The NER Vermont Reading Series and BigTown Gallery are pleased to present Terri Ford and Jamaal May, who will read selections from their poetry on Sunday, July 6, at 5:30 PM at BigTown Gallery, 99 North Main Street, in Rochester. This summer gathering at the gallery will celebrate live readings and the people who value them most, creating a link between two of Vermont’s most lively reading series and from one side of the Green Mountains to the other.

This reading is followed by a special catered reception in the garden. Please RSVP to the BigTown Gallery at info@bigtowngallery.com. NER is arranging for transportation from Middlebury over the mountain to Rochester — if you’d like a ride, please email nereview@middlebury.edu. Seating is limited!

Terri Ford is a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. She’s been a fellow at Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, a summer resident of the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown through the Ohio Arts Council, and the recipient of several grants. Her poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Conduit, Forklift Ohio, and many other journals. She is the author of Why the Ships Are She and Hams Beneath the Firmament.

Jamaal May was born in Detroit, Michigan. His first book, Hum, received the Beatrice Hawley Award, the American Library Association’s Notable Book Award, and an NAACP Image Award nomination. He has been awarded a Rose O’Neill Literary House Cave Canem Residency, the Kenyon Review Fellowship, and a Civitella Ranieri Fellowship in Italy, among other awards and fellowships. His poems appear in such periodicals as New England Review, NYTimes.com, New Republic, Believer, Poetry, Ploughshares, and Best American Poetry 2014. He co-edits the poetry section of Solstice, teaches in the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA program, and co-directs the Organic Weapon Arts Chapbook and Video Series with Tarfia Faizullah.