Entitled “Looking Into: Memory & Art,” the event will be facilitated by Vivian Eyre, a poet and IFA community member, with the goal of creating an informal dialogue between the featured poets and attendees.

Drexler, author of Notes from the Column of Memory, and Cole, author of Between Selves, will explore the connections and resonances in their work as they read poems that move through the ways that, over time, our memories amend, embellish, and meld to reconfigure our past experiences and relationships. In addition, the poets will share poems inspired by visual art.

Drexler is a recipient of a 2022 artist fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Her fourth collection, Notes from the Column of Memory, was published in September 2022 by Terrapin Books. Her poems have appeared in Barrow Street, J Journal, Nimrod, Pangyrus, Prairie Schooner, The Sun, and The Threepenny Review, among others. She served as the poet in residence at New Mission High School in Hyde Park, MA, from 2018-2023 and is programming co-chair for the New England Poetry Club.

Cole, a Pushcart Prize nominee, has been published in over 60 poetry journals including Poetry East, Spillway, Main Street Rag, Cider Press Review, The Public’s Radio 89.3, Friends Journal, Verse Daily, The New Verse News and Orison Books. Her chapbook, Songs By Heart was published in 2018 by Iris Press. She is an editor for The Crosswinds Poetry Journal and has conducted a number of poetry workshops. Her full-length book, Between Selves, was released this summer by Indian Press, Cyberwit.net. More information is available at dianacolepoets.com

IFA is a non-profit organization run by artists for artists whose mission is to inspire creativity and promote art-making that enriches our communities.