Hot off the presses: Paul Szlosek Chosen for 2023 Stanley Kunitz Medal!

Long admired as the inventor of poetry forms and champion of obscure ones, Worcester poet Paul Szlosek has been selected as the 2023 Stanley Kunitz Medal recipient.

The Stanley Kunitz Medal originated with a bequest to the Worcester County Poetry Association from the estate of former Poet Laureate of the United States and Worcester native Stanley Kunitz (1905-2006). Szlosek’s will be the ninth recipient of the medal, which is bestowed annually on a poet with a strong Worcester County connection who best exemplifies Kunitz’s lifelong commitment to poetry by teaching poetry, mentoring poets, speaking poetry, publishing poetry, and supporting organizations which nurture poetry.

PAUL SZLOSEK is a poet with extraordinary gifts who began writing poetry around 1967 at the age of five. His mother Pauline collected his poems in a small booklet entitled “Paul’s Poet Tree.” These beginning efforts have been nourished for decades, as he matured into one of the most influential poets in Worcester County. His poems have been featured in regional, national, and international print and online journals and anthologies. Paul’s poetry has been recognized with numerous awards and honorable mentions, including the Jacob Knight Award for Poetry in 2001. Paul served on the board of the Worcester County Poetry Association for over a decade, where he was co-chair of the committee which created the WCPA’s occasional publication, The Issue – he was also its very first editor.

He is well-known in the Worcester poetry community as a fanatical practitioner and promoter of obscure poetry forms, as well as the creator of his own forms, such as the streetbeatina, the sing-sang song, and the ziggurat, all of which he shares with his readers on his blog, Paul’s Poetry Playground. A tradition he began during his First Night Worcester program in association with the WCPA combined poetry, magic, and mathematics, after which he organized and edited dozens of group poems. He has also conducted over two dozen in-depth interviews with poets (local, national, and international) that appear in his monthly online poetry journal, which he compiled and edited in the form of transcripts of imaginary poetry readings called “The International Imaginarium For Word Verse” (formerly known as “The Virtual Poetorium”).

He is a frequent workshop leader and participant and visiting poet, not only at schools such as the Floral Street School in Shrewsbury, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and Worcester State University, but at the Peabody Essex Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Worcester Art Museum. As a co-founder and host of the Poets Parlor and Poetorium at Starlite reading and open mic series, Paul continues to inspire countless poets to engage in the magic of poetry.

Also honored with nominations this year were poets Rodger Martin and Sharon A. Harmon. Paul Szlosek will receive his medal at a ceremony presented by the Worcester County Poetry Association at the Worcester Historical Museum on Thursday, July 27 th from 6:30-8:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. There is limited parking at the museum, with additional parking on the street and in the Pearl/Elm Street Garage. Visit worcestercountypoetry.org for details.

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.