LITERATURE

We check out roosting falcons atop the W. E. B. Du Bois library at UMass Amherst and check in with Amherst College's The Common as it celebrates 25 years of publication.

The Amherst Town Council reaffirmed its commitment Monday to funding $15.8 million to a restoration project for the Jones Library located downtown.

We learn about this weekend's Poetry Carnival at Bombyx with Brother's Keeper Poetry Ensemble and learn about migrating birds with UMass professor Nathan Senner.

We broadcast live from the Emily Dickinson Museum and speak with the Jane Wald, executive director; Brooke Steinhauser, senior director of programs; and two contemporary poets, Joan Kwon Glass and DeMisty Bellinger.

We hear about the first presidential Passover Seder at the White House in a new picture book with poet Richard Michelson and former State Senator Eric Lesser, check in with poet Martín Espada on some new work and get nerdy with the wordster.

We have triple Live Music Friday with Ciarra Fragale, Peter Mulvey and Ruth Theodore, learn about this year's LitFest at Amherst College and try wines at Dare Bottle Shop in Lenox.

A first ever Massachusetts poet laureate will be selected sometime this year. Poetry "enriches the civic life of Massachusetts in innumerable ways," Governor Maura Healey wrote in an executive order announced this week.

There’s no mud or bugs, air is crisp, the sun late afternoon beams through hemlock needles that act like prisms scattering shards of light. Who’d want to miss that?

We learn about the Northampton Art Council's ongoing initiative to fund local arts programs and how The Straw Dog Writers Guild is uplifting women and gender expansive authors of color. We'll also check in with Mr. Universe about his takeaways from the International Astronomical Union.

We talk about this weekend's Springfield Jazz & Roots Festival with project manager Bianca Jimenez, music legend Ms. Lisa Fischer, and hip-hop artists T'Swan and Talynt. We also learn about the fifth Shelburne Falls Porch Festival and invite NEPM reporter Nirvani Williams to join our latest Wine Thunderdome.