Wake Up

Feb. 19, 2026

When Cheryl Perreault, stand-up comic and PhD psychology prof, turned to the dark side and began writing poetry, she also started performing in several legendary open-mic series in central and eastern Massachusetts. Often, her poems were accompanied by Steve Rapson on his guitar. From the start, Cheryl enacted the gospel of synergy, of chemistry, of connection.

Eventually, Cheryl began hosting her own monthly Saturday morning poetry reading series. At first they met in a Bellingham cafe, competing with the noise of the latte machine; later they moved to Hopkinton’s Center for the Arts. Finally, the community access television station in Hopkinton, HCAM, invited Cheryl to bring Wake Up and Smell the Poetry to their studio and channel.

Over a period of years, the series attracted a diverse and faithful audience, who came to hear poets and musicians from all over New England and beyond. For my husband and me, Cheryl’s series gave amazing gifts:

• by wild chance, walking distance from our Massachusetts house
• famous poets (see the video of Martha Collins below); but also less well-known poets; poets of every age and description
• music, also, from all sorts of musicians, some asking us to sing along
• an open mic full of surprise and resonance
• video souvenirs (see below)
• and a host, Cheryl, who became a dear friend.

Cheryl would say she was just one of many, that the generous spirit of her gathering and hosting had been modeled for her by others, people in Concord and Worcester and Boston. I’d answer that Cheryl had the vision to imagine a monthly venue in Hopkinton, at an intersection of rural and suburban, a complicated, sometimes uneasy mix of giant McMansions and modest houses built (as ours was) in another century, for shoe shop workers. On the other hand, all over town there are wide lakes where you can paddle out into the middle and imagine yourself hundreds of miles north. There, in Hopkinton, Cheryl had the energy, persistence and soul to pull off something remarkable.

Other people helped build the magic. Some audience members came to read or sing in the open mic; some came just to listen. Together, they (or I should say we) wove an extraordinary focus, settled, receptive, and responsive, all reinforced by the attention and care of the HCAM crew, both staff and trained volunteers. Everyone mattered, profoundly, and Cheryl celebrated that. And, again and again, the whole was more than the sum of the parts.

That spirit travelled beyond the HCAM studio. Through Cheryl and Wake Up, I met many other poets and musicians, for example Tom Driscoll, a folksinger, songwriter and occasional journalist. Like Cheryl, he gradually shifted to poetry, and now has several books out, each one braver than the last. Through Tom, I discovered the luminous paintings of his wife, Denise, and shared the heartbreak of losing her.

Cheryl also led me to the folks at Old Frog Pond Farm, including Linda Hoffman and Susan Edwards Richmond. Linda is a sculptor, orchardist, and writer; Susan, a poet who also writes children’s picture books celebrating community connection with the environment. Together Susan and Linda led group ekphrastic writing projects focused first on the wonders of the various habitats at Old Frog Pond Farm, but then, increasingly, on sculpture. Every year, new sculptures arrive for an annual sculpture show, and join those that live permanently at Old Frog Pond Farm, including Paul Matisse’s Olympic Bell, below (with Alex Brown to show the scale.)

This bell has become for me the kind of touchstone I can’t carry around in my pocket, but carry (and hear) in my heart. The bell, a long metal cylinder, floats suspended in air by strong magnets in the support beams. You sound the bell by hauling on a pulley, lifting a striker to make contact with the bell. Because it’s suspended in air, in a kind of silence, the bell is free to resonate unusually deeply and beautifully.

I don’t want to overwork this bell as metaphor, but like the strange and powerful sound that comes from the bell, and travels in waves out over the pond, the energy of a person like Cheryl keeps traveling and weaving connections, everywhere she goes: widening circles of artists, writers, storytellers, musicians, and miscellaneous people who have a sense of adventure, a sense of humor, and a hankering for meaning.

Wake Up itself no longer exists, a casualty of Covid. Cheryl and her husband John moved to Maine not long after we did. But, as it often does, loss braided with invention, and Cheryl has developed ways of using Zoom to continue bringing creative people together.

For example, I’m grateful to be part of Cheryl’s Zoom group of Urgent Writers, women seeking ways to use our creative work to help the whole world wake up to where it’s going. Some members still live in Massachusetts; one in Pennsylvania, another in Florida. Songwriters, memoirists, poets, videographers, we encourage each other to find creative ways of responding to this moment.

I did hesitate, some, before agreeing to join Cheryl in an ecumenical group of women from various spiritual traditions and approaches. After all, my own spiritual life defies labeling. But I know it has something to do with the spirits of places, and a lot to do with people gathered—one way or another—to hear each other.

Keep scrolling for links to videos>>>>>>>>>