The Friends of the Concord Free Public Library Poetry Series presents Jonathan Aaron and Linda Flaherty Haltmaier, two outstanding poets at the height of their powers.
Jonathan Aaron reads from his fourth collection, Just About Anything: New and Selected Poems (Carnegie Mellon University Press 2025). A poem uses words to try to get at what can’t be put into words. The best poems remain just out of reach; something in or about them remains mysterious. A poem itself is an inquiry or a search, that is never finished, never fulfilled.”
Jonathan Aaron is the author of three previous books of poems, including Second Sight, Corridor, and Journey to the Lost City. His work has received many honors, including fellowships from Yaddo and MacDowell. His poems have appeared in the London Review of Books, The New Yorker, New York Review of Books, and Raritan, among others, and they have been included five times in Best American Poetry.
Jonathan was educated at the University of Chicago and Yale. He went on to teach English and Creative Writing at Williams College, at Yale, in Harvard’s Expository Writing Program, and finally in the Department of Writing and Literature at Emerson College, where he is now professor emeritus. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Linda Flaherty Haltmaier reads from her collection, Shadows Set to Burn, winner of the 2024 International Book Award for Narrative Poetry. She is the award-winning author of four poetry collections and the Poet Laureate Emeritus of Andover, MA. Named the winner of the Robert Frost Poetry Prize, she is known for her “sensational imagery, her deft ear for the music of language, and her emotional sonar for sounding the depths of love (and anger.)” Her latest offering, Shadows Set to Burn, is the winner of the 2024 International Book Award for Narrative Poetry.
Her debut collection, Rolling up the Sky, claimed the Homebound Publications Poetry Prize and her follow-up collection, To the Left of the Sun, won the American Book Fest Award for Poetry. Additional accolades include winning the JuxtaProse Poetry Prize and the Palm Beach Poetry Festival Competition, as well as Finalist honors for the Princemere Poetry Prize, the New Millenium Award for Poetry, the Joy Bale Boone Poetry Prize, the Rash Award for Poetry, and the Tucson Festival of the Book Literary Award, among others.
A four-time Pushcart Prize nominee, Linda has been featured widely in journals and anthologies including Switchgrass Review, WSQ, Ink & Letters, Wild Word, and more. Her debut chapbook, Catch and Release, was published by Finishing Line Press. A graduate of Harvard, Linda leads poetry workshops, gives readings, and promotes poetry on the North Shore of Boston where she lives with her husband and daughter.
For more information on the Concord Festival of Authors, please visit www.concordfestivalofauthors.org.