Archives for January 2020

2015 Gregory Stockmal Reading (7th Annual)

January 22, 2020 by TrigonAdmin

Thank you to the WPI and Gregory Stockmal Fund for another successful tribute to Gregory Stockmal and his relationship with Stanley Kunitz.

Download the original flyer, featuring Gregory Orr Download

2016 Gregory Stockmal Reading (8th Annual)

January 22, 2020 by TrigonAdmin

We regret that the Q&A talk and poetry reading by poet Carolyn Forché had to be canceled due to circumstances beyond the control of Holy Cross or the Worcester County Poetry Association.

2017 Gregory Stockmal Reading (9th Annual)

January 22, 2020 by TrigonAdmin

Thank you to those who attended the 9th Annual Gregory Stockmal Reading which was held on Wednesday, October 18 at Clark University and featured Pam Bernard.

The annual Gregory Stockmal Reading continues the efforts of Greg Stockmal to honor American poet Stanley Kunitz and his legacy in Worcester.

The event was co-sponsored by the Friends of the Goddard Library, Clark University, the Gregory Stockmal Fund and the Worcester County Poetry Association.

2018 Gregory Stockmal Reading (10th Annual)

January 22, 2020 by TrigonAdmin

Wednesday, October 24
7:30 – 9:00 pm

featuring Eleanor Wilner

Assumption College, Curtis Hall Auditorium,
Tsotsis Family Academic Center,
500 Salisbury Street, Worcester

Co-sponsored by the Assumption College Department of English, the Gregory Stockmal Fund and the Worcester County Poetry Association.

2019 Gregory Stockmal Reading (11th Annual)

January 22, 2020 by TrigonAdmin

Wednesday, October 16, 2019 – 7:30pm
Anna Maria College, Zecco Performing Arts Center
50 Sunset Lane, Paxton

Each year the Worcester County Poetry Association partners with a local college or university to present a poet who had a connection to poet Stanley Kunitz. This year we welcomed Patrick Donnelly as our reader at the 11th Annual Gregory Stockmal Reading on Wednesday, October 16th. The reading was hosted by Anna Maria College in Paxton and started at 7:30pm.

Stockmal Reading Original Flyer Download

Frank O’Hara

January 16, 2020 by TrigonAdmin

A True Account Of Talking To The Sun On Fire Island

The Sun woke me this morning loud
and clear, saying “Hey! I’ve been
trying to wake you up for fifteen
minutes. Don’t be so rude, you are
only the second poet I’ve ever chosen
to speak to personally

so why
aren’t you more attentive? If I could
burn you through the window I would
to wake you up. I can’t hang around
here all day.”

“Sorry, Sun, I stayed
up late last night talking to Hal.”

“When I woke up Mayakovsky he was
a lot more prompt” the Sun said
petulantly. “Most people are up
already waiting to see if I’m going
to put in an appearance.”

I tried
to apologize “I missed you yesterday.”
“That’s better” he said. “I didn’t
know you’d come out.” “You may be
wondering why I’ve come so close?”
“Yes” I said beginning to feel hot
wondering if maybe he wasn’t burning me
anyway.

“Frankly I wanted to tell you
I like your poetry. I see a lot
on my rounds and you’re okay. You may
not be the greatest thing on earth, but
you’re different. Now, I’ve heard some
say you’re crazy, they being excessively
calm themselves to my mind, and other
crazy poets think that you’re a boring
reactionary. Not me.

Just keep on
like I do and pay no attention. You’ll
find that people always will complain
about the atmosphere, either too hot
or too cold too bright or too dark, days
too short or too long.

If you don’t appear
at all one day they think you’re lazy
or dead. Just keep right on, I like it.

And don’t worry about your lineage
poetic or natural. The Sun shines on
the jungle, you know, on the tundra
the sea, the ghetto. Wherever you were
I knew it and saw you moving. I was waiting
for you to get to work.

And now that you
are making your own days, so to speak,
even if no one reads you but me
you won’t be depressed. Not
everyone can look up, even at me. It
hurts their eyes.”
“Oh Sun, I’m so grateful to you!”

“Thanks and remember I’m watching. It’s
easier for me to speak to you out
here. I don’t have to slide down
between buildings to get your ear.
I know you love Manhattan, but
you ought to look up more often.

And
always embrace things, people earth
sky stars, as I do, freely and with
the appropriate sense of space. That
is your inclination, known in the heavens
and you should follow it to hell, if
necessary, which I doubt.

Maybe we’ll
speak again in Africa, of which I too
am specially fond. Go back to sleep now
Frank, and I may leave a tiny poem
in that brain of yours as my farewell.”

“Sun, don’t go!” I was awake
at last. “No, go I must, they’re calling
me.”
“Who are they?”

Rising he said “Some
day you’ll know. They’re calling to you
too.” Darkly he rose, and then I slept.

Frank O’Hara

Frank O’Hara’s early life hinted at American themes of mobility, touches of the rural upbringing, and a first rate education. Born to Russell O’Hara and Katherine Broderick in Baltimore, Maryland, on June 27, 1926, Frank and family returned to 12 North Street in Grafton where he grew in the embraces of his parents, brother John (Phil) and sister Maureen. O’Hara’s father and his Uncle Leonard ran a family business comprised of a dairy farm, a John Deere agency, livestock dealership, and a small hardware store for farmers. The family also owned many farms, a lumber mill in Northbrook, and a 1,200 tree apple orchard in Milford.

The O’Hara household was lively, with artistic parents. Russell was a pianist, and both parents were involved with community activities. A great part of their lives included love of music, books, art, theater, movies, and politics. (Members of the family still claim to be Democrats.)The welcomed lively discussions and differences. As a teenager Frank talked about returning when older and raising dogs on Tower Hill Farm on Sibley Street, one of the three farms the family owned. Though time crafted other plans, O’Hara spent many summer days at Kitville, a town beach on Route 140 East toward Upton. During later summers, Frank virtually lived at the Red Barn Summer Stock Theater in Westborough, a bit to the east of Grafton. Other influences shaping Frank’s aesthetic sensibilities included livestock and apples, St. John’s High School in Worcester, the colorful, mellow, seven hills on which Worcester and the surrounding towns stand.

O’Hara’s travels began with his studies of piano at the New England Conservator of Music between 1941-1944. Then the wider world and its complicities landed him on the USS Nicholas, where he worked as a sonar man in the pacific Theatre during World War II. He returned to attend Harvard on the G.I. Bill, meeting up in Cambridge with John Ashbery, a poetic kinship that will anchor, along with Barbara Guest, Kenneth Koch, and James Schuyler, the New York School of Poetry. But first came the University of Michigan, where he earned an MA in English Literature.

While the restless world called him, Grafton and family life are found in Frank’s short, surrealistic plays such as Try! Try! and Change Your Bedding. And where O’Hara’s poetry is not confessional in the way of Kunitz, where he does not catalogue his places and thoughts like Olson, nor revisit key events in childhood like Bishop’s strong work, childhood is there in “Poem (There I Could Not Be a Boy),” “Memorial Day, 1950,” and an early poem he wrote for his sister, “The Spoils of Grafton”:
Oh piano! Hire a moving van!
Put down the Mendelssohn and run!

The tension between what shaped him, and the need for distance from what shaped him, also turns up in “Autobiographia Literaria,” Here, O’Hara speaks of the alienation he felt in schoolyards as a boy, and yet,
And here I am, the
center of all beauty!
writing these poems!
Imagine!

O’Hara’s love of the place and the people of New York defined his mature life. His work a MOMA, criticism for Artnews, and the poems – sometimes scribbled at lunchtime – cemented his place in the pantheon of New York artists during the turbulent late 1950s and early 1960s. In 1960, O’Hara was named Curator of Painting and Sculpture Exhibitions. He curated and wrote the catalogues for four major shows at MOMA. Yet for all his love of the visual arts, O’Hara’s poetry is what summons us.

With the publication of Meditations in an Emergency (Grove, 1957) he began to share with a wider public the brilliance and spontaneity of his thought and writing. He called his method Personism, which he defined as writing that addresses a poem to one person, creating a tone that involves a powerful inclusivity and love. In poems such as “Having a Coke with You” and “The Day Lady Died,” we enter a living world at times comic, burlesque, political, full of anxiety, difficult to summarize. The poem “A True Account of Talking to the Sun at Fire Island” (dated July 10, 1958) captures both the guises:
always embrace things, people earth
sky stars, as I do, freely and with
the appropriate sense of space. That
is your inclination, known in the heavens
and you should follow it to hell, if
necessary, which I doubt.

O’Hara died on Fire Island in 1966.

Celebrating Frank O’Hara Thursday, November 19, 2009

A talk for the Worcester Country Poetry Association at the Worcester Art Museum, November 19, 2009

The following is from Dr. Alan Feldman, who spoke and recited the works of O’Hara at the event:

Oh be droll, be jolly
and be temperate! Do not

frighten me more than you
have to! I must live forever.

That’s from an early O’Hara poem called “The Critic” (1951). Recently, at the Dodge Poetry Festival, I had the opportunity to pose a question to a stage full of poets laureate: I asked them, What are your thoughts about immortality? So that they wouldn’t think me some religious nutcase, I explained that I was thinking, for example, of Horace saying that he knew his poetry would live on, because he’d been the first to bring Greek meters into Latin. Well, the answers were bewilderingly disappointing. The poets all claimed they were writing for living audiences. “I don’t believe there will be a posterity,” Maxine Kumin said gloomily. Personally, I couldn’t see how anyone would care to write poetry if he or she didn’t think of including both the poets of the past, and, as well, generations unborn.

When O’Hara, wrote a review of Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago, he gave us a clue––one of many, I think––that his mind was always on the relationship of poetry and immortality. As you recall, the novel ends with Zhivago’s poems being read years after his death by men who knew him, and felt that he had given them the poems to describe the city in which they now lived: “They were . . . enveloped by the unheard music of happiness that flowed all about them and into the distance. And the book they held seemed to confirm and encourage their feeling.”

Years ago, when I first wrote about O’Hara in a book that later became the Twayne United States Authors study on O’Hara, I felt I needed to make an argument for his lasting importance. Robert Lowell––there’d been a volume in this series on him for years––was then the great, serious poet of the day. O’Hara was, in a way, his antithesis, though I loved both of them. Both had a way of weaving their life experience into poems that would ring true long after the specific occasions had passed. I thought this was similar to the way Catullus can complain about his beloved Lesbia, and address his poet friends, and grieve for his brother, and pull us into his world of 2,000 years ago. As you may know, O’Hara gave a reading with Lowell on Statin Island and wrote a little poem on the subway on the way:

Lana Turner has collapsed!
I was trotting along and suddenly
it started raining and snowing
and you said it was hailing
but hailing hits you on the head
hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky
and suddenly I see a headline
LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!
there is no snow in Hollywood
there is no rain in California
I have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
but I never actually collapsed
oh Lana Turner we love you get up.

Lowell sniffed that he hadn’t written a poem on the way here, implying that poetry required a long process of thought and revision––the opposite of O’Hara’s spur of the moment compositional practice. And I think for a long while, maybe to some extent even now, O’Hara’s ability to quickly write a poem, revising it very very little if at all, along with his desire to include the incidental details of his times and his milieu, meant that he was rebuking poetry for aspiring to escape the quotidian into timelessness. But, of course, paradoxically––and here we’re dealing with the mystery of his genius––he did the exact opposite. “The Day Lady Died,” O’Hara’s well-known elegy to Billie Holiday, is going to live on precisely because O’Hara prepares us for the timeless moment of “leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT” and listening to her by including many of the incidental details of his lunch hour, including even the name of his bank teller, Stillwagon, first name Linda he once heard.

Nearly forty years after I began my project, I would argue that O’Hara has very possibly eclipsed Lowell, at least as someone who matters to younger poets. But more than that, I think he is beginning to demonstrate that he, just as Zhivago did, has helped create the art for which an occasion has yet to exist.

Case in point: The second season of Mad Men! Don Draper (self-created, and self-named) protagonist, a suit from Madison Avenue, is drinking in a Greenwich Village bar, and four seats down there’s a guy reading a slim volume of poems. And it’s not Lowell’s but, lo, it’s Frank O’Hara’s Meditations in an Emergency! and later in the episode Don has purchased the book, and is reading it in his study. Jon Hamm, the actor who plays Draper, does an understated and yet expressive voice-over reading of the enigmatic little poem that concludes the book:

Now I am quietly waiting for
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting and modern.

The country is grey and
brown and white in trees,
snows and skies of laughter
always diminishing, less funny
not just darker, not just grey.

It may be the coldest day of
the year, what does he think of
that? I mean, what do I? And if I do,
perhaps I am myself again.

Now this reflects a mystifyingly revealing light on Draper, a person whose identity seems to come into and out of existence in a fascinating flux. It gives a depth to this character that film alone could never give. I think this is one pretty good instance of immortality––a poet writing words for occasions that haven’t yet arisen––and especially wonderful for a poet like O’Hara who, in fact, wrote so many occasional poems, often for his friends.

The poem I’ve chosen to highlight today is somewhat less known than the Lana Turner poem or “The Day Lady Died”–– it’s a longer poem, “Joe’s Jacket,” in a way a kind of super-sized example of what O’Hara once called his “I do this I do that” poems.

It was written on August 10, 1959––and, by the way, we know this because O’Hara precisely dated most of his poems, and, as I’ve implied, they were almost all of them written quickly and left just as they were. Though he wrote many poems to his friends, and, as he famously said in “Personism”, he wanted the poem to be “between two persons instead of two pages,” in general, O’Hara seemed to have a casual disregard for contemporary audiences. Don Allen had to collect his poems to publish them in books, and many poems stayed in the drawer till after his death. I think O’Hara’s diffidence came from his complete confidence in his own genius, and, more broadly, a confidence that poetry––if it really is poetry––has to outlast its own time. As Catullus says in giving his poems to his friend Cornelius: “So here’s the book, for whatever it’s worth/ I want you to have it. And please, goddess,/ see that it lasts for more than a lifetime.”

Anyway . . . August 10, 1959, the day after the weekend that O’Hara began his affair with the handsome young dancer, Vincent Warren, his very own Lesbia I suppose––the attractive and troublesome lover who inspired some of his best poems. . . .

I think meteorologists have a good term to describe the way the poet opens up his inner landscape to us here, “a complex sky”––that is, one in which all kinds of clouds are present at once, puffy cumulus and wispy cirrus, and, above them stratocumulus and whatever. So too, O’Hara interweaves all kinds of language in this poem: chatty diary-like narrative, raw confession, campy irony, and, most important, a kind of lyrical intellectual music as well. If the poem is somewhat long, it is because this is a pivotal moment in O’Hara’s life, as he seems to know. He’s about to die and be born, I guess, as he implies by mentioning that he was reading D. H. Lawrence’s “The Ship of Death”, a poem about death, true enough, but ultimately about reincarnation:

Oh build your ship of death. Oh build it!
for you will need it.
For the voyage of oblivion awaits you.

“Of” not “to.”

Joe’s jacket is the seersucker jacket O’Hara like to borrow from his roommate, Joe LeSueur. The Barbizonian kiddy days refers to the 19th century school of painting, which included painters of rural scenes like Millet, and, I guess, refers to the reason we’re here today at the Worcester Art Museum––O’Hara’s origins in central Massachusetts, specifically rural Grafton Massachusetts. Jap is the painter Jasper Johns, Kenneth is, of course, “excitement prone” Kenneth Koch, Ashes is John Ashbery––well, it’s a distinguished cast. But what matters, I think, is how completely O’Hara is able to portray the complexity of his own mind at this particular moment.

Joe’s Jacket

Entraining to Southampton in the parlor car with Jap and Vincent, I
see life as a penetrable landscape lit from above
like it was in my Barbizonian kiddy days when automobiles
were owned by the same people for years and the Alfa Romeo was
only a rumor under the leaves beside the viaduct and I
pretending to be adult felt the blue within me and light up there
no central figure me, I was some sort of cloud or a gust of wind
at the station a crowd of drunken fishermen on a picnic Kenneth
is hard to find but we find, through all the singing, Kenneth smiling
it is off to Janice’s bluefish and the incessant talk of affection
expressed as excitability and spleen to be recent and strong
and not unbearably right in attitude, full of confidences
now I will say it, thank god, I knew you would

an enormous party mesmerizing comers in the disgathering light
and dancing miniature-endless, like a pivot
I drink to smother my sensitivity for a while so I won’t stare away
I drink to kill the fear of boredom, the mounting panic of it
I drink to reduce my seriousness so a certain spurious charm
can appear and win its flickering little victory over noise
I drink to die a little and increase the contrast of this questionable moment
and then I am going home, purged of everything except anxiety and self-distrust
now I will say it, thank god, I knew you would
and the rain has commenced its delicate lament over the orchards

an enormous window morning and the wind, the beautiful desperation of a tree
fighting off strangulation, and my bed has an ugly calm
I reach to the D. H. Lawrence on the floor and read “The Ship of Death”
I lie back again and begin slowly to drift and then to sink
a somnolent envy of inertia makes me rise naked and go to the window
where the car horn mysteriously starts to honk, no one is there
and Kenneth comes out and stops it in the soft green lightless stare
and we are soon in the Paris of Kenneth’s libretto, I did not drift
away I did not die I am there with Haussmann and the rue de Rivoli
and the spirits of beauty, art and progress, pertinent and mobile
in their worldly way, and musical and strange the sun comes out

returning by car the forceful histories of myself and Vincent loom
like the city hour after hour closer and closer to the future I am here
and the night is heavy through not warm, Joe is still up and we talk
only of the immediate present and its indiscriminately hitched-to past
the feeling of life and incident pouring over the sleeping city
which seems to be bathed in an unobtrusive light which lends things
coherence and an absolute, for just that time as four o’clock goes by

and soon I am rising for the less than average day, I have coffee
I prepare calmly to face almost everything that will come up I am calm
but not as my bed was calm as it softly declined to become a ship
I borrow Joe’s seersucker jacket though he is still asleep I start out
when I last borrowed it I was leaving there is was on my Spanish plaza back
and hid my shoulders from San Marco’s pigeons was jostled on the Kurfurstendamm
and sat opposite Ashes in an enormous leather chair in the Continental
it is all enormity and life it has protected me and kept me here on
many occasions as a symbol does with the heart is full and risks no speech
a precaution I loathe as the pheasant loathes the season and is preserved
it will not be need, it will be just what it is and just what happens.

This poem illustrates for me what I think many readers will find in the future: that O’Hara’s “deep gossip” as Allen Ginsberg called it, is about as deep as it gets. Though it acknowledges the flow of events at this important juncture, it also generates a music for all of us, and for those who will live after, dwellers in O’Hara’s beloved city, for example, awake far into the early morning, when their lives descend on them with a weight of feeling that’s otherwise indescribable: “the feeling of life and incident pouring over the sleeping city/ which seems to be bathed in an unobtrusive light which lends things/ coherence and an absolute, for just that time as four o’clock goes by.”

What I wish for younger American poets now is that they draw courage from O’Hara’s ability to weave references to feeling with lyrical expansiveness and ironic playfulness. At a time when the poetry of John Ashbery, in which the self is suppressed, or, at the very least, pretty thoroughly camouflaged, seems to have set the fashion, it’s my hope that the poetry of O’Hara will show the way for poets to avoid leaden, self-absorbed confession, enjoy self-irony, but still find a way to render the complexity of their full minds and hearts. As O’Hara wrote in his poem for the painter Robert Rauchenberg:

what
can heaven mean up, down, or sidewise
who knows what is happening to him,
what has happened and is here, a
paper rubbed against the heart
and still too moist to be framed.

Submissions open for the 2020 WCPA Annual Contest: The Frank O’Hara Prize

January 16, 2020 by TrigonAdmin

JUDGING & AWARDS:
First Place: $100 – Second Place: $50 – Third Place: $25
Winning poems will be published in The Worcester Review, after which all rights revert to the poet.
Contest winners will be announced in June 2020.
Winners’ Reading & Award Reception to be held September 2020.
Submissions will not be returned. Entrants who wish to be notified of contest results must enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope with their entry.
Contest Judge: Doug Holder
2020 Contest Chairs: Bob Gill and Chris Reilley

For full contest information, including rules, eligibility, and guidelines, please visit the WCPA Annual Contest: The Frank O’Hara Prize page.

About the Judge: Doug Holder is the founder of the Ibbetson Street Press of Somerville, MA. He teaches creative writing at Endicott College, and College Writing at Bunker Hill Community College. Holder’s work, both poetry and prose, have appeared in Rattle, Sahara, Cafe Review, Woven Tale Press, The Boston Globe, Poetry Quarterly, Toronto Quarterly, Boston Literary Magazine, and many other publications. He is also the winner of the Allen Ginsberg Award from Newton Writing and Publishing Center in 2015.

Bloomsday 2015

January 15, 2020 by TrigonAdmin

The Worcester County Poetry Association celebrated with our annual Worcester Ramble, which took place from 8:00 a.m. to 9: 30 p.m. on June 16th.

Bloomsday is open to the public and anyone is welcome to read during the event. Of course, listening is just fine as well.

The schedule

Time	Location	Episode	Chapter
8:00 – 9:30 am	Bancroft Tower	Telemachus	#1
10:00 – 11:30 am	Private home followed by Institute Park	Nestor	#2
Noon – 1:30 pm	Armsby Abbey *	Wandering Rocks	#10
2:00 – 3:30 pm	Worcester Public Library	Sirens	#11
4:00 – 5:30 pm	Burnside Fountain (aka the Turtle Boy Statue) **	Aeolus	#7
6:00 – 7:30 pm	Boynton Restaurant *	Cyclops	#12
8:00 – 9:30 pm	Espress Yourself Cafe *	Ithaca	#17

Gallery

Bloomsday 2016

January 15, 2020 by TrigonAdmin

The Worcester County Poetry Association celebrated with our annual Worcester Ramble, which took place from 8:00 a.m. to 9: 30 p.m. on June 16th.

Bloomsday is always open to the public and anyone is welcome to read during the event. Of course, listening is just fine as well.

The schedule

Time	Location	Episode	Chapter
8:00 – 9:30 am	Bancroft Tower Salisbury Park, Bancroft Tower Road, Worcester	Telemachus and Nestor	#1 & 2
10:00 – 11:30 am	Worcester Public Library 3 Salem Square, Worcester	Cyclops	#12
Noon – 1:30 pm	Tatnuck Grille * 638 Chandler Street, Worcester	Lestrygonians	#8
2:00 – 3:30 pm	Cascading Waters 135 Oleans Street, Worcester	Wandering Rocks	#10
4:00 – 5:30 pm	Annie’s Book Stop 65 James Street, Worcester	Oxen of the Sun	#14
6:00 – 7:30 pm	Boynton Restaurant * 117 Highland Street, Worcester	Scylla and Charybdis	#9
8:00 – 9:30 pm	Espress Yourself Cafe * 2 Richmond Avenue, Worcester	Penelope	#18

Gallery

Bloomsday 2017

January 15, 2020 by TrigonAdmin

The Worcester County Poetry Association celebrated with our annual Worcester Ramble, which took place from 8:00 a.m. to 9: 30 p.m. on June 16th. Bloomsday is always open to the public and anyone is welcome to read during the event. Of course, listening is just fine as well.

The schedule for the day

Time	Location	Episode
8:00 – 9:30 am	Bancroft Tower Salisbury Park, Bancroft Tower Road, Worcester	Telemachus and Nestor
10:00 – 11:30 am	Irish Breakfast at First Unitarian Church 90 Main Street, Worcester	Wandering Rocks
Noon – 1:30 pm	Figs & Pigs Kitchen and Pantry * 50 Foster Street, Worcester	Aeolus
2:00 – 3:30 pm	Worcester Historical Museum 30 Elm Street, Worcester Seating Limited. Registration required.	Scylla and Charybdis
4:00 – 5:30 pm	Outdoors at The Oaks, the Daughters of the American Revolution Worcester Chapter 140 Lincoln Street, Worcester	Oxen of the Sun
6:00 – 7:30 pm	The Church Pews at Nick’s Bar* 124 Millbury Street, Worcester	Sirens
8:00 – 9:30 pm	Espress Yourself Cafe* 2 Richmond Avenue, Worcester	Cyclops

Gallery

Bloomsday 2018

January 15, 2020 by TrigonAdmin

The Worcester County Poetry Association celebrated Bloomsday with our annual Worcester Ramble, which took place from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. on June 16th. Bloomsday is always open to the public, and all are welcome to read during the event. Of course, listening is welcomed as well. For 2018 we did things a little different, using 6 locations instead of 8, because we always seem to lack time in actually finishing a full episode.

Thanks to our talented organizers, Kristina England and Jay Lavelle, for putting together a great event. Special thanks to our guest facilitators, Sharon Legasey and Robert Steele, who stepped in while one of the regular organizers took care of some personal business.

Thanks to the Pulse Magazine and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette for writing articles about our 23rd Annual Ramble. Let them know you appreciate the coverage of poetry by leaving a comment on the articles or sharing them on social media.

2018 Schedule

Time	Locations	Episode	Chapter
8:00 – 9:30 am	Bancroft Tower Salisbury Park, Bancroft Tower Road, Worcester Please bring folding chairs or a blanket.	Telemachus, Nestor	#1 & 2
10:00 – noon	Institute Park 82 Salisbury Street, Worcester	Scylla and Charybdis, Wandering Rocks	#9 & 10
12:30 – 2:00 pm	The Wonder Bar * 121 Shrewsbury Street, Worcester	Aeolus, Lestrygonians	#7 & 8
2:30 – 4:30 pm	Worcester Public Library 3 Salem Square, Worcester	Circe	#15
5:00 – 7:00 pm	O’Connor’s Restaurant * 1160 W Boylston Street, Worcester	Sirens, Cyclops	#11 & 12
7:30 – 9:00 pm	The Old Stone Church 180 Beaman Street (Rt. 140), West Boylston Please bring lanterns for after sunset and folding chairs.	Lotus Eaters, Hades	#5 & 6

Gallery

The WCPA is thankful to the following locations that allowed us to read on their property or at their establishments…

City of Worcester
Bancroft Tower
Institute Park
Worcester Public Library, Salem Sq.

The Wonder Bar

O’Connor’s Restuarant

The Old Stone Church

Bloomsday 2019

January 15, 2020 by TrigonAdmin

No information on the site.

2019 WCPA Annual Poetry Contest: The Frank O’Hara Prize

January 15, 2020 by TrigonAdmin

The WCPA is excited to announce the winners of the 2019 Annual Poetry Contest: the Frank O’Hara Prize. Contest judge Rachel McKibbens has selected the following poets for recognition.

First prize has been award to Worcester poet Carolyn Oliver for her poem “Rhododendrons.” Carolyn’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in FIELD, Indiana Review, The Shallow Ends, The Greensboro Review, Booth, Glass, Southern Indiana Review, and elsewhere. She is the winner of the Writer’s Block Prize in Poetry, selected by Maggie Smith.

Additional prizes are being awards as follows:

Second prize – Jacqueline Morrill – “Unhinged”
Third prize – Jennifer Freed – “RIPTIDE”
Honorable Mention – bg Thurston – “Gladiolas”

A Winners’ Reading took place on Sunday, September 29, 2019, at the First Unitarian Church (Main Street, Worcester) at 3:00 pm. The contest winners read their work followed by a reception and a featured performance by our contest judge, Rachel McKibbens.

Congratulations to all of the winners!

2015 Archive

January 14, 2020 by TrigonAdmin

The year needs a nice summary paragraph before going directly into the events. Content needed.

WCPA Annual Meeting and Board Elections

Worcester Poetry Pop-Up

College Poetry Competition

National Poetry Month Highlights!

Bloomsday 2015

The 2015 Stanley Kunitz Award was presented to Michael D. True, PhD

WCPA Annual Poetry Contest: The Frank O’Hara Prize

7th Annual Gregory Stockmal Reading

2016 Archive

January 14, 2020 by TrigonAdmin

Needs a nice introduction for the page, to introduce what happened in 2016. Content missing.

WCPA Annual Meeting and Board Elections

Second Annual Judith O’Connell Hoyer Poetry Reading

9th Annual College Poetry Contest

Free People’s Workshop: A Reunion Reading

April Flyers and posters

21th Annual Bloomsday Ramble

2016 Stanley Kunitz Medal Award Winner Dan Lewis

2016 WCPA Poetry Contest: the Frank O’Hara Prize

Eigth Annual Gregory Stockmal Reading

2017 Archive

January 14, 2020 by TrigonAdmin

Requires a nice yearly summary before launching into the complete archives.

WCPA Annual Meeting and Board Elections

Congratulations to the winners of the 2017 WCPA College Poetry Contest

22nd Annual Bloomsday Ramble

2017 Presentation of the Stanley Kunitz Medal to Carle Johnson

Congratulations to the winners of the WCPA Annual Poetry Contest: The Frank O’Hara Prize

9th Annual Gregory Stockmal Reading

Library Update

2018 Archive

January 14, 2020 by TrigonAdmin

Requires a nice yearly summary to be drafted before launching into the archives folders.

WCPA Annual Meeting and Board Elections

Congratulations to the winners of the 2018 College Poetry Contest Reading

April was once again National Poetry Month

Bloomsday 2018

Congratulations to Judith Ferrara Winner of the 2018 Stanley Kunitz Medal

WCPA Annual Poetry Contest Winners’ Reading: The Frank O’Hara Prize

A Tale of Two Cities, Worcester – USA & UK

10th Annual Gregory Stockmal Reading

A Recitation from Memory of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets

2019 Archive

January 14, 2020 by TrigonAdmin

A summary of the year. Content needed.

WCPA Annual Meeting and Board Elections

12th Annual College Poetry Competition Finalists’ Reading

Congratulations to Fran Quinn, Winner of the 2019 Stanley Kunitz Medal

Winners’ Reading for the WCPA’s Annual Poetry Contest The Frank O’Hara Prize

A Reading of the Epic of Gilgamesh

A Tribute to Elizabeth Bishop

11th Annual Gregory Stockmal Reading featuring Patrick Donnelly

Love Unknown: The Life and Worlds of Elizabeth Bishop.

For all the Tea in Zhōngguó – a Dual Language Reading

2018 WCPA Annual Poetry Contest: The Frank O’Hara Prize

January 10, 2020 by TrigonAdmin

Congratulations to the Winners

Contest judge **Regie Gibson** selected three additional poems to honor.

The WCPA is pleased to announce that Jeff Walt of San Diego, CA, has won First Place in this year’s WCPA Poetry Contest: The Frank O’Hara Prize for his poem “The World is Ending on the East Coast.”

Second Place – Nicole DiCello of Worcester, MA for “Electra 101”
Third Place – Malt Schlitzman of Worcester, MA for “This Rage Dies with Me”
Honorable Mention – Michael Morlock of Berlin, MA for “Speak of the Moment”

A Winners’ Reading was held on Sunday, September 23. The winners, along with the contest judge, shared their work.

2017 WCPA Annual Poetry Contest: The Frank O’Hara Prize

January 10, 2020 by TrigonAdmin

Congratulations to the winners of the WCPA Annual Poetry Contest: The Frank O’Hara Prize!

First Place – Richard Fox
Skating on the Edge of Flesh

Second Place – Jeff Walt
Each Morning I Rise Like a Sleepwalker and Rot a Little More

Third Place – Jennifer Freed
On Their Anniversary She Whispers His Name

Honorable Mention – Marsha Kunin
In the Garden of the Blind Barbarian

The Winners’ Reading was held on Sunday, September 24 where we heard from the winners and the contest judge, Lori Desrosiers.

Thanks to the First Unitarian Church, 90 Main St, Worcester, for hosting us once again and to all the volunteers who made the event possible.

2016 WCPA Annual Poetry Contest: The Frank O’Hara Prize

January 10, 2020 by TrigonAdmin

Congratulations to the winners of the 2016
WCPA Poetry Contest: the Frank O’Hara Prize!!!

First place – Heather Treseler for Voyeur in June

Second place – Janet Shainheit for Harvey Atkins
Third Place – Barbara Ungar for Global Weirding

Honorable Mentions
Judith Robbins for Worcester, Mass. June 9, 1953
Leone Scanlon for My Seventy-Sixth Year
Rhett Watts for Summer’s End
John Garton for Istanbul Mosaic

Contest Judge: Henry Walters
2016 Contest Chair: Robert Steele

The Winners’ Reading was held on Sunday, September 25, 2016 at 2:00pm in the Bancroft Room at the First Unitarian Church (90 Main Street, Worcester).

Contest winners, and contest judge, Henry Walters, read their work. Refreshments, provided by the
community were enjoyed along with a chance to mingle with the winners and fellow poets.

2015 WCPA Annual Poetry Contest: the Frank O’Hara Prize

January 10, 2020 by TrigonAdmin

Congratulations to the winners:

Jennifer Freed – Honorable Mention
“The Thing With(out) Feathers”

John Eisner – Third Prize
“Bullets in Water”

Anne Marie Lucci – Second Prize
“Rules for Happiness”

Emily Ferrara – First Prize
“On the Morning of the Third Supermoon”

Contest Judge: Dawn Potter
2015 Contest Chair: Robert Steele

The Winner’s Reading was held on Sunday, September 27th
at the First Unitarian Church, Main Street, Worcester.

Poems from the winners and contest judge appear in
The Worcester Review Volume XXXVI.

2015 College Poetry Competition

January 10, 2020 by TrigonAdmin

8th Annual College Poetry Competition Finalists’ Reading
Saturday, April 11, 2015 Worcester Public Library, Saxe Room

The Worcester County Poetry Association inaugurated the College Poetry Competition in 2008 to encourage and recognize the next generation of poets. The finalists are nominated by faculty and administrators at colleges in Worcester County.

Submissions are judged for the Manuscript Prize and finalists are asked to perform one submitted poem for the Performance Prize.

Students compete for a cash award and a one-year WCPA membership in each category. The winning entry for the Manuscript Prize will be Fall 2015WCPA literary journal, The Worcester Review.

Congratuations to Allison Indyk of WPI on winning the 2015 Manuscript and Performance Prizes. The judges also recognized Sarah Leidhold of Worcester State University as runner-up in the Performance Prize.

Finalists:

Anna Maria College: Andrew Scott Farrar

Assumption College: Sam Hutchings

Clark University: Levi Byrne

College of the Holy Cross: Marianne Muro

Fitchburg State University: Jonathan M. Berglind

MCPHS University: Nora Elghazzawi

WPI: Allison Indyk

Worcester State University: Sarah Leidhold

Judges
Liz Heath
Cheryl Savageau

Contest Chair
Jim Cocola

Finalist Bios

Anna Maria College: Andrew Scott Farrar, Paxton, MA
I grew up in Paxton, Massachusetts, and moved away after high school to work and travel. After spending a couple of years in Boston, I moved back to Central Mass to return to my education. Reading and writing have always been definitive hobbies of mine, that along with traveling.

Assumption College: Sam Hutchings
Sam Hutchings is a Junior English Major, and has had several poems published in The Worcester Journal and Boston Review.

Clark University: Levi Byrne, Reading, PA
I was born in Reading, Pennsylvania and lived in several different states before coming to Massachusetts for college. Books and poetry have always been a huge part of my life, and I’ve experimented with writing various forms of poetry, short stories, and two novels.

College of the Holy Cross: Marianne Muro, Bolton, CT
Marianne Muro hails from Bolton, Connecticut. She is currently a senior at the College of the Holy Cross and will be graduating this spring with a B.A. in English and a minor in Education. Marianne plans to attend law school next year in pursuit of a degree in education law.

Fitchburg State University: Jonathan M. Berglind, Leominster, MA
Jonathan Berglind resides in Leominster Massachusetts. He is the production editor of Detour, an online zine run by students of Fitchburg State University. He is a Film/Video major with a minor in professional writing and wants to write screenplays and fiction professionally. Jonathan was unable to attend the finalist reading.

MCPHS University: Nora Elghazzawi, Newton, MA
I am a second year PharmD Student at MCPHS. I am studying to become a clinical Pharmacist with a specialty in Pediatrics. I am from Newton, Massachusetts, and went to Newton North High School.

WPI: Allison Indyk, Wappingers Falls, NY
Allison Indyk is a senior biomedical engineering student at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and plans to pursue a career as a physician in medicine. She uses writing as a way to stay connected to her values and creativity and uses it as a means to explore the human experience through such self expression.

Worcester State University: Sarah Leidhold, Acushnet, MA
Sarah Leidhold is a senior in the honors program at Worcester State University from Acushnet, Massachusetts. She is the winner of the Barbara Pilon Poetry Contest (2014) and third place in the Commonwealth Honors Project Competition for a chapbook of poems, “Superfluous Sincerity” (2014). An English and Education double major, Sarah is currently completing her teaching internship in Worcester while writing poems and book reviews.

Contest Judges

Liz Heath has been writing poetry for 17 years and performing for almost 10. She’s participated in slams, workshops, demo slams and school performances. She is an organizer for 7 Hills Slam, Worcester’s poetry slam venue. She’s self publicized 2 books of poetry (Re-arranging the Alphabet and This Is My Therapy). Her poetry talks about life, love, redefining beauty and raccoon men. She was a finalist in the first WCPA college poetry contest in 2008.

Of Abenaki and French Canadian heritage, Cheryl Savageau was born in central Massachusetts. She graduated from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, and studied writing at the People’s Poets and Writers Workshop in Worcester. She is the author of the poetry collections Home Country (1992), Dirt Road Home: Poems (1995) nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and Mother/Land (2006).

Contest Chair

Jim Cocola is an Assistant Professor of Literature, Film, and Media in the Department of Humanities and Arts at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and has also served on the faculty of the Language and Thinking Program at Bard College. His essays and poems have appeared in publications including the minnesota review, n+1, Polis, VIA: Voices in Italian Americana, and The Worcester Review.

2016 College Poetry Competition

January 10, 2020 by TrigonAdmin

9th Annual College Poetry Competition Finalists’ Reading
Sunday, April 10, 2016 Worcester Public Library, Saxe Room

Congratulations to the Winners

Manuscript Prize
Andrew Scott Farrar
Marissa Dakin (runner-up)
Travis Norris (runner-up)

Performance Prize Marissa Dakin

Finalists
Anna Maria College: Andrew Scott Farrar

Assumption College: Marissa Dakin

Clark University: Sarah Wells

College of the Holy Cross: Dani Burford

Fitchburg State University: Roxxanna Kurtz

MCPHS University: Allison McFarland

WPI: Travis Norris

Worcester State University: Melissa Dognazzi

Judges
Polly Brown and Tony Brown

Contest Chair
Jim Cocola

About the Competition

Submissions are judged for the Manuscript Prize and finalists are asked to perform one submitted poem for the Performance Prize.

Students compete for a cash award and a one-year WCPA membership in each category. The winning entry for the Manuscript Prize will be Fall 2015 WCPA literary journal, The Worcester Review.

Finalist Bios

Anna Maria College: Andrew Scott Farrar, Paxton, Massachusetts
Andrew Scott Farrar grew up in Paxton, Massachusetts, and moved away after high school to work and travel. After spending a couple of years in Boston, he moved back to Central Mass to return to his education. Reading and writing have always been definitive hobbies of his, that along with traveling.

Assumption College: Marissa Dakin, Pembroke, Massachusetts
Marissa Dakin is a sophomore at Assumption College originally from Pembroke, Massachusetts. She is a English Literature and Political Science double major with minors in Spanish and philosophy. Her hobbies include dyeing her hair and forgetting every interesting thing about her when people ask what she does for fun.

Clark University: Sarah Wells, Montpelier, VT
As an English Major (with double minors in Physics and Computer Science) writing has always been an important part of my life. I started writing poetry when I was very young and simply never grew tired of it. With my different areas of study I often find myself writing poetry that involves aspects of science as a way to connect all the subjects I love so much!

College of the Holy Cross: Dani Burford, La Crescenta, California
Dani Burford is a senior English major at the College of the Holy Cross, where she is writing a collection of poems entitled Voice Box for her honors thesis. She is a California native whose hometown of La Crescenta
is nestled just outside the city of Los Angeles. Besides using her writing to chronicle her life adventures, Dani also collects rocks from every place she has ever visited.

Fitchburg State University: Roxxanna Kurtz, Fitchburg, Massachusetts
Roxxanna Kurtz is from Fitchburg, Massachusetts where she currently lives with a tall British man and two cats (one’s a bit odd while the other is secretly a dragon). I have been writing since the fourth grade, with well over a thousand pieces to my name. Some of my published works can be found in an edition of the Marble Collection and three volumes of Route 2.

MCPHS University: Allison McFarland, Plainville, Massachusetts
Allie McFarland is in her third year at MCPHS University, majoring in Health Psychology. Originally from Plainville, MA, Allie’s creative interests include poetry, sketch comedy, and playwriting.

WPI: Travis Norris, Austin, Texas
Travis Norris is a sophomore at WPI double majoring in Robotics Engineering and Writing. He is originally from Austin, Texas, but is involved at WPI in improv comedy, the admissions office, and various clubs. Travis views writing as an opportunity to express stories that otherwise wouldn’t be shared.

Worcester State University: Melissa Dognazzi, Worcester, Massachusetts
Melissa Dognazzi is a practicing writer with a focused passion in the arts community. Although she initially wanted to chase the life of a performer, she has discovered her place among literary artists in her work as a poet, grant writer, and arts reviewer.

Contest Judges

A member of Boston’s long-standing Every Other Thursday Poets, Polly Brown has two chapbooks, Blue Heron Stone, and Each Thing Torn From Any of Us. She taught for 25 years at Touchstone Community School in Grafton, and blogs about the daily texture of progressive education at ayeartothinkitover.com. She won the Worcester County Poetry Award about a million years ago. Recent poems have appeared in The Worcester Review, Clade Song, and Soundings East.

Tony Brown is a Worcester based poet who has read at, performed at, and run poetry events all over the US for the last thirty years. A four time Pushcart Prize nominee whose work has been published in many anthologies and journals, he has also had a long-standing association with the national poetry slam community. Currently, he also fronts the poetry and music ensemble The Duende Project, who are in the process of recording their sixth album. A new chapbook, The Embers, will be published by Tired Hearts Press this year.

Contest Chair

Jim Cocola is an Associate Professor of Literature, Film, and Media in the Department of Humanities and Arts at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and has also served on the faculty of the Language and Thinking Program at Bard College. His essays and poems have appeared in publications including the minnesota review, n+1, Polis, VIA: Voices in Italian Americana, and The Worcester Review.

2017 College Poetry Competition

January 9, 2020 by TrigonAdmin

10th Annual College Poetry Competition Finalists’ Reading
Sunday, April 2, 2017 Worcester Public Library, Saxe Room

Congratulations to the winners of the 2017 WCPA College Poetry Contest

Manuscript Prize
Julie de Oliveira – winner
Carmellite Chamblin – honorable mention

Performance Prize
Rheannon Swire – winner
Morgan DeAngelis – honorable mention

The Nominees

Maria Gurriere, of Anna Maria College and Dudley, MA
Rheannon Swire, of Assumption College and Stoughton, MA
Faith Chesbrough of Fitchburg State University and Leominster, MA
Ryan Kingsley, of Holy Cross and North Attleboro, MA
Carmellite Chamblin, of MCPHS University and Malden, MA
Julie de Oliveira, of Quinsigamond Community College and Worcester, MA
Morgan DeAngelis, of WPI and Mountain View, CA
Isaac Church, of Worcester State University and Java Center, NY

The reading was held on Sunday, April 2, 2017 in the Saxe Room at Worcester Public Library (3 Salem Square, Worcester)

Student Bios

Maria Gurriere (age 21) is an English major at Anna Maria College. Her deep passion for music, as a clarinetist, guitarist, and vocalist, inspired the poem “The Life of Music.” A lifelong condition called Sound-Color Synesthesia inspired “The Rainbow of Life,” and a lifetime of many chronic illnesses inspired “The Many Pieces of Me.” Maria is from Dudley, Massachusetts.

Rheannon Swire is a senior at Assumption College majoring in Human Services with a double minor in English and Psychology. She has been writing poetry since middle school and since she talks about poetry every chance she gets, the entire Assumption community believes that she is an English major. Rheannon lives in Stoughton, Massachusetts.

Faith Chesbrough is a Professional Writing major at Fitchburg State University. She grew up in the Leominster-Fitchburg area and still resides there. She has always had a passion for all things art including reading, writing, theatre, and speech giving.

Raised in North Attleboro, Massachusetts, Ryan Kingsley is a senior English major at the College of the Holy Cross, where he is completing an honors thesis, a collection of poems titled “Bird on the Horizon.” In his writing, Ryan explores the relationship between the human and “natural” realms as he seeks to understand the out of sight worlds they share. He loves four sisters, two turtles, a canoe, and a superfluous collection of pens.

My name is Carmellite Chamblin; I am 20 years old and an avid reader of Haruki Murakami. I reside in Malden MA and currently attend MCPHS University, studying premedical and health studies and minoring in women’s studies.

Julie de Oliveira is a first generation born Brazilian-American who grew up living in Worcester, Massachusetts. She has taken Creative Writing and Poetry courses at Quinsigamond Community College. She hopes to pursue a degree in Latino Studies. Her short stories and poetry bring light to silenced voices of Brazilian immigrants and the fairly recent phenomena of the Brazilian diaspora in America and finding their identity within the U.S. Latino community. Her poem “Saudade” appears in 2106 online issue of The Acentos Review.

My name is Morgan DeAngelis. I am a Sophomore studying Environmental Engineering at WPI. I am a San Francisco Bay Area native who loves hiking, art, and working with my residents as an RA. My friends would tell you that I have a lot of love to give for such a small person and that I can often be found hugging trees for fun.

Isaac Church is a Junior studying English at Worcester State University. He is from Java Center, NY, a little town just south of Buffalo. He enjoys reading, writing, and drawing.

Judges Bios

Jenith Charpentier is the author of three chapbooks, Bending the Water Between Us (2011), Bad at Gravity (2013), and 5 Poems by Jenith Charpentier (Damfino Press, 2015). She represented Worcester’s Poets Asylum at the 2012 Individual World Poetry Slam and as a member of the 2013 National Poetry Slam Team. Jenith’s poetry appears in several publications including OVS, Mas Tequila Review, Wicked Banshee Press, The Orange Room Review, Worcester Magazine, Tipton Poetry Journal, and the anthology Knocking at the Door. She is currently one of the organizers of Worcester’s 7 Hills Slam (http://7hillsslam.wordpress.com/). More information about her work can be found at https://www.facebook.com/jenithcharpentierpoet.

Michael Fisher is the author of The Wolf Spider (Plan B Press), Five Poems by Michael Fisher (Damfino Press) and Libretto for the Exhausted World (Spuyten Duvil Press). His poetry has appeared in numerous journals. He holds an MFA in Poetry from New England College and is an MA candidate in English at Clark University. Currently, he works as an adjunct professor and home/hospital tutor. He lives in Barre, MA.

Contest Chair Bio

Jim Cocola is an Associate Professor of Literature, Film, and Media in the Department of Humanities and Arts at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and has also served on the faculty of the Language and Thinking Program at Bard College. His essays and poems have appeared in publications including the minnesota review, n+1, Polis, VIA: Voices in Italian Americana, and The Worcester Review.

2018 College Poetry Competition

January 9, 2020 by TrigonAdmin

11th Annual College Poetry Competition Finalists’ Reading
Sunday, April 8, 2018 Worcester Public Library, Banx Room

Congratulations to the winners of the 2018 College Poetry Contest Reading

Runner-up Manuscript Prize
Jessica Hoops

Winner Manuscript Prize and Performance Prize
Jess Locke

The Nominees
Rachel Del Río, of Anna Maria College and Chelsea, MA

Isabella Camasura, of Assumption College and Bristol, CT

Alexandra Larkin, of College of the Holy Cross and Riverside, CT

Jessica Hoops, of Clark University and East Hampton, CT

Mia Pare, of Fitchburg State University and Leominster, MA

Jess Locke, of WPI and Georgetown, MA

Judges
Rushelle Frazier
Heather Macpherson

Contest Chair
Craig Blais
Anna Maria College

Student Bios

Rachel Del Río is a first-generation college student ready to make an example for her siblings and the people growing up in the same city as her. No matter where you come from or what you have been through, there is always a way. She is proud to say she comes from Chelsea, MA.

Born in Orange, CA and raised in Bristol, CT, Isabella Camasura (endearingly Izzy) is the wandering mind that Sir Isaac Newton would have made a spectacle: her thoughts remain in motion unless compelled by an outside force. Like her upbringing, Izzy likes her poetry to explore “coast-to-coast” topics that leave no stone unturned: mental health, science, and social justice to name a few. She enjoys living and loving life flexibly, and writing about what she witnesses even more so.

Jess Hoops is a senior English and Philosophy major, hailing from East Hampton, CT. She is Editor-in-Chief of the Clark Writes blog, President of Clark’s English Honor Society, a writing consultant at Clark’s Writing Center, and an editorial consultant for a literary agency in New York City.

Alexandra Larkin is a senior at College of the Holy Cross from Riverside, Connecticut. She is an English major and Religious Studies minor and enjoys skiing, rock climbing, and reading fantasy novels.

Mia Pare is a graduating English major at Fitchburg State University. Originally from Leominster, MA, Mia hopes to teach English overseas while continuing to write poetry recreationally.

Jess Locke is a junior studying Environmental Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Their writing tends to focus on topics of social justice, feminism, LGBTQ+ experiences, mental health, and terrible puns. You will most often find Jess perusing the aisles of Walmart at 10PM or filling their time with an excessive number of activities to avoid thinking about The Void™.

Judges Bios

Rushelle Frazier is a spoken word and visual artist based in Worcester, MA. She has been involved with poetry since 2001, hosting poetry readings, workshops, and other cultural events throughout the East coast. Rushelle is a member of the 2002 and 2015 Worcester Adult Slam Team. She has been published most recently in Radius Magazine and Nailed Magazine. Frazier is a past president of the Worcester County Poetry Association and a poetry editor for The Worcester Review. Her latest chapbook, Breakup Sauce, was published by Doublebunny Press.

Heather J. Macpherson writes poetry and essay. Her work has appeared in Blueline, Spillway, The Broken Plate, Gravel, Niche, and other fine places. She has work forthcoming in The Bennington Review and Muriel Rukeyser: A Living Archive. Heather is a PhD candidate in Literature at the University of Rhode Island.

Contest Chair’s Bio

Craig Blais is the author of About Crows (University of Wisconsin Press, 2013), winner of the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry, and the Florida Book Award. His poems have appeared in Best New Poets, Denver Quarterly, Hotel Amerika, The Southern Review, Western Humanities Review, Yale Review, and elsewhere. Craig’s work has been finalist for the Walt Whitman Award and the National Poetry Series. He earned his MFA from Wichita State University and PhD from Florida State University, and he is Assistant Professor of English at Anna Maria College in Paxton, Massachusetts.

2019 Bishop/Knight Poetry Competition

January 9, 2020 by TrigonAdmin

12th Annual College Poetry Competition Finalists’ Reading
Saturday, April 6, 2019
Worcester Popup, 20 Franklin Street, Worcester

Congratulations to the winners of the 2019 College Poetry Contest Reading

Etheridge Knight Performance Prize
Kate Brice of Assumption College
Amber John of the College of the Holy Cross (runner-up)

Elizabeth Bishop Manuscript Prize
Dani Black of Clark University
Ariele Lee of Fitchburg State University (runner-up)

The Nominees
Paula Kneeland, of Anna Maria College and Worcester, MA

Kate Brice, of Assumption College and Colchester, CT

Dani Black, of Clark University and Middleboro, MA

Amber John, of the College of Holy Cross and Austin, TX

Ariele Lee, of Fitchburg State University and Beverly, MA

Jesse Madore, of MCPHS and Salem, NH

Erica Gilman, of Worcester State University and North Brookfield, MA

Michael Clements, of WPI and Exeter, NH

Judges
Susan Roney-O’Brien
Ashley Wonder

Contest Chair
Craig Blais, Anna Maria College

Photos courtesy of Robert Steele and Bob Gill

Student Bios

Paula Kneeland is a resident of Worcester, MA and an advanced standing graduate student in Anna Maria College’s Masters of Social Work Program. She is President of the MSW Student Forum and student representative of the MSW Social Work Advisory Board. After graduation, Paula would like to pursue a clinical career in forensic social work with a concentration in social justice and substance use. Writing random poetry is part of her self-care routine.

Poetry has long been a source of therapy and healing for Kate Brice. She is currently a senior chemistry major at Assumption College, and has only ever taken two creative writing courses. She is from Colchester, Connecticut, and she plans to pursue writing on the side, however informally that may be.

Dani Black is from Middleboro, Massachusetts. She is currently a sophomore at Clark University and studies Creative Writing, Psychology, Women and Gender studies, and Comparative Race and Ethnic studies.

Amber John is a sophomore English and History major at Holy Cross, a member of The Purple literary magazine, and a pre-law student. She comes all the way from Austin, Texas, and hopes to write professionally.

Ariele Lee was born and raised in Beverly, MA. She is a Communications Major/English Minor at Fitchburg State University. She spends most of her time in the car commuting from school because she decided to go to school that was two hours away!

Jesse Madore was born and raised in Salem, NH and is a lover of writing, reading, and dog petting. Jesse attends Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (MCPHS University) .

Erica Gilman is finishing up her undergraduate studies in Sociology and English at Worcester State State and heading to Rhode Island for a graduate degree in married and family therapy at the University of Rhode Island. She enjoys cycling through small towns, doing hot yoga, and traveling to different coffee shops.

Michael Clements was born and raised around Exeter, New Hampshire. He is currently seeking a degree in Computer Science and a minor in English. In addition to writing and reading poetry, he enjoys participating in the marching band.

Judge bios

Susan Roney-O’Brien lives in Princeton, MA, works with international students and young writers, curates a monthly poetry venue, and is part of 4 X 4, a group of visual artists and poets. She is the Summer Writing Series Coordinator for The Stanley Kunitz Boyhood Home. Her poetry has been published widely and translated into Braille and Mandarin and been nominated for seven Pushcart Prizes. Publications include two chapbooks: Farmwife, the winner of the William and Kingman Page Poetry Book Award, and Earth published by Cat Rock Press. WordTech published Legacy of the Last World in 2016. Aldrich Press, an imprint of Kelsay Books, published Bone Circle, in December 2018. Kelsay Books will publish Thira, a new collection based on ancient Minoan culture, in March, 2020.

Ashley Wonder has been writing for over ten years. Performing professionally for the past five with dynamic passion to give hope to her audiences. She became apart of the Slam Community in 2014. Repping Worcester her hometown, in Oakland 2015, Decatur, GA 2016. Earned Iron Poet Champion held in Worcester, MA at Ralph’s Diner. Performed 2019 Women Of Consequence City Hall in Worcester. She has featured in Troy, New York at Poetic Vibe, all around MA, Boston (Hard Rock Cafe), RI including many colleges and universities such as Holy Cross, Wheelock among others. She enjoys teaching poetry workshops to youth of all ages to show how fun and interactive Spoken Word can be. She also believes in the power of tea and naps.

Contest Chair Bio

Elizabeth Bishop

January 3, 2020 by TrigonAdmin

All the untidy activity continues,
awful but cheerful.
“The Bight”

In 2011, WCPA ran a year long Centenary Celebration for Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979).

Monday, January 3, 2011

Tuesday, February 8 , 2011

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Sunday, May 15, 2011

May 26-29, 2011

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Monday, October 24, 2011

Other Elizabeth Bishop Thoughts and Events

Inscribing the Stone: Notes from Worcester’s Hope Cemetary

by Angela Dorenkamp

When I first visited Hope Cemetery in Worcester, Massachusetts, to search out Elizabeth Bishop’s grave, snow covered the ground. At the cemetery office, I was given the exact location of the gravesite and learned that Bishop’s ashes had been buried on the reverse side of a monument bearing her parents’ names: William T. Bishop and Gertrude B. Bishop. On Beach Street, curving among Hope Cemetery’s gently-sloping, snow-covered lawns, I found the gravestone – a substantial piece of rectangular-cut, beveled granite. Bishop’s parents’ names and dates were carved on the side fronting the road. Anxiously, I scurried to the far side to see whether the line from “The Bight,” – “Awful but cheerful” – which Bishop had reportedly requested for her epitaph, was actually there. To my surprise, the stone was altogether blank. Perhaps, I reasoned, someone had placed an inscribed stone flat to the ground on Elizabeth’s side, but I could not test this theory because the snow was too thick and hard. When spring came, there was no flat stone.

When Laura J. Menides (WPI) and I presented a program about Bishop at the Worcester Historical Museum integrating biography, poetry, and slides, we had a slide of the family plot in Hope Cemetery and mentioned the fact that the grave was not marked and that we wanted to try to get that done. The cemetery office told us we needed permission from Alice Muthfessel, executrix of the Bishop estate, in order to have Bishop’s name cut in the stone under which she is buried. Eventually we wrote to Ms. Methfessel, as did Elizabeth Ross Naudin, a first cousin of Bishop’s who lives in Florida, and a few of the people who attended our presentations. Soon, Laura Menides, Carle Johnson (Worcester County Poetry Association), and I were busy planning The Elizabeth Bishop Conference & Poetry Festival, which will be held in Worcester Massachusetts, on October 9-12, 1997. We wanted to include a tour of places in Worcester related to Bishop’s life here, including her gravesite, of course. So I sent Ms. Methfessel a copy of the permission form required by the cemetery. When I spoke with her on the phone, she was gracious and anxious to have the matter resolved. In fact, she said, she had been under the impressions that the estate’s lawyers had taken care of the inscription some time ago. Once we had the permission – and the assurance that the estate would cover the cost of the engraving – I arranged for the work to be done. The lettering matched that of Bishop’s parents’ exactly. The letters, for instance, were hand-cut rather than sand blasted. The inscription, sent to us by Alice Methfessel, reads as follows:

Elizabeth Bishop
1911 – 1979
“All the untidy activity continues
Awful but cheerful.”

On a beautiful fall day – Sunday, October 6, 1996 – which happened to be the 17th anniversary of Elizabeth Bishop’s death, Laura Menides, Carle Johnson, and I made a pilgrimage to her grave. There we noted the newly cut inscription and read “The Bight” aloud. Bouyed by the nip in the air, we felt the lightness of euphoria. Thanks are due to Alice Methfessel; to Laura Menides and Carle Johnson; to Aldo Gatti, the stonecutter; to the cemetery staff; to Elizabeth Ross Naudin; to all those who supported and helped bring to closure, this small, but important. enterprise.

Laura Menides, Angela Dorenkamp, and Carle Johnson at the Elizabeth Bishop gravesite, Hope Cemetery, Worcester, Massachusetts, 1996. A Hope Cemetery reading has become a WCPA biannual event, typically followed by dinner and additional readings and discussion.

Saturday, May 10, 2008 – 12 Crane/Riverrun

Ernest Lawrence Thayer

January 3, 2020 by TrigonAdmin

One of America’s favorite poems was written within a few yards from the old WCPA office on Chatham Street. Ernest Lawrence Thayer had just returned from California, via Washington, D.C. He had worked for the San Francisco Examiner and had one more comic piece to write for the Sunday edition. At his home on Chatham Street he wrote “Casey at the Bat” to complete his obligation to William Randolph Hearst, owner of the Examiner. It was published first on June 3, 1888, and was soon copied by paper after paper across the country. He then went into helping the Thayer family run their mill in Cherry Valley and did no further writing for publication.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light.
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville – mighty Casey had stuck out.

Perhaps Thayer was inspired by the June 12, 1880, game when J.Lee Richmond for Worcester, against Cleveland, pitched the first perfect game in professional baseball, facing 27 hitters without any of them getting on base. The site of the old Worcester Agricultural Fairgrounds is now the Becker College quad, where a small monument on Sever Street commemorates the event.