The WCPA is happy to help the Thirsty Lab poetry reading go virtual for their 5th Tuesday reading. Please join a virtual Thirsty Lab on Tuesday, September 29, 2020, at 7:00 pm. Heather Macpherson will be the feature.

Register for the reading and Zoom will send you an e-mail with the meeting details and link.

Heather J. Macpherson is an essayist, educator, and PhD student at the University of Rhode Island. Her focus in Literature includes Creative Nonfiction, Essaying, and Human-Animal Relationships in Memoir and Autobiography. Her essays and poems have appeared in the Bennington Review, Doctor T.J. Eckleberg Review, 580 Split, and other fine places. Besides writing, teaching, and studying, Heather enjoys traveling and spending time with friends and family, especially her son.

Kundiman creates an affirming and rigorous space where Asian American writers can explore, through art, the unique challenges that face the new and ever-changing diaspora. They see the arts as a tool of empowerment, of education and liberation, of addressing proactively what legacy is left for future generations as individuals and as a community.

Kundiman offers a variety of educational programs and readings which have become virtual events. We’re looking forward to A Reading & Conversation with Aimee Nezhukumatathil & Ross Gay, moderated by Cathy Linh Che & Malcolm Tariq on Wednesday, September 30th. That reading will start at 6:00 pm EST and advanced registration is needed.

Visit their Facebook event for more details including a link to register.

The WCPA is happy to help the Thirsty Lab poetry reading go virtual for their 4th Tuesday reading. Please join a virtual Thirsty Lab tomorrow night (Tuesday, September 22, 2020) at 7:00 pm. Elizabeth McKim will be the feature.

Register for the reading and Zoom will send you an e-mail with the meeting details and link.

Elizabeth Gordon McKim is a poet, spoken word performance artist, editor, and teacher of poetry for people of all ages. She is the author of eight collections of poetry, and one teaching guide Beyond Words co-authored with Judith Steinbergh poet laureate of Brookline. Her poems and essays have appeared in many magazines, reviews, and journals including Ploughshares, Poetry and Drum Voices. She is the Poetry Editor of the international journal POIESIS published in Toronto Canada. Her book of poetry The Red Thread was published by Leapfrog Press edited by Marge Piercy and published by Ira Wood.

With increasing sorrow, the WCPA has decided not to hold in-person events this fall. This includes the Winners’ Reading for the Frank O’Hara Prize, the Gregory Stockmal Reading, and the rescheduled Bishop/Knight College Poetry Contest reading.

We are scheduling additional virtual poetry events during the next several months and will share them via our website when finalized.

We hope the COVID-19 situation will be better in 2021.

A fresh poetry anthology caught our attention this week. In April this year, New Hampshire Poet Laureate Alexandria Peary hosted virtual writing workshops to celebrate a very different National Poetry Month than originally planned. An outgrowth of those workshops was COVID Spring from Hobblebush Books. Fifty-four poets share their work on loss, loneliness, and love. It is a snapshot of the early days of the pandemic through the lens of poets and poetry.

Hobblebush Books will donate $2 for every copy sold to the New Hampshire Food Bank.

We stand with Black lives and express our solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. The events of the past weeks have indelibly made clear that there is systemic abuse and violence toward minority communities all across this nation by members of law enforcement and people of privilege. And at least for these times, “Silence is complicity.” I apologize and take full responsibility for the WCPA’s slow response to this critical moment for social justice in Worcester County and our country.

The WCPA does not nor has it ever supported abuse by law enforcement or other groups against any community, including Black, Indigenous & People of Color, or LGBTQIA+ people. Over the next few weeks, the WCPA Board and Executive Committee will examine whether overt or systematic racism exists within the WCPA and how to respond. We will also look more closely at how the organization can better reach into our communities to affect positive change to these same issues.

Since we are a poetry organization, I offer this link to Jericho Brown’s poem published recently on the New York Times website: ‘Say Thank You Say I’m Sorry’.

Rodger Martin, President
Worcester County Poetry Association

The Worcester Arts Council​ (WAC) has extended the Funding Priorities Survey deadline, so it now ends September 7. Your input on arts & culture in the Worcester community directly impacts how the Worcester Arts Council allocates their grant funds for projects in the city for 2021.

Please take 5 minutes to fill out the survey.

By the way, submitting the survey makes you eligible to win a set of Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 ($399 value).