Thomas DeFreitas

Poet

Arlington, MA
Massachusetts US

Author's Bio

Thomas DeFreitas (he/him) was born in Boston in 1969. He was educated at the Boston Latin School, and attended the University of Massachusetts in Amherst for three semesters. His poems have appeared in Dappled Things, Ibbetson Street, LIGHT, Pensive, and elsewhere.

In the summer of 2019, Thomas’s sonnet “Detox” was chosen as an Award Poem by the editors of Plainsongs. In 2024, Thomas’s poem “Grief” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by the editor of Autmn Sky Poetry DAILY.

Thomas’s five collections have all been published by Kelsay Books: his full-length books Walking Between the Raindrops (2025) and Longfellow, Tell Me (2022), and his chapbooks Elegies & Devotions (2025), Swift River Ballad (2023), and Winter in Halifax (2021).

A resident of Arlington, MA, Thomas is a contributing member of the Academy of American Poets. He is also active in the New England Poetry Club, Boston’s Black Seed Writers, Arlington’s Beehive Poetry Group, and a top-secret quartet of clandestine bards called the Honeycomb, who are currently plotting to take over the entire explorable universe and saturate it in poems and benevolence.

Publications & Prizes

Anthology:
The Silver Note: Poets of Arlington, Massachusetts (Ibbetson Street Press, 2025)
Books:
Walking Between the Raindrops (Kelsay Books, 2025)
,
Longfellow, Tell Me (Kelsay Books, 2022)
,
Winter in Halifax (Kelsay Books, 2021)
Chapbooks:
Elegies & Devotions (Kelsay Books, 2025)
,
Swift River Ballad (Kelsay Books, 2023)
Journals: , ,
Ibbetson Street
,
Light
,
Muddy River Poetry Review
,
Mudfish
, ,
Nixes Mate Review
,
Orchards Poetry Journal
,
Pensive: A Global Journal of Spirituality and the Arts
,
Plainsongs
, ,
Soul-Lit
Prizes won: 

Plainsongs Award Poem, "Detox," Summer 2019

Personal Favorites

Favorite authors: 
Dylan Thomas, Emily Dickinson, Theodore Roethke, Marianne Moore, Catullus, Ted Kooser, Hilary Sallick, Mary Buchinger, Victor Howes, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Jennifer Martelli, David P. Miller, Vijaya Sundaram, Kenneth Koch, Julia Fehrenbacher, James Crews, MK Creel
What I'm reading now: 
This Smoke that Carried Us by René Char, Braided Creek by Jim Harrison and Ted Kooser, Keepers of the House by Max Heinegg, Hard Up by M. P. Carver, Fractured Lens by Vijaya Sundaram, A Poet's Craft by Annie Finch

More Information

Gives readings: 
Yes
Identifies as: 
American
Fluent in: 
English
Born in: 
Boston, MA
Massachusetts
Raised in: 
Boston, MA
Massachusetts
Please note: All information in the Directory is provided by the listed writers or their representatives.
Last update: Dec 17, 2025