Join the Gloucester Writers Center for an evening of poetry with Dick Lourie and Mark Pawlak, two longtime poets, editors, and influential voices in independent literary publishing.

Both poets are closely connected to Hanging Loose Press, which celebrates its 60th anniversary in 2026. Lourie is a co-founder and senior editor of the press, while Pawlak serves as managing editor.

Dick Lourie is the author of Jam Session and Other Poems, a collection alive with the rhythms of jazz and blues, American history, politics, friendship, love, and memory. Music runs throughout the collection, including a title poem that imagines a conversation between Blues and Jazz as two old friends reflecting on their intertwined histories.

A poet and saxophone player, Lourie performed for fifteen years with internationally renowned blues singer Big Jack Johnson. His poetry has appeared widely for more than fifty years, and his poem “Forgiving Our Fathers” was featured in the film Smoke Signals.

Mark Pawlak is the author of Special Operation, his eleventh poetry collection, a powerful exploration of Russia’s war in Ukraine and the human lives caught within it. Through compressed, vivid poems, Pawlak bears witness to violence, endurance, resistance, and the struggle to “remain human” amid war.

His previous books include Away Away and the memoir My Deniversity: Knowing Denise Levertov. His poetry has appeared in The Best American Poetry and has been translated into Chinese, German, Japanese, Polish, and Spanish.

Pawlak is retired from the University of Massachusetts Boston, where he taught mathematics and received the Chancellor’s Achievement Award.

Come hear two accomplished poets whose work asks us to listen closely—to music, history, conflict, memory, and one another.