We here at the WCPA, in partnership with The Poet’s Cauldron and Bedlam Books, are very proud to announce our newest poetry contest, FoxFest. FoxFest will celebrate the power of the spoken word in a Slam-style competition. Registration Required. FoxFest is named after beloved Worcester Poet Richard Fox and is sponsored by the Fox Family. To learn more about Richard, read below.
Richard Fox sought three-decker rainbows, fluent scout dogs, and illuminating espresso. When he was not writing about rock ’n roll or youthful transgressions, his poems focused on cancer from the patient’s point of view drawing on hope, humor, and unforeseen gifts.
He was the author of seven poetry collections: TIME BOMB (2013), wandering in puzzle boxes (2015), You’re my favorite horse (2017), embracing the burlesque of collateral damage (2020), Let sleep bless our arrival (2022), Once I was born to live (2022), DOUBLE CHAI: Poems for My Zady & Miscellany (2023)plus a chapbook: The Complete Uncle Louie Poems (2017). DOUBLE CHAI: Poems for My Zady & Miscellany, chronicled His grandfather’s life in “The New Country.” By relating these tales, the author also told his own story. Included in the collection are poems about heroes and living with cancer.
Richard, the 2017 Frank O’Hara Prize winner, always seconded Stanley Kunitz’s motion that people in Worcester are “provoked to poetry.
One Last Loop
by Richard Fox
Bailey Dog,
my shadow. Senses
pain, weakness.
Mirrors angst.
Cuddles.
His back, my hip.
Alert to coughing,
addled breaths.
Plan my funeral
procession. Measure
distances from service
to burial to reception.
Which shul shortens
the stress of riding
in grief? Want my family
unburdened by silence.
Choose a rabbi.
Music. Readings. Poems.
Ask difficult favors
that can never be repaid:
eulogies, pallbearers, obituary,
mourners to hold my loved ones
when dirt and gravel
strike wood.
Time is lost in voids.
Mortality, the inescapable escort,
sits next to me
in the backseat.
Bailey has diabetes.
We are old, ill males. Waiting.
Blind, he will guide me
through darkness.
To watch a recording of Richard Fox’s last Thirsty Lab Zoom Reading, please Click Here.