The Grolier Poetry Book Shop, tucked on Plympton Street just off Harvard Square, is the oldest continuously operating bookshop in the country devoted entirely to poetry, and its reading series is Cambridge literary life at its most concentrated. Readings happen inside the single jewel-box room, where a few dozen listeners squeeze in among floor-to-ceiling shelves of verse.

The guest list swings from emerging local voices to internationally known poets, continuing a lineage that has drawn generations of legendary writers through the shop’s door. The intimacy is the whole point — you’re close enough to hear the page turn. Seats go fast in a room this small, so sign up ahead; the shop also livestreams readings for those who can’t wedge in. It suits devoted poetry readers and the newly curious in equal measure.