop. Mitchell publishes widely and has been awarded numerous residency fellowships including two in Auvillar France. A featured guest at the Library of Congress’ The Poet and The Poem 2019 podcasts, she taught in the English and Environmental Studies Departments at Salisbury University and has worked extensively in community outreach. Poet Laureate of the City of Salisbury, Md, she hosts national and local poets at Poets’ Corner at City Headquarters in Salisbury. She is the Associate Editor for Special Features for Plume Poetry.
BETH DULIN
FEATURED POET - APRIL 7, 2025
Beth Dulin’s writing has appeared in The American Journal of Poetry, Atlanta Review, Little Patuxent Review, New York Quarterly, and Wigleaf, among others. She’s the author of Truce, a limited edition artists’ book, in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Modern Art. A graduate of The New School, she lives on the Eastern Shore of MD. Visit her online: https://www.bethdulin.com/
DORA MALECH
FEATURED POET - May 5, 2025
Dora Malech is the author of five books of poetry, most recently Stet (Princeton University Press, 2018),Flourish (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2020), and Trying × Trying (Carnegie Mellon UP, 2025). She recently co-edited The American Sonnet: An Anthology of Poems and Essays, published by the University of Iowa Press. Her poems have appeared in numerous publications, including The New Yorker and Best American Poetry. She is on the faculty of the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University, where she is the editor in chief of The Hopkins Review, which recently won a Phoenix Award for Editorial and Design Achievement. She lives in Baltimore.
alejandro lucero
FEATURED POET - May 5, 2025
Alejandro Lucero’s chapbook, Sapello Son, was named the Editors’ Selection for the 2022 Frost Place Competition (Bull City Press, 2024). His work appears in Best New Poets, The Cincinnati Review, Gulf Coast, The Florida Review,RHINO, and The Southern Review. He lives in Baltimore, where he is an MFA candidate in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins and is a managing editor for The Hopkins Review.
JESS YUAN
FEATURED POET - May 5, 2025
Jess Yuan is a poet, educator, and architect. She is the author of a poetry collection, Slow Render (Airlie 2024), and chapbook, Threshold Amnesia (Yemassee 2020). She has received support from Kundiman and Miami Writers Institute, and is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at Johns Hopkins. Her poems appear in Best New Poets, Tupelo Quarterly Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Pleiades, jubilat, and elsewhere.
NANCY MURRAY
FEATURED POET - JUNE 2, 2025
Nancy Murray is the author of the acclaimed memoir, One Child for Another; (11th Hour Press, 2015) as well as, No Experience Necessary, Stories from Life in the Works, (Wayword Books, 2024) and The Colors of Fear, A Collection of Poems. (Cyberwit Press, 2023) Her poetry, plays, and short stories have been published, produced, and performed locally and internationally. She teaches composition and creative writing at The Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC), and hosts, Words on the Thirds, a monthly poetry workshop at The Arts Lab of South County. She curated and edited the poetry and art collection, Liminal Spaces which was published in June, 2024, and she is a recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council creativity award for individual artists. Her website is https://www.nancymurray.net/
Poetry Book
Our first collection of poetry, Poets of Manor Mill is now on sale for $15.
Stop by our gift shop during opening hours to pick up a book, or buy a copy during one of our monthly open mic nights.
Copies are also available for purchase at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online book sellers. The Ivy Bookshop in Baltimore City will also be stocking copies.
This anthology contains poems written by forty-two local poets who have previously read at our open mic nights. It has been compiled by our poetry hosts, Robert R Bowie Jr. and Mel Edden, to celebrate our vibrant poetic community that been growing since 2022.
Click here for photos from our book launch!
Meet Our Poetry Host
Mel Edden
Mel Edden is a British poet and stay-at-home mom who reads and writes poetry in her spare time. Her recent work has been published in The Loch Raven Review, Meat For Tea, Gargoyle and Welter. She is co-editor of Poets of Manor Mill (Salt Water Media, 2024). She lives in Monkton with her husband and two delightfully rambunctious little Americans. Follow her on Instagram for poetry updates @meledden
If you would like to be added to our poetry and prose newsletter, learn more about the poetry meet-up, the poetry open-mic or have any other inquiries regarding poetry at Manor Mill, Please submit the form below!