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

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.