Archives for March 2022

Join the Worcester County Poetry Association for our Annual Meeting on April 3, 2022! The afternoon consists of a short Business Meeting, a chance to mingle with friends, and a poetry feature by Dzvinia Orlowsky. We’ll start at 2:00 pm in-person at the First Unitarian Church, 90 Main Street, Worcester.

You can view the agenda at this link – 2022 Annual Meeting Agenda [link]

Dzvinia Orlowsky is a Pushcart Prize poet, translator, and a founding editor of Four Way Books.  She is also the author of six poetry collections published by Carnegie Mellon University Press including her most recent, Bad Harvest, named a 2019 Massachusetts Book Awards “Must Read” in poetry; Silvertone (2013) for which she was named Ohio Poetry Day Association’s 2014 Co-Poet of the Year; and Convertible Night, Flurry of Stones (2009) for which she received a Sheila Motton Book Award.  Her first collection, A Handful of Bees, was reprinted in 2009 as a Carnegie Mellon University Classic Contemporary. Her translation from the Ukrainian of Alexander Dovzhenko’s novella, The Enchanted Desna, was published by House Between Water in 2006, and her poem sequence “The (Dis)enchanted Desna” was selected by Robert Pinsky as the 2019 co-winner of the New England Poetry Club Samuel Washington Allen Prize.  In 2014, Dialogos published Jeff Friedman’s and her co-translation of Memorials: A Selection by Polish poet Mieczysław Jastrun for which she and Friedman were awarded a 2016 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Translation Fellowship.  Her co-translation with Ali Kinsella from the Ukrainian,  Eccentric Days of Hope and Sorrow:  Selected Poems by Natalka Biolotserkivets was published by Lost Horse Press in 2021.  Dzvinia is Writer-in-Residence at the Solstice Low-Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing and a contributing poetry editor to Solstice Literary Magazine and Agni.

Reminder – Submissions are open for the WCPA’s 2022 Poetry Contest: The Frank O’Hara Prize through Saturday, April 30, 2022. The 2022 contest is being judged by Pakistani-American scientist, poet, and educator Usman Hameedi.

The contest is open to WCPA members in good standing, residents of Worcester County, or students/employees of institutions within Worcester County.

There is no fee for WCPA members to enter. Non-members pay $8 to enter the contest.

Contest guidelines and a link to the online submission portal are available at
worcestercountypoetry.org/2022contest/

Update 04/03/2022 – we have filled the Administrative Assistant position.  Thank you to all who applied.

The WCPA is seeking someone to fill a contract position.  The Administrative Assistant works as an assistant to the board of directors by handling its technical, web, and direct mail requirements as needed.  The candidate will be responsible and self-motivated with good people skills, a commitment to WCPA’s mission, and the ability to work independently while getting the job requirements completed satisfactorily and on time.  The candidate will have good technical skills.

You can find further details, along with information on how to apply, at https://worcestercountypoetry.org/admin-position/.

Hi all – 4 WCPA (sponsored) events are coming up in the next month. 3 are virtual and 1 is in-person. Maybe we’ll see each other at one of them.

3/22 – Thirsty Lab w/JC Todd – virtual – more info at https://worcestercountypoetry.org/event/4352/

3/23 – Women’s Poetry Reading – virtual – more info at https://worcestercountypoetry.org/event/princeton-womens-poetry-reading-placeholder/

3/29 – Thirsty Lab w/Jenith Charpentier – virtual – more info at https://worcestercountypoetry.org/event/a-virtual-thirsty-lab-with-jenith-charpentier/

4/3 – WCPA Annual Meeting w/Dzvinia Orlowsky – in-person – more info at https://worcestercountypoetry.org/event/2022-wcpa-annual-meeting/

Sharing on behalf of the Stevens Memorial Library in Ashburnham, MA. Join them for a Zoom poetry reading on March 16 at 6:30 pm. Two of the most gifted poets in contemporary poetry, Anselm Berrigan and Maureen Owen, will read their work. Please contact the library to get on the list for the Zoom link.

Phone – 978-827-4115
Email – library@ashburnham-ma.gov
or Facebook DM the library

Join us via Zoom for an evening of poetry and hear two of the most gifted poets in contemporary poetry share their work.

Anselm Berrigan’s most recent book of poetry is Pregrets, published by Black Square Editions in 2021. Other books include Something for Everybody, Come in Alone, and the book-length poems Primitive State and Notes from Irrelevance. He’s the poetry editor for The Brooklyn Rail, and co-editor of Get The Money!: Collected Prose of Ted Berrigan, forthcoming from City Lights this fall.

Maureen Owen, former editor and chief of Telephone Magazine and Telephone Books, is the author of Erosion’s Pull, a finalist for the Colorado Book Award and the Balcones Poetry Prize. Her title American Rush: Selected Poems was a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize and her work AE (Amelia Earhart) was a recipient of the prestigious Before Columbus American Book Award. She has taught at Naropa University and co-edited Naropa’s online zine not enough night through 19 issues. Her newest title Edges of Water is available from Chax Press.

In honor of International Women’s Day we’ve uploaded the recording from last year’s Princeton Women’s Poetry Reading.  Each March, Susan Roney-O’Brien organizes the Princeton Women’s Reading with twenty women poets who read together to celebrate joy, creativity, and poetry.

You can view the video on our YouTube channel by visiting https://youtu.be/0QbHZzr7FRE.

The following poets are read – Pam Bernard, Polly Brown, Therese Carr, Devon Evans, Kathleen Fagley, Jennifer Freed, Joyce Heon, Emily Judkins, Maura MacNeil, Cheryl Perreault, Catherine Reed, Eve Rifkah, Rush Frazier, Francis Sterle, Nancy Strong, Beth Sweeney, Rhett Watts, Kate Zebrowski, and Susan Roney-O’Brien.

Join us for the 2022 reading via Zoom. Details can be found on the Women’s Poetry Reading event page.

Iternational Women’s Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women.