Thomas DeFreitas was born in Boston. He was educated at the Boston Latin School, and attended the University of Massachusetts (Boston and Amherst). His poems have appeared in Dappled Things, Ibbetson Street, Pensive, Plainsongs, Soul-Lit, and elsewhere.

In April 2018, Thomas’s poem “Chasing the Waves” was chosen to be part of the Talking Chair Project, an interactive poetry exhibit at the Robbins Library in Arlington, Massachusetts. In the summer of 2019, “Detox” was chosen as an Award Poem by the editors of Plainsongs.

Thomas’s latest collection, Swift River Ballad, was published by Kelsay Books in September 2023. Kelsay also published his first two collections, Longfellow, Tell Me (2022) and Winter in Halifax (2021).

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Education:

• September 1989 to December 1990: University of Massachusetts at Amherst
• January 1989 to June 1989: University of Massachusetts at Boston
• June 1987: Graduated from the Boston Latin School

Books of Poems:

• Walking Between the Raindrops (Kelsay Books, forthcoming)
• Swift River Ballad (Kelsay Books, 2023, 46 pp.)
• Longfellow, Tell Me (Kelsay Books, 2022, 78 pp.)
• Winter in Halifax (Kelsay Books, 2021, 48 pp.)

Broadsheet:

• Changes & Chances (No Fixed Address Press, 2024, 24 pp.)

Magazines and Online Journals Where My Poems Have Appeared:

• Autumn Sky Poetry Daily
• Dappled Things
• Ibbetson Street
• Light: Poems of the Week
• Muddy River Poetry Review
• Mudfish
• The Orchards
• Ovunque Siamo
• Pensive
• Plainsongs
• The Poetry Porch
• The Somerville Times (“Lyrical Somerville”)
• Soul-Lit

Readings (with links to video if available) :

• January 7, 2024, New England Poetry Club Member Celebration, on Zoom
• October 24, 2023: Robbins Library, Arlington, MA, with Anne Elezabeth Pluto
• August 5, 2023: The Boston Poetry Marathon
• June 10, 2023: Park Avenue Congregationalist Church, with the Bee Hive Poets and Cantilena Women’s Chorus, Arlington Heights Spring Fling Festival, Arlington, MA
• November 19, 2022: Italian American Writers’ Association, Boston, co-feature (with Joy Baglio)
• May 2022: Cervena Barva Press reading, online, co-feature (with Cathie Desjardins)
• January 2022: New England Poetry Club, members with new books, online (with Dorothy Derifield and Moira Linehan)
• November 14, 2021: St James’s Episcopal Church, Cambridge, MA, launch of Winter in Halifax
• 2015-2019: A series of forty-nine readings at the Chestnut Manor Housing Development, Arlington, MA (my own work and the work of others)

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Contact Thomas here.