Please join our final event in this year’s “For a Change” series of informal conversations with authors at WPI, WPI Poets, from 3:30-5:00 pm on Wednesday April 29 in the Gordon Library Conference Room (Room 303).
This is our second author event this year that recognizes April 2026 as 30th National Poetry Month.
The program will begin with brief readings by four current WPI student poets: Emily Doten ‘27, Isabel Friedrichs ‘26, Aashish Lnu (Grad/BUS), and Caroline Purdy.
Their readings will be followed with a featured reading by alumnus Gerald Yelle. Yelle received his MFA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, after beginning his education at WPI in the 1970’s. Yelle has written and published ever since, both poetry and flash fiction, with books that include The Holyoke Diaries, Mark My Word and the New World Order, and Dreaming Alone and with Others. His chapbooks include No Place I Would Rather Be, and A Box of Rooms. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts and is a member of the Florence Poets Society.
Following Yelle’s reading, all five poets will be part of an informal conversation about their practice of writing and why poetry is an important part of their lives.
For all other WPI poets and lovers of poetry attending the reading, in the spirit of “Poem in Your Pocket Day 2026,” you are invited to bring along and share copies of any poems – your own or a favorite by another writer – that you’d like to share at a poetry exchange table.
Light refreshments will be served along with poetry!