Poetry Reading at Bear & Bee Bookshop

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The Boiler House Poets Collective celebrates its annual residency with a reading at the Bear & Bee Bookshop, 28 North Holden Street in North Adams at 7 PM on Wednesday, Oct. 9.

The Boiler House Poets Collective will be in residence on the MASS MoCA campus from Oct. 7-13, an annual event since 2015. Ten poets spend their studio time creating new work, honing works in progress, and collaborating with their fellow artists in residence. Individually and collectively, they explore creating work including ekphrastic poetry inspired by museum installations, exquisite corpse poems, cleave poems, and video poems.

"MASS MoCA's art and the Berkshires' beauty, coupled with the support of my fellow poets, have been central to my work, resulting in a chapbook and a full-length poetry collection," said Joanne Corey, who is one of the original members of the Collective.

Wendy Stewart, who joined the Collective in 2022 added, "Spending a week dwelling in art, practicing art, talking with artists, sharing art: what could be better? The Boiler House Poets Collective Residency at MASS MoCA is a bright spot in my year."

This will be the Collective's second year reading at Bear & Bee Bookshop. The event is free (and there will be light refreshments). For more information, visit the websites of The Boiler House Poets Collective and The Bear and Bee Bookshop.

Freight Yard Pub Serving the Community for Decades

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
05:26PM / Saturday, December 06, 2025

One of the eatery's menu mainstays is the popular French onion soup. 

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Freight Yard Pub has been serving the community for decades with a welcoming atmosphere and homemade food.

 

Siblings Sean and Colleen Taylor are the owners Freight Yard Pub. They took it over with their brother Kevin and Colleen's first husband in 1992. The two came from Connecticut and Boston to establish a restaurant and said they immediately felt welcomed in their new home.

 

"The reception that the community gave us in the beginning was so warm and so welcoming that we knew we found home," Colleen Taylors said. "We've made this area our homes since then, as a matter of fact, all of our friends and relationships came out of Freight Yard Pub."

 

The pub is located in Western Gateway Heritage State Park, and its decor is appropriately train-themed, as the building it's in used to be part of the freight yard, but it also has an Irish pub feel. It is the only original tenant still operating in the largely vacant park. The Taylors purchased the business after it had several years of instability and closures; they have run it successfully for more than three decades.

 

Colleen and Sean have been working together since they were teenagers. They have operated a few restaurants, including the former Taylor's on Holden Street, and currently operate takeout restaurant Craft Food Barn, Trail House Kitchen & Bar and Berkshire Catering Co. 

 

"Sean and I've been working together. Gosh, I think since we were 16, and we have a wonderful business relationship, where I know what I cover, he knows what he covers," she said. "We chat every single day, literally every day we have a morning phone call to say, OK, checking in."

 

The two enjoy being a part of the community and making sure to lend a hand to those who made them feel so welcome in the first place.