Photo Credit: Evan Plante

The WCPA is proud to announce  THE Dan Lewis FELLOWSHIP

Many #bluemoons ago when I was a college first-year I attended a poetry reading at the Java Hut on Main Street. Amongst the many locals who read, an older man read this poem and it connected with me in a way that felt singular. When I joined the #WCPA a couple of years ago, I assumed I’d never met the great Dan Lewis, co-founder and poet about town. Then I came across this poem of his, a poem that I carried with me both figuratively and literally, on a sheaf of paper that I pasted on the walls of my many college dorms and post college rooms. This connection makes me especially proud to announce the official launching of our Dan Lewis fellowship to help local writers accomplish their dreams. Stay tuned for our next post for details.

To Learn More Please Click Here

Beth Sweeney’s ‘Mapping Worcester in Poetry’ is getting some well deserved media coverage. The first story is by Margaret Smith of the T&G:

“The next time you’re out and about in Worcester, you may well be following in the footsteps of Stanley Kunitz, Elizabeth Bishop or Frank O’Hara. A new project aims to capture the places poets have trodden, and take residents and visitors alike with them, with self-guided walking and driving tours of locations important in the lives of poets who have left their mark.

The project also includes a poetry competition, seeking poems about places in the city, both past and present, and a series of tours highlighting locations in the lives of poets who were born in or spent significant time in the city.” Continue reading

The second story is Holy Cross Magazine Spring Edition Volume 57 Issue 2 on Page 24. As soon as a digital copy is available, we will update our website with a link to it, but paper copies can be found on Holy Cross Campus.

Richard Fox is a local poet who has been active in Worcester County for many years. The WCPA is having a tribute zoom reading for Fox on Tuesday June 13th @7pm.

Worcester Magazine recently published its own wonderful tribute to Fox HERE

WPL is looking to publish the poem of any local-ish poet if that poem is suitable for general audiences (no x-rated works, please), and of reasonable length, (100 lines & under)

Each poem is published on their Poem of the Month tab of their Poet’s Place webpage, which can be found here.   Each poem stays on that page for about a month, give or take.

All interested poets can email  Melody Friedenthal mfriedenthal@mywpl.org.

A HUGE thank you to all of our wonderful participants! We got so many contributions and read some truly fantastic poems.

A big thank you to our judge Karen Skolfield for her thoughtful consideration!

and a heartfelt Congratulations to our 2023 O’Hara Prize Winners! We hope to see everyone at the O’Hara reading in September.

thanks to April showers & the JMAC Reading.

We had our annual Rain Poetry Reading this past Sunday at the JMAC @ 20 Franklin St. Our poets wooed and wowed the crowds with some of the best Worcester loving material yet. And the positively glowing Kate Gregoire was MC extraordinaire, with a little help from her baby bundle Grace.  A wonderful time was had by all. Catch a glimpse below, and see you at the next one. 😉

Tom Ewart reads “My First Day” located @ University Park

Kristen Schuler Weisberg reads her poem @ Newton Square Bus Stop

David Hallock reads his poem brought to life @ Indian Lake Community Garden

John Gaumond reading his poem “Shrewsbury Street” imprinted @ Cristoforo Colombo Park Bus Stop (bonus guest stars in the photo are Kate & Grace)

photo credit: Oliver de la Paz

Know someone who’s passionate about poetry and is regularly working towards bringing access to the city? Nominate your favorite poetry activist! See below for details!

Stanley Kunitz Medal Award

On behalf of the Stanley Kunitz bequest to the Worcester County Poetry Association, the Medal committee is pleased to announce the opening of nominations for the 2023 Stanley Kunitz Medal, the ninth to be awarded since 2015.

The medal is presented annually to a person with a strong Worcester County (Massachusetts) connection who best exemplifies Stanley Kunitz’s lifelong commitment to poetry and poets. The award recognizes an individual’s total commitment to poetry as Kunitz lived it: teaching poetry, mentoring poets, speaking poetry, publishing poetry, and supporting organizations which nurture poetry.

Letters of nomination should provide detailed support explaining how the nominee nurtured poetry as defined above. Because the yearly award is singular and cannot honor all worthy applicants, past nominations may be reactivated for 2023 once nominators notify the committee chair to keep the nomination active.

Nominations should be mailed to The Stanley Kunitz Medal, c/o Worcester County Poetry Association, P.O. Box 804, Worcester, MA  01613 between December 1, 2022 and March 31, 2023.  The award announcement will be made in the late spring of 2023, followed by a ceremony coinciding with Kunitz’s birthday the last week of July at the Worcester Historical Museum. Please visit www.worcestercountypoetry.org Programs/Stanley Kunitz Medal for more details. 

The 2023 Stanley Kunitz Medal committee wishes to recognize and thank the following volunteers who have served to bestow this honor in the past: Rodger Martin, chair (2013-2021), Kent Ljungquist (2017-2021), Karen Sharpe (2019-2021), Robert Steele (2015-2016), and E. Robert Cronin (2015-2018).

[Photo credit: Meredith Pugh]

City manager Batista announced the results of this year’s search for a poet laureate. The winner is Oliver de la Paz.

Oliver de la Paz is the Poet Laureate of Worcester, MA for 2023-2025. He is the author and editor of seven books: Names Above Houses, Furious Lullaby, Requiem for the Orchard, Post Subject: A Fable, and The Boy in the Labyrinth, a finalist for the Massachusetts Book Award in Poetry. His newest work, The Diaspora Sonnets, is forthcoming from Liveright Press in 2023. With Stacey Lynn Brown he co-edited A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry. Oliver serves as the co-chair of the Kundiman advisory board. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Poetry,
American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. He has received grants from the NEA, NYFA, the Artist’s Trust, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and has been awarded multiple Pushcart Prizes. He teaches at the College of the Holy Cross and in the Low-Residency MFA Program at PLU.

Here is a write up done by Worcester Magazine about de la Paz, as well as a link to some of his poems.

WCPA’s annual contest the Frank O’Hara Prize will open on January 1st 2023. Please head over to our [Contest Page] to read about rules and regulations.

Wonderful Worcester Black History Project & Antiquarian Society  event

Join us as Worcester poets share their responses inspired by material from the Brown Family Collections, one of the earliest and largest intact nineteenth-century Black family’s libraries in America. The collections center around William and Martha Ann Brown, who were married in Worcester in 1850, and their son, Charles F. Brown. William Brown’s ancestors, the Moore family, and their descendants, the Goldsberry family, created and maintained an archive over several generations and have entrusted it to the American Antiquarian Society to be made available to aid the work of researchers, community members, artists, and poets for generations to come.

During this hybrid event, poets Ashley Wonder, Catherine Reed, and Xaulanda Thorpe will discuss their experience working with AAS archive material and items in the Brown Family Collections from which they drew inspiration. Both in-person and virtual attendees of this program will have the opportunity to view items used by the poets in addition to other material included in the collections such as books, family papers and correspondence, portraits, and photographs.

This hybrid program will be held in person at Antiquarian Hall and livestreamed to a virtual audience on Zoom. Closed captioning will be available for virtual attendees. Doors open at 6:30pm.

Register for in person.

Register for remote viewing.

Deborah Hall is CEO of YWCA Central MA. She is also the founder of Worcester Black History Project and a member of the Advisory Committee for the Worcester Cultural Plan. Hall has over 30 years of experience working with survivors of domestic violence and addressing the intersection of race, gender, and community violence. She is a social justice advocate, an art lover, and has served in leadership positions for several programs throughout MA, RI, and MO addressing issues of homelessness, violence, and substance abuse.


Kimberly Toney is the Coordinating Curator for Native American and Indigenous Collections at Brown University Library. During her tenure at AAS as Head of Readers’ Services and Director of Indigenous Initiatives, Kimberly worked with the Brown Family Collection. She created a video for the Worcester Black History Project on William Brown and authored an article for Past Is Present on Martha Ann Brown.


Ashely Wonder has been writing and performing Spoken Word for over a decade with dynamic passion all over Massachusetts. She teaches workshops to various age groups hoping to inspire audiences around her to know that healing and liberation is possible.


Rev. Dr. Catherine H. Reed is the author of four books of poetry. Crossing Boundaries, Between Midnight and Dawn, Sankofa, and Fire Goes Out Without Wood. She was the former Associate Pastor of John Street Baptist Church and a retired Chaplain of The College of The Holy Cross.


Xaulanda Thorpe is a spoken word poet from Worcester, Massachusetts. She graduated from Boston University with a degree in biological anthropology in January 2020. During her time at BU, when she was not examining primate samples, she wrote short stories for Charcoal Magazine, a student-led publication. In 2021, Xaulanda’s poem was chosen for the African Burial Ground National Monument’s Still I Rise tribute to Maya Angelou.

Rain Poetry: A Walk in the Woo 2022

Poems for Rain.Works

The Worcester County Poetry Association is pleased to announce the thirteen poems selected from their 2022 Call for Poems: “A Walk in the Woo” and our six honorable mentions. The poems were successfully painted around the city of Worcester August 13th, 2022.

(1)

Location: City Hall Bus Stop

Poet: Ashley Wonder

Rainstorms flooding Main Street recollections.
I always think God is giving us a chance to get our House in order.
We don’t need savage winds, pouring drops, broken limbs as reminder
we should all be kinder.
Hold in our memory the scent of water, to be called Home.

(2 )

Location: Printer’s Building Entrance

Poet: Maia Campbell

Title: City of Mine

Rounding the corner,
eying structures mangled, neglected,
waiting for care;
Hand by the window to apprehend
depreciated factories and shuttered diners,
to pocket them, for safekeeping;
Knowing I cannot,
my hand slides downward, smudging,
blurring the outside;
Though pained, loving this city of mine.

(3)

Location: Coes Pond Bus Stop

Poet: Irena Kaçi

Title: Petrichor

An olfactory kind of melancholy
Humans and doleful dromedaries
Even from the millennia distance
the bone grief memory persists
of the antediluvian world
we lost once at the end of the
flood. Now each raindrop smells
like the world drowning.

(4)

Location: Newton Square Park Bus Stop

Poet: Kristen Schuler Weisberg

Newton Square and Hill

We each see what we look for
Rain hydrates and drowns
The dichotomy
Birds singing while cars drive by
Sounds like home to me

(5)

Location: Cristoforo Columbo Park Bus Stop

Poet: John Gaumond

Title: Shrewsbury Street

Two stone lions
guard the entrance
to Cristoforo Colombo Park.
As a boy, I would
put aside my fear
to mount a lion’s back.
There I sat, like a prince,
almost touching
fireworks
in the summer sky.

(6)

Location: Indian Lake Community Garden

Poet: David Hallock

Oh! Worcester!
My! Worcester!
A Native Land
Quinsigamond to Quaboag
and Beyond
Watataic, Wachusett, Blackstone
and Betwixt
Rejoice!
This fertile Acre
Tended by Forebears
Now Take Care
And build upon this Heritage
Brick by Brick

(7)

Location: Belmont Hill / Green Park Bus Stop

Poet: Tony Fulginiti

Title: Worcester Schools: Snow Days

My brother and I
Lean back in our toboggan,
Grip the side ropes, and
Push over the edge
Of Steep Gage on Bell Hill.
The flyer’s runners
Scrapes ice,
Sparks of fire
Flicker into the blue snow
At dusk over East Park.

(8)

Location: Kennedy Community Health Center Bus Stop on Tacoma St.

Poet: Tarique Cooper

Title: Dear Worcester

Lushious in Spring,
Valiantly dressed white at year’s end.
Grateful immigrants embraced,
safer, hopeful, new beginnings.
Connecting,
beauty and warm Worcester Pride.
Your beauty, sounds and smells delight,
with fantastic synergy,
Oh, beautiful city, continue shining;
the beating heart of the Commonwealth.

(9)

Location: Broad Meadow Brook Bus Stop

Poet: Judith Ferrara

Title: Moreland Hill

Charlie, the mason,
built a brick house
for his family,
grew vegetables for them
and the critters. “There’s enough to share.”
Charlie made a bluebird house.
They fluttered and nested.
Here’s how we remember
Charlie at our house: blue feathers
red-brown chests, bright black eyes.

(10)

Location: Friendly House Entrance

Poet: Fadi Yousef

Hamilton Hill
Where father grew his beard
On the hill
Between the churches the stoplight
Danced in winter’s chill
And the wind blew the blizzard
Down the back of the spotted dog
Where the stools in Husson’s spa
Rotated the years
That blew back
Hair of hills.

(11)

Location: Bus Stop Near Girls Inc.

Poet: Rucely Diaz

Wustah, city of mine
down by the boulevard
we rhine and dine
In the streets of commonwealth
the vines in heart of England New,
a girl of 22 spread her wings and flew.
She lived in woo, where we went through
Park Avenue
shedding tears of gratitude.

(12)

Location: Crompton Collective Bus Stop

Poet: William Sowka

Title: The Green Street Bridge

A rainy day
The Green Street Bridge
Metal worn
Rides the kids
Dripping sweating
Smoking breath A dollar please A little heft
Don’t ask why
Remember that
Chicory sprouts
From sidewalk cracks

(13)

Location: University Park Bus Stop

Poet: Tom Ewart

Title: My First Day

A jaywalking ticket
on downtown Main,
a busride ascension
to a college hill,
bridge steel striking down
a future neighbor,
my new girlfriend
descending the stairs,
the awakened pangs
of second love. – Tom Ewart

Rain Poetry: A Walk in the Woo 2022 Honorable Mentions

(1)

Poet: Gertrude Halstead

Title: [this sloping meadow]

this sloping meadow
so Worcester
its rise and fall
of rolling hills
clusters of blooming
neighborhoods
celebrating
changing seasons
buttercups
clover pinks
blackeyed susans
vetch white daisies
mustard ragweed
purple asters
poison ivy
bordering the meadow
tall trees
at dusk a deer

(2)

  Poet: Joe Fusco Jr.

Title: Trifecta

Swerving to avoid a pothole,
I run over an orange cone,
Then a cop-on-detail pulls me over and cites me for reckless driving.
I love Summer on Plantation Street in Worcester!

(3)

Poet: William Sowka

Title: Over the Seven Hills

Je vous sens dans la douce brise
à travers les feuilles
le soleil levant
la ville d’argent
trottoirs bondés
café du matin
Je vous sens
dans les nuages au-dessus
La pluie qui tombe
Le vol des oiseaux
Over the Seven Hills
Que nous avons vécu

Translation:
I feel you in the gentle breeze
Waving across the leaves
The rising sun
The silver city
Crowded sidewalks
Morning coffee
I see you
in in the clouds above
The falling rain
The flight of birds
Over the seven hills
Where we lived

(4)

Poet: Maia Campbell

Title: The Diner

I push myself through a narrow door
into a wooden booth
so old I fear the splinters.

These benches hold secrets,
and these walls, wisdom.
I, young, curious,
pry for such secrets,
though foolishly venturing
at this time of night.

The diner holds its charm.

(5)

Poet: Mary Ellen Tisdell

Title: [dismissing my mistress]

dismissing my mistress
leaving my love
I’ll be back shortly
and come with a dove
a ring to fit her beautiful hand
a lovely gift from an ugly man
you chewed me out
and kissed me again
never met a girl like Worcester
no matter where i’ve been

(6)

Poet: Tarique Cooper

Title: Out in Woosta

Hills surround,
majestic nature and storied history.
Peace and quiet on Newton,
exercise abound at Vernon.
Enlightening and free,
the joys of being.
Canal District wandering,
brightened by WooSox cheers.
Wormtown in abundance,culture, food and fancy humans.
Preeminent New England lifestyle.