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First Person

Meet Somerville’s new poet laureate, Nicole Terez Dutton

The writer, performing May 8 at the Brookline Booksmith, is eager to share “the musicality of language.”

Aram Boghosian

I’m from just outside Cleveland, Ohio. Early, early, early on, my mother introduced me to poetry, so that was always a refuge that I had.

When I was little, my training was in music. I took piano lessons for a long time with a brilliant, beautiful teacher. I think the musicality of language was really important, even at an early age.

Most of the things I have been concerned with in my writing life have been imagined landscapes and scenarios. A lot of the work that I do is not autobiographical. That doesn’t feel like an escape.

Sometimes, I like to bring new work to a reading because that’s a little bit of a challenge to me. You put a new poem out for people to see, then all of a sudden you’re listening to it in an entirely different way. That’s instructive on its own.

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Somerville has its kind of raw-bones charm. As poet laureate, I feel like a resource for the city. One of the great things about this position is that it’s brand new, so there’s a lot of latitude. My personal goal is to underscore poetry and awareness of poetry in everyday things. There are people who are readers and writers, and then there are people that don’t have poetry so much in their consciousness. I would like to be able to provide opportunities and programming that speak to all of those people.

[Black Ocean press publisher] Janaka Stucky asked if I would read on May 8. Janaka is also a Somervillian, and he is enormously invested in the cultivation of the literary community around here. The way that he picks voices to be heard together is very thoughtful. I’m very much looking forward to this reading.

FOR MORE The free BASH Poetry Reading Series, featuring Dutton, will happen on May 8 at 7 p.m. at Brookline Booksmith. 617-566-6660; brooklinebooksmith.com/events

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