is finally here. Please watch at your convenience!

FITCHBURG, MA – August 21, 2025 – The Fourth Annual River City Rhythm and Rock Festival (RCRRF) returns to Fitchburg this year with its most ambitious lineup yet, featuring vibrant talent, expanded vendor offerings, and increased support from sponsors and community partners. The beloved festival continues its mission to celebrate diverse musical genres while providing a platform for underrepresented creatives in North Central Massachusetts.

TL;DR: RCRRF 2025 expands to two days with a new Friday showcase at Canvas, featuring both veteran festival founders and emerging talent, plus enhanced programming across Mill Street and Riverfront Park.
NEW FOR 2025: Friday Showcase at Canvas Creative Hub

For the first time in the festival’s history, RCRRF extends to include a Friday showcase at Canvas, the new creative hub located on Main Street in the former Tryst location. The showcase runs from 6 to 10 PM and will feature a unique “reverse cover” with the first 50 attendees receiving $5 upon entry.

Hosted by Yo Daddy Doe and headlined by Joe Grizzly, both founding members of RCRRF, the Friday showcase provides a platform for emerging artists including ProZach, Versatille, and BigBoss alongside the festival’s veteran performers. This expansion reflects the festival’s growth and commitment to nurturing up-and-coming voices in the local music scene.

Canvas’s prime location next to Cushing Street and Mill Street Stage, directly across from Riverfront Park, positions it perfectly to kickstart a weekend celebrating the creative energy surrounding the Dickinson building and Downtown Fitchburg.

Mill Street Integration: The Openest Mic Partnership

RCRRF 2025 marks the first integration of an open mic component through a partnership with The Openest Mic, a traveling third place led by poet Laura DiCaronimo and Tyler Hopp that has been transforming the North Central MA scene. “The Openest Mic Presents: The Festivalest Mic” begins at 2:15 PM on Mill Street with host Laura, featuring headliner Logan Rau (comedian) and Worcester based hip-hop acts Death Over Simplicity and Weapon ESP (4:00 PM), followed by the continuation of The Cellar Mill Street music series with One Headlight. The Cellar outdoor beer garden opens at 5 PM.

Musical Lineup Highlights
The festival opens with K Fingers (2:00 PM) with jazz, followed by the traditional Thurston Consort Duo (2:30 PM), who played an instrumental role in the festival’s inception, providing chamber music for early risers and classical music fans. The day builds in energy and diversity from there.

Returning favorites include Tasteless Jack (3:45 PM), Merrick Henry (4:40 PM), Provenance (6:05 PM), NEWCENTURY (7:10 PM), AV-8 (8:25 PM), Q-Furb (8:05 PM), and Freddy Stone (9:20 PM). New highlights feature Troubles with Parachutes (3:05 PM), Vile Impulse (5:20 PM), Brandie Blaze (7:40 PM), and Fewch & Dinero Lifestyle (8:45 PM).

Community Attractions & Activities

The festival maintains its beloved community features, including the Nick Nogueira Beer Garden and food trucks. Fidelity Bank’s Frosty Flyer returns with free ice cream for attendees, while two bouncy houses for children will be staffed by Youth Innovation Center peer mentors and staff, who are also celebrating their first anniversary.

Great Wolf Lodge provides an exciting raffle opportunity – all attendees receive a raffle ticket for a chance to win four waterpark passes to the resort.The Youth Innovation Center provides additional activities aligned with their mission, creating intergenerational engagement throughout the festival grounds. A diverse Vendor Village offers shopping and food options, expanding on previous years’ offerings.

Vendor Village Expansion

This year’s vendor lineup includes established local businesses and emerging entrepreneurs. Highlights include choripan and beverages by Centro Celeste, a nonprofit strengthening the Latino community, Gems & Jewels, a BI-POC/Queer-led radical arts initiative, and mini escape game by Curious Escape Rooms, North Central Mass’s first immersive escape room company. Food vendors include El Punto Latino and DAT’S FIRE BBQ, alongside creative entrepreneurs ranging from 18-year-old sound engineering student Kats Kreations, cotton candy by Monte’s Candy Clouds to multi-generational businesses like Henna Artistry.

Sponsor Recognition
RCRRF gratefully acknowledges support from our Gold Level Sponsors: MassDevelopment/TDI, Mass Cultural Council, Nick Noguiera Photos, and Fidelity Bank. Silver Level Sponsors include The Openest Mic, Enterprise Bank, and Great Wolf Lodge. Bronze Level Sponsors include Fitchburg Fiber, NewVue Communities Inc, Three Pyramids Inc, The Cellar, and Making Opportunities Count Inc. Event Background

River City Rhythm and Rock Festival was created to address the lack of music festivals supporting arts and culture from underrepresented creatives. The festival provides a platform for multi-genre artists, particularly hip-hop performers, to showcase their talents within their community while promoting creative placemaking and accessible live performances in Fitchburg.

Since its grassroots inception, RCRRF has grown through community support and strategic partnerships, including grants from the Fitchburg Creative City Partnership and the Center for Community Progress.

Event Details:
● Date: August 30-31, 2025
● Friday Showcase: Canvas Creative Hub, 6-9 PM (326 Main Street, former Tryst
location)
● Saturday Main Event: Riverfront Park and Mill Street, Fitchburg, MA, 2-10 PM
● Admission: Friday showcase offers $5 to first 50 attendees; Saturday event details TBA
● Info: Visit www.coff33corp.org/rcrrf or follow Coff33Corp on social media
For more information, contact:
Derek Craig
Chief Visionary Officer, CoFF33 Corp
Email: Derek@coff33corp.org
Website: www.coff33corp.org

Summer greetings from Northampton, and I hope this message finds you well. I hope too that you saw the announcement last week regarding the new literary prize from Nine Syllables Press. The Tammis Day Poetry Prize will be awarded for a debut full-length collection by a woman poet over the age of forty, with the press accepting submissions for its inaugural prize beginning in the spring of 2026. I couldn’t be happier about this news. No such literary prize yet exists in America, and it’s especially moving and gratifying to name this award after Tammis Day, a Smith College student who developed a love of poetry as an Ada Comstock Scholar under the mentorship of Annie Boutelle, the founder of The Poetry Center. During her time at Smith, Tammis herself was a founding editor of the campus literary journal Labrys, and it’s wonderful to know that her legacy will continue to create new space for the voices of historically excluded writers, as well as robust professional practice opportunities for Smith College students. Moreover, in alignment with Tammis’ passionate work as a patron of the arts, each recipient of the prize will also be awarded a two-week artist residency at the Vermont Studio Center. This expansion of Nine Syllables Press (9SP) also means an expanded role for Adrie Rose (Ada Comstock ’22), the editor of Nine Syllables Press. Adrie is the recipient of numerous literary awards, and the acclaimed author of the chapbooks Rupture (Gold Line Press, 2024) and I Will Write a Love Poem (Porkbelly Press, 2023). She’s been utterly exemplary in her work as the 9SP editor, as well as teaching the affiliated editing and book design courses and, moving forward, Adrie will also be exploring new outreach efforts aimed to help local high school students realize their own literary goals. As if all of this wasn’t enough, the first Tammis Day Poetry Prize will be selected by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Diane Seuss, and the inaugural collection will be published in the Fall of 2027, when we’ll be celebrating the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Poetry Center. I hope you’ll consider supporting the Boutelle-Day Poetry Center as a means of directly supporting this new prize, and 9SP’s critical mission of addressing ongoing inequity in the publishing world by providing a new platform for the systematically excluded voices of women, BIPOC, and LGBTQIA+ poets. If you’d like to personally contribute to the work of Nine Syllables Press, please use the donate button included below. I hope you will join me in celebrating this incredible news and everything it will afford the literary community, as well as our Smith College students. Sincerely,

Matt Donovan, Director of the Boutelle-Day Poetry Center

Submit your creative take on a Dropkick Murphys song by Friday, September 5th, to meet Ken Kesey and share your work on stage.

Ken Casey is no stranger to telling a good story. From smash hits like “I’m Shipping Up to Boston” to deep cuts like “Boys on the Docks,” chances are he’s written a song about Massachusetts that resonates with you in some way.

Leading up to our event honoring Ken on September 25, we’re launching a contest to see what YOU find inspiring about Ken and Dropkick Murphys. We’re inviting you to pick any Dropkick Murphys song and creatively respond to it. This could include:

• Doing a cover of a song
• Making a painting inspired by song lyrics
• Writing a short essay about seeing the band perform live
• Creating an original dance
• Writing a poem

The list is endless. As long as it’s original, creative, and uses the humanities to talk about the band, it counts!

Rules At A Glance:

• The deadline to submit your entry is Friday, September 5, 11:59 pm EST.
• Mass Humanities will select a winner in early September.
• The winner will receive two tickets for themselves and a friend to attend our event on September 25 in Boston.
• The winner will have a chance to share their work on stage and meet Ken.
• Contestants must be 18 years old or older and be a “full-year resident” of Massachusetts.
• Limit one entry per contestant.
• Use of artificial intelligence (AI) software and tools is not permitted.
• Works must be able to be presented or explained in under 3 minutes.

For a complete list of rules, click here.

Hello WCPA members. This is just a quick PSA to promote the website of local poet Brian Evans-Jones whose website offers a wealth of resources for any local and upcoming poets. Check out The Poetry Place! You won’t be disappointed!

First place… “The Monstah,” was written by Todd Leitz, a Duxbury native and fierce Red Sox fan who lives in Los Angeles and works in Major League Baseball as the Los Angeles Dodgers PA Announcer.

Second place… “I Am the Green Monster,” was written by Brolin Winning, a MA native currently living in Colrain (in the Hill Towns).  Brolin is General Manager of Shelburne Springs Luxury Boutique Hotel.  He’s also a (rap) song writer.

Third place… “Monster of the Mind,” was written by Herbert Munshine, a baseball poet with dozens of publication credits who is from the Bronx and lives in Great Neck, NY.  Herbert was a school teacher for 58 years.

An interview with the winner—Todd Leitz—will air tonight on NESN’s pre-game show at 6:20pm ET.

Then, we’re aiming to post the interview (and names of the two runners-up) on the National Baseball Poetry Festival website by early next week.  If you miss the interview tonight, catch it next week at:  https://baseballpoetryfest.org/.

Working with NESN has been a great pleasure!  Many thanks to their team, and to all the National Baseball Poetry Festival supporters far and wide who posted and spread the word about the inaugural Challenge.  Special shout-out to the Worcester County Poetry Association for making multiple posts encouraging participation!

Last but not least, personal thanks to each and every one of you for your ongoing support of the Festival’s activities.  None of the things we’re accomplishing would be possible without your support!

With warm regards,

Steve

Steven H. Biondolillo

Biondolillo Associates, LLC

www.biondolillo.com

 

Gibson will amplify poetry and creative expression across the commonwealth

On Friday, May 30, a new chapter was added to Massachusetts’ rich literary history. Regie O’Hare Gibson was named the very first poet laureate of Massachusetts at the Mass Poetry Festival in Salem. 

“Regie Gibson is a talented poet with a proven commitment to community engagement and a deep appreciation for the history, beauty and resilience of our state and our people. He sees his poetry as a means of bringing people together, finding common ground and building stronger communities,” said Governor Maura Healey. “We congratulate him on his many accomplishments and for being named Massachusetts’ first-ever Poet Laureate, and we extend our deep thanks to Michael Bobbitt, the Mass Cultural Council and the advisory Poet Laureate Nominating Committee for their work to make this special new tradition possible.”

“Poets allow us to dream and inspire us to reckon with our past, interpret the present, and imagine new futures,” said Brian Boyles, executive director of Mass Humanities. “In a state blessed with diverse and vibrant literary traditions that continue to shape the world, we applaud Governor Healey for selecting Regie Gibson, whose craft and care for the poetry community are truly unique, as our first poet laureate. Our board and staff thank Gov. Healey and our partners at Mass Cultural Council for the collaboration and effort that led to this milestone, and we are grateful to the many outstanding poets who offered their talents for this role.”

Please join us in congratulating Gibson on this honor. You can read more on Mass Cultural Council’s website using the button below.

“Regie Gibson, the first poet laureate of Massachusetts, says his job is “starting poetry fires all over the place…the kind we hope you can’t put out.” He’s drawing particular inspiration from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, which he first read as a teenager, reflecting on what it means today to step away from societal responsibilities.

“For me, poetry is about civic engagement. I think that a poet laureate’s responsibility is to engage civically with people, and to call us back to, as Lincoln would say, the better angels of our nature,” Gibson said, quoting from President Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address.”

The National Baseball Poetry Festival is delighted to team up with NESN TV to introduce a new and fun Poetry Challenge with a quick turnaround… the submission deadline is Wednesday, July 2^nd at noon ET!  The winning poem will be selected by July 9^th and read July 10^th or 11^th on live television!

The Green Monster Poetry Challenge is accepting submissions of poems that can be read/recited out loud in no more than ONE MINUTE.  As a guideline, if your poem exceeds 20-24 lines and has more than 8-10 beats per line, it probably won’t cut the contest’s one-minute limitation.  Of course, prior to submitting, you should clock the piece (out loud) several times in order to make sure it complies.

Guidelines:

·         Must be written in tight meter and rhyme

·         When read/recited out loud, must not exceed one minute in length

·         Must respond to the following prompt: Bring to life the spirit of the Green Monster at Fenway Park, and communicate what it means to the team, fans, and Boston community

·         Please make your submission by or before Wednesday, July 2^nd at noon ET, and include your full name, town/state, email address, and phone number

·         Please submit only a single poem

·         Please submit your poem in the body of an email, and not in an attachment (poems submitted in attachments will be deleted)

·         Please note: if you make a submission, you agree that NESN TV maintains the right to utilize your poem (or any portion of it) in any way NESN chooses, including (but not limited to) television, radio, print, outdoor signage, digital media, premium items, etc.; please note that you, as the poem’s author, will maintain ownership of the copyright)

Please submit your poem to the National Baseball Poetry Festival’s contest email: baseballpoetrycontest@gmail.com; and, please note, we are unable to respond to inquiries.  

!!!!Announcing the 2025 O’Hara Prize Results!!!!

1st Place: Anthony DiPietro with “The God of Hide and Seek“

2nd Place: Maia Campbell with “When I Grow Up“

3rd Place: Claire Schaeffer Duffy with “Homage to the Enemy’s Poet“

Honorable Mention: Elina Kumra with “ontology of water memory“

Honorable Mention: Em Judkins with “Crying About Old Women at the Macy’s Jewelry Counter (Again)“

A HUGE thank you to all of our wonderful participants! We got so many contributions and read some truly fantastic poems.

A big thank you to our judge DeMisty Bellinger for her thoughtful consideration!

and a heartfelt Congratulations to our 2025 O’Hara Prize Winners!

We hope to see everyone at the O’Hara reading in September.

Anthony DiPietro is a gay sex poet originally from Providence, RI, who has lived throughout New England and elsehwere. Now deputy director of Rose Art Museum, he resides in Worcester, MA. He composed his 2021 chapbook And Walk Through (Seven Kitchens Press) on a typewriter during the pandemic lockdowns, and his debut collection is kiss & release (Unsolicited Press, 2024).

Maia Campbell is a Jamaican-American writer and doctoral candidate studying political philosophy at the University of Dallas. Maia has published poetry in Amistad: Howard University’s Literary Arts Journal and Wilder Roam. She has also participated in several poetry readings and has had her work publicly displayed as part of the Worcester County Poetry Association’s Rain Poetry Competition in 2022 and 2024. Maia grew up in Worcester and moved back to the city in 2023.

Claire Schaeffer Duffy’s work as a freelance journalist began in 1999. Her book reviews, essays, profiles, features and investigative stories have appeared in America, Commonweal, US Catholic, and the National Catholic Reporter and garnered a number of awards from the Catholic Press Association. An essay on hospitality appears in the final chapter of the two-volume work, Nonviolence as Way of Life. Claire regularly contributes to The Catholic Radical, a publication of the Saints Francis and Therese Catholic Worker in Worcester, MA Mother of four and grandmother of six, she comes to poetry late in life.  

Elina Kumra is a poet and writer, author of Ash and Olive and Extant. She writes of memory, loss, and resilience in life’s quiet ruptures. Her words are spare and sure, each one carrying its quiet weight. Her poems and stories have appeared in magazines at home and abroad, and her work has earned recognition from literary organizations. She teaches poetry and believes words can heal and bear witness.

Em Judkins (they/them) is an over-caffeinated queer poet and filmmaker based in Massachusetts. They graduated from Smith College with a B.A. in English and Film and Media Studies. Their work has received Ethel Olin Corbin Prize, the Ruth Forbes Eliot Prize, and Elizabeth Drew Essay Prize, and appears in The Core Review, new words poetry journal, Emulate, and elsewhere. They believe in love and bad art.