Announcing the 2024 O’Hara Prize Winners!

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Announcing the 2024 O’Hara Prize Results

1st Place: Paul Szlosek with “Neither In Nor Out“

2nd Place: Claire Schaeffer Duffy with “Off the Coast in Trapani“

3rd Place: Art DuBois with “Senses“

Honorable Mention: Matt Zingg with “Maturity“

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 Dennis Barone for his thoughtful consideration!

and a heartfelt Congratulations to our 2024 O’Hara Prize Winners!

We hope to see everyone at the O’Hara reading in September.

Rain Poets on the Radio!

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Up next, another 33 and a 1/3rd Drop

The Drop offers a platform for sharing short segments of up to three minutes, 33 seconds or less on any secular and non-partisan topic of your choice. Your story, poem, or info tip can reach a wide audience. Drops are made available to on-air programmers to feature at their choosing. Join us in creating impactful mini-podcasts!

Why label these modules/mini-podcasts(?) “Up next, another 33 and a 3rd Drop?”

The title recognizes some key elements of playing recorded music from the not-so-distant past, the LP spinning at 33 and a 3rd, a 45 single coming in near 3 minutes 33 seconds and lastly, to play a LP you must “drop” the needle in the groove, “Up next, another 33 and a 3rd Drop” just works for setting the segment apart.

The Drops are made available to the programmer to use or not. They can be a helpful tool for the programmer who is trying to shift gears in a program. The shorter the segment, the more likely it’ll be featured. Each segment will be archived on WCUW with your accompanying info sheet that can be easily accessed by all on-air programmers.

Creators of Drops are encouraged to be members of WCUW and if needed, our studios are available for creating your Drops. Only secular and non-politically oriented Drops will be considered. The Drops must be FCC compliant.

The WCPA Online Bookstore is now live

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The Worcester County Poetry Association now has its own bookstore!

The Worcester County Poetry Association has set up our own bookstore at bookshop.org. Many non-profits, organizations, and individual writers have taken advantage of bookshop.org, which allows organizations to create branded versions of their platform to highlight local authors and poets, and now we’re excited to do the same.

We’ve started with a few books from our board members and look forward to growing this collection, starting with our members. As a new perk for all WCPA members, we would love to list your books in our bookstore.

Current WCPA members: Please use the form below to send us a link to your book. We’ll be sure to include it in the bookstore and help promote it. To ensure

  • The easiest way to list your book is to send us a link to the listing itself on bookshop.org. Go to their website, search for your book, and send us the link to that page.
  • If your book is not listed on bookshop.org, that’s okay! Please send us the ISBN number for your book, and we can load your book on to our shop that way.
  • I don’t have an ISBN! If you’re self-published and don’t have a listing on any websites or an ISBN, we likely won’t be able to help, but it doesn’t mean we can’t help promote your book in other ways. Please send us the title of your book and a link to your personal website or another source we can help promote, and we’ll see what we can do. We could also provide some instructions to help you obtain an ISBN if you would like, which may help promote your work elsewhere online.

Every purchase from our bookalso contributes a small amount to the WCPA, supporting our overall effort to promote poetry in Worcester County and our many programs.

If you’re not a member, please consider becoming a WCPA member today or purchasing one of the books from our new bookstore. We’d love to have you join us.

Elizabeth Bishop Graveside Reading: Valentines

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At our annual birthday bash at Elizabeth Bishop’s grave in Hope Cemetery, local poets will read aloud her sardonic valentines and tender, poignant love poems, mostly unpublished during her lifetime. Readers include Elizabeth Bacon, Clair Degutis, Judith Ferrara, Claire Mowbray Golding, Kate Gregoire, John Hodgen, Irena Kaçi, Evan Plante, Eve Rifkah, Susan Rooney-O’Brien, Susan Elizabeth Sweeney — and Bishop herself! Refreshments will include birthday cake.

To get there, enter the cemetery’s main gate and continue on Curtis Avenue. Take your fourth left onto Beech Street (after Elm, Larch, and Bush), proceed for one block, and park. Bishop’s grave is behind the nearest tree on the left side of the road.

This event is sponsored by Mapping Worcester in Poetry. If you have any questions or wish to read a poem, please contact Kate or Beth. Until then, join us in pondering the “conundrum Love propounds” (Bishop, “Three Valentines”).

February 7th 10am

E.Bishop Grave at Hope Cemetery 119 Webster St.
Worcester, MA 01603

Walk In The Woo: 2023 Winners & Reading

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PO Box 804, Worcester, MA

01613

worcestercountypoetry.org

wcpaboard@yahoo.com 

508-797-4770

Announcing the WCPA Rain Poems: “A Walk in the Woo 2023”

 

The Worcester County Poetry Association is pleased to announce that the thirteen poems selected from their 2023 Call for Poems: “A Walk in the Woo” have been successfully painted around the city of Worcester. A team of volunteers and many of the poets themselves came together September 30th and October 1st, 2023 to prepare stencils and paint the poems around the city. A map of the poems’ locations and the poems themselves can be read at worcestercountypoetry.org/a-walk-in-the-woo/. Be sure to check out these poems whenever it rains and please save the date for our Rain Poems 2023 poetry reading open to the public on Sunday, February 26th at the JMAC PopUp at 20 Franklin St. from 2-4pm. 

 

2023 Rain Poets, in no particular order

Evan Plante with “Staying Power”

Gertrude Malesi with “[Hatua za Wwenyeji]” (Swahili for “A gait that belongs”)

Jan Davini with “[The city beats in my heart]” 

Aidan Brueckner with “Phantom Limb Syndrome”

Mark Wagner with “Flying Out of Worcester”

Laura DiCaronimo with “Hot Drops”

Chloe Mascitelli with “[The world feels lightest in Worcester]”

John Zywar with “Indian Lake”

Daniel Gregoire with “Worcester Time”

Lisa Knight with “Rain Magic”

Paul Szlosek with “[When Worcester was Worchester]”

David Ginsburg with “Forever Worcester”

Emily Haley with “History”

 

2023 Rain Poetry Honorable Mentions

John Zywar with “Interlude”

David Ginsburg with “Footsteps”

 

This years’ judges included Oliver de la Paz, Poet Laureate, City of Worcester; Vanessa Gonzalez-Oyola, Clemente Alumnus; Natalia Botero, Clark Student, and Katherine Gregoire, WCPA Board Member.

 

The poems were painted using Rainworks invisible spray, a paint that is only visible when wet. Keep an eye on the weather forecast and check out these poems when the rain begins to fall. The paint will begin to fade in a few months. This is the third year of the WCPA’s Rain Poetry Project. 

About the Worcester County Poetry Association 

The Worcester County Poetry Association (WCPA) was founded in 1971 with a threefold mission: celebrate the  rich literary history and creative energy of Central Massachusetts through public readings, workshops, festivals,  scholarly conferences, and other programs; support the publication of the literary journal, The Worcester  Review; and collaborate with libraries, bookstores, colleges and universities, museums, churches, schools,  community centers, businesses and a variety of cultural organizations to promote poetry events. The WCPA is  an all-volunteer 501(c)(3) nonprofit. 

Not for Publication: 

For more information, contact Kate Gregoire, contest chairperson, katheanderson@gmail.com 

 

 

Sponsored by:

 

 

DAN LEWIS FELLOWSHIP LAUNCHING TODAY

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The WCPA is proud to announce  THE Dan Lewis FELLOWSHIP

 

Manifesto
by Dan Lewis
This is exactly what I mean. In the middle
of the half-acre dump, piled with broken bricks, old tires,
and the street sweeper’s waste, two bright sunflowers
stand beatified in the slant light of morning.
We must over and over again bear witness
to the wonder of this world. After the bone-rich
ash is shoveled from the ovens, after the scarred witnesses
have told their terrible tales, after the weapons have been gathered
and burned, someone must still have voice to sing. This
is the only ground we have to stand on, this
scorched and defiled garden. It is here we must raise
the cry until our throats tear with the fierce hymn of praise.

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

Rain Poetry 2023 Contest Winners

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The Worcester County Poetry Association is pleased to announce the 2023 Rain Poets and their poems!

2023 Rain Poets, in no particular order:

  • Evan Plante with “Staying Power”
  • Gertrude Malesi with “[Hatua za Wwenyeji]” (Swahili for “A gait that belongs”)
  • Jan Davini with “[The city beats in my heart]”
  • Aidan Brueckner with “Phantom Limb Syndrome”
  • Mark Wagner with “Flying Out of Worcester”
  • Laura DiCaronimo with “Hot Drops”
  • Chloe Mascitelli with “[The world feels lightest in Worcester]”
  • John Zywar with “Indian Lake”
  • Daniel Gregoire with “Worcester Time”
  • Lisa Knight with “Rain Magic”
  • Paul Szlosek with “[When Worcester was Worchester]”
  • David Ginsburg with “Forever Worcester”
  • Emily Haley with “History”
  • 2023 Rain Poetry Honorable Mentions
  • John Zywar with “Interlude”
  • David Ginsburg with “Footsteps”

The selected poems will be painted around the City of Worcester in September 2023 on the sidewalks, primarily at bus stops distributed equitably throughout the city’s districts. The poems will be painted using Rainworks invisible spray, a paint that is only visible when the sidewalks are wet. This year’s locations will be posted on our website, on Facebook, and our Instagram account, so please consult these resources when organizing your rainy-day scavenger hunt to try to visit all thirteen before the sun dries the pavement.

We encouraged submissions from poets of all ages, walks of life, and in any language, that spoke to the poets’ experience of Worcester. The poems were selected in blind readings by a panel of judges that included Worcester Poet Laureate Oliver de la Paz, WCPA Board Member Katherine Gregoire, Clemente Graduate Vanessa Gonzalez-Oyola, 2021 Rain Poet Brett Iarrobino, and Clark Student Nati Botero. The 2023 Rain Poets will be invited to read their poems at a ceremony open to the public later in the fall.

About the Worcester County Poetry Association 

The Worcester County Poetry Association (WCPA) was founded in 1971 with a threefold mission: celebrate the rich literary history and creative energy of Central Massachusetts through public readings, workshops, festivals,  scholarly conferences, and other programs; support the publication of the literary journal, The Worcester  Review; and collaborate with libraries, bookstores, colleges and universities, museums, churches, schools,  community centers, businesses and a variety of cultural organizations to promote poetry events. The WCPA is an all-volunteer 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

For more information, contact Kate Gregoire, contest chairperson