Hot L Poets Series: The Best American Poetry 2025

Sunday January 11, 2026 at 4pm, The HOT L Poets Series continues at Bird in Hand (Baltimore) with poets reading their poems from The Best American Poetry anthology. The reading includes guest editor Terence Winch with Patricia Davis-Muffett, Donald Berger, James Allen Hall, Jeffrey Harrison, Henry Israeli, Hailey Leithauser, Chris Mason, Greg McBride, Nicholas Montemarano, Bruce Snider, and Bernard Welt.

The reading includes an open mic so bring a poem (1 poem, 3 min. or less). Now in our 8th year, the reading series is sponsored by Smartish Pace and Baltimore Poets Theatre. Hosts: Clare Banks, Stephen Reichert and David Yezzi.

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Terence Winch is the guest editor of The Best American Poetry 2025 and the author of ten books of poems notable for wit, warmth, style, and passion. He is cofounder of the original Celtic Thunder, the traditional Irish music group. Born and raised in The Bronx, he lives in the Washington, DC area.

Patricia Davis-Muffett holds an MFA from the University of Minnesota. She is the author of Alchemy of Yeast and Tears (Kelsay, 2023) and her work has won honors including Best of the Net 2022 nomination, Best New Poets 2022 (Samovar/Meridian), and second place in the 2022 Joe Gouveia Outermost Poetry Contest as selected by Marge Piercy.

Donald Berger is the author of six books of poetry including The Rose of Maine (SurVision), The Long Time, a bilingual edition in English and German (Wallstein, Goettingen, Germany), and Quality Hill (Lost Roads). He teaches in the University Writing Program at Johns Hopkins University.

James Allen Hall is the author of two books of poetry and a book of lyric personal essays: Now You're the Enemy (Arkansas, 2008); I Liked You Better Before I Knew You So Well: Essays (CSU Poetry Center, 2017); and Romantic Comedy (Four Way, 2023). They teach at Washington College and direct the Rose O'Neill Literary House. With Aaron Smith, James co-hosts Breaking Form: A Podcast of Poetry & Culture.

Jeffrey Harrison is the author of six books of poetry, beginning with The Singing Underneath, a National Poetry Series selection in 1987, and including Incomplete Knowledge, runner-up for the Poets’ Prize, Into Daylight, winner of the Dorset Prize, and, most recently, Between Lakes. His seventh book is forthcoming from Four Way Books in 2027. His poems have appeared in four editions of The Best American Poetry.

Henry Israeli is the author of four poetry collections, most recently Our Age of Anxiety (White Pine Poetry Prize: 2019), and god’s breath hovering across the waters, (Four Way, 2016), and as editor, Lords of Misrule: 20 Years of Saturnalia Books (Saturnalia, 2022). His next collection, Between the Trees (or the Lonely Nowhere) will be published by Four Way Books in 2028. Israeli is the founder and editor of Saturnalia Book.

Hailey Leithauser is the author of three books, Swoop (2013), Saint Worm (2019) and How to Moth, forthcoming from the Sewanee Poetry Series (LSU, 2027). She teaches at the West Chester Poetry Conference.

Chris Mason is a member of two bands, Old Songs, who translate Archaic Greek poetry and put it to music, and The Tinklers, who recorded three LP’s for Shimmy Disc in the 80’s and 90’s. Poetry books include: ¬Poems of a Doggy (pod, 1977), Hum Who Hiccup (Narrowhouse, 2011), Something Something Morning (Blabbermouth, 2020), and Of Rare Earths (Uncollected Press, 2024). He lives in Baltimore with his wife, Ann, and 3 chickens: Mars, Our Lady, and Thorleif.

Greg McBride is the author of Guest of Time (Pond Road, 2023) and Porthole (Briery Creek, 2012). His awards include the Liam Rector First Book Prize for Poetry, the Boulevard Emerging Poet prize, and grants in poetry from the Maryland State Arts Council. A Vietnam veteran and lawyer, he is the founding editor of the Innisfree Poetry Journal.

Nicholas Montemarano is the author of five books, most recently a memoir, If There Are Any Heavens (Persea, 2022). His writing has been awarded a Pushcart Prize and an NEA fellowship. He has new work forthcoming in Smartish Pace. Born in Brooklyn and raised in Queens, he lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he is the Alumni Professor of Creative Writing and Belles Lettres at Franklin & Marshall College.

Bruce Snider is the author of four poetry collections, most recently Blood Harmony, (Wisconsin, 2025). Co-editor of The Poem’s Country: Place & Poetic Practice (Pleiades, 2018), his awards include an NEA fellowship, a Wallace Stegner Fellowship, and the Jenny McKean Writer-in-Washington Professorship. He teaches in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University

Bernard Welt’s poetry has appeared in The Antioch Review, gargoyle, Allium, LiVE Mag, Z, Sun & Moon and America’s Future: Poetry and Prose in Response to Tomorrow (Washington Writers Publishing House). He has been a DC Pride Poet in 2024 and 2025. His latest project is the text integrated in artist Colby Caldwell’s garlands (115) unfurled, an installation at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, NC, on display through 2026.

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