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The Art of Business – GWCF and Mass MoCA collaboration

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Individual artists are essential to a vibrant, thriving arts ecosystem! That’s why the Greater Worcester Community Foundation (GWCF) is partnering with MASS MoCA’s Assets for Artists to offer The Business of Art, a 6-month, entrepreneurial program for Worcester artists of color and artists or those who identify as low to moderate-income.

The program is part of the Creative Worcester Initiative, and the deadline to apply is October 18, 2021. For details and eligibility: https://www.greaterworcester.org/Grants/Grant-Opportunities/The-Business-of-Art.

“A Walk in the Woo” Update

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Earlier this year we solicited short poems for a special public poetry project across Worcester which we called “A Walk in the Woo”. Over the past two weeks, a few volunteers painted stencils of the thirteen selected poems near bus stops (see the locations). What makes this public art project extra special is that the installed poems will only be visible when they get wet.

You don’t need to wait for the next rainy day to read the great work though. Visit the A Walk in the Woo page on our website.

Special thanks to our judges – Juan Matos, Poet Laureate, City of Worcester; Walter Molina, Clemente Alumnus; Elizabeth Bacon, Coordinator of Clemente Course in the Humanities; and Katherine Gregiore, WCPA Board Member.

Take the WCPA Community Survey

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The Worcester County Poetry Association is turning 50! As part of our 50-year celebration, we’re reaching out to our members and the community to collect information about what we’re doing well, where we could use some improvement, and how you’d like us to expand and change so we thrive for another 50 years!

This survey will take between 5-10 minutes to complete. We encourage you to be open and honest with us, so we can learn and grow. All of your answers will be held in complete confidence. The only person who will see the answers is our consultant, who will share the answers – without names — with the WCPA board in a summary format.  The survey closes on Friday, October 22, 2021.

Visit https://bit.ly/WCPA-survey to get started.

The WCPA is partnering with Sarah B. Lange on this process.

Clemente Worcester Viewing Party and Fundraiser

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The Clemente Course in the Humanities is an award-winning college-level seminar for highly motivated low-income adults seeking to build better lives for themselves, their families, and their communities.

Clemente Worcester is 10% short of the money it needs to support its class of 2022.  To raise awareness and funds to support our program, we will be holding a virtual watch party of the award-winning documentary, A Reckoning in Boston, on Sunday, October 3 any time between 4 and 8 pm.

Please consider supporting this empowering program by joining their Viewing Party, and, if you are able, make a financial contribution.  Additional details can be found at https://www.clementeworcester.com/support/.

The WCPA proudly serves as the fiscal agent for Clemente Worcester.

Join us on Sunday, September 26, 2021, for the Winners’ Reading for the 2021 Frank O’Hara Prize

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Join the winners of the WCPA’s 2021 Annual Poetry Contest: The Frank O’Hara Prize for a reading of their work and the work of contest judge, Pam Bernard. There will be an opportunity to mingle over refreshments as well.  The reading will start at 3:00 pm US/Eastern.

Our 2021 Winners’ Reading will be held virtually via Zoom. Visit the Zoom registration link to receive information on how to join the reading. Zoom will send you an e-mail with the meeting details and a link to join.

This year’s winners include First Prize – Dean Gessie, Second Prize – Rhett Watts, Third Prize – Tom Driscoll, and Honorable Mentions – Therese Gleason Carr, Jennifer Freed, and Joyce Schmid. Contest Chairperson, Bob Gill, will moderate the ceremony.

Contest judge Pam Bernard is a poet, painter, editor, and adjunct professor who received her MFA in Creative Writing from the Graduate Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College and BA from Harvard University. Her awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, two Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowships, and the Grolier and the Pablo Neruda Prizes in Poetry. She has published four books: three full-length collections of poetry, and most recently a verse novel entitled Esther, published by CavanKerry Press. Ms. Bernard lives in Walpole, New Hampshire.

Please join us for what is always a fun, and inspiring, event.

Judges choose winners for rain poetry’s “Walk in the Woo.”

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Rain poetry judges Juan Matos, Elizabeth Bacon, Katherine Gregiore, and Walter Molina have selected thirteen poems and seven honorable mentions as part of the WCPA’s 50th Anniversary celebration and community outreach.  Each of the thirteen winning poems will be stenciled onto a sidewalk at a Worcester bus stop.  All are posted in the “Program” section under “Walk in the Woo.” along with names and further details.

Announcing the Winners of the 2021 WCPA Poetry Contest: The Frank O’Hara Prize

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2021 contest winner Dean Gessie

The Worcester County Poetry Association (WCPA) is pleased to announce that Dean Gessie of Midland, Ontario, Canada, has won this year’s WCPA Poetry Contest: The Frank O’Hara Prize. His poem “Diary of a Dead Eel Boy” was selected by contest judge Pam Bernard from the 191 poems submitted by 69 entrants.

Dean Gessie is a widely acclaimed author and poet who has won or placed in more than 80 international competitions. Gessie won the Enizagam International Poetry Contest in California and he was selected for inclusion by Black Mountain Press in both The Sixty-Four Best Poets of 2018 and 2019. In England, Gessie was shortlisted for the Anthology Poetry Award and the Latin Program Poetry Prize, and in Ireland, for the Fish International Poetry Contest. He was a finalist for the Seán Ó Faoláin Short Story Prize. He also won Third Prize in the Hungry Hill Writing Poets Meet Politics Competition. His short stories and poetry have appeared in numerous anthologies around the world. He has also published three novellas with Anaphora Literary Press: Guantanamo Redux; A Brief History of Summer Employment; and TrumpeterVille.

Additional winners:
Second Place – Rhett Watts of Auburn, MA for “Blues for Betty”
Third Place – Tom Driscoll of Framingham, MA for “This isn’t the first time”
Honorable Mention – Therese Gleason Carr of Worcester, MA for “Pee Wee Valley Kentucky: 1965”
Honorable Mention – Jennifer Freed of Holden, MA for “The Others”
Honorable Mention – Joyce Schmid of Palo Alto, CA for “Returning to Where I Grew Up”

The winning poems will be published in the next edition of The Worcester Review, the nationally recognized journal of the WCPA. The winners also receive a cash award. The WCPA will invite all the winners to read their work at the Winners’ Ceremony and Reading on Sunday, September 26, 2021, at 3:00 p.m.  The Winners’ Reading will be held at the First Unitarian Church, 90 Main Street, Worcester.  We hope that contest judge Pam Bernard will also be able to join us.

Contest judge Pam Bernard is a poet, painter, editor, and adjunct professor who received her MFA in Creative Writing from the Graduate Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College and BA from Harvard University.  Her awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, two Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowships, and the Grolier and the Pablo Neruda Prizes in Poetry.  She has published four books: three full-length collections of poetry, and most recently a verse novel entitled Esther, published by CavanKerry Press.  Ms. Bernard lives in Walpole, New Hampshire.

The contest, which was established in 1973, was renamed the Frank O’Hara Prize in 2009 and continues to be generously supported as a tribute to the late poet Frank O’Hara by the O’Hara family.

Announcing the 2021 Recipient of the WCPA’s Stanley Kunitz Medal

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Worcester, Mass., poet, editor and teacher Eve Rifkah has been chosen to receive the 2021 Stanley Kunitz Medal awarded through a bequest from two-time Poet Laureate of The United States and Pulitzer Prize winning poet and Worcester native Stanley Kunitz.The medal, awarded annually since 2015, is the seventh awarded to a person with a strong Worcester County (Mass.) connection who best exemplifies Stanley Kunitz’s (born in Worcester in 1905) life-long commitment to poetry and poets. The award recognizes the total commitment to poetry as Kunitz lived it: Teaching poetry, mentoring poets, speaking poetry, publishing poetry, and supporting organizations which nurture poetry.
Poet and publisher of Tupelo Press Jeffrey Levine said of Rifkah’s poetry in Dear Suzanne, “[She] achieves what may be one of the contemporary artist’s most difficult purposes—to deliver moments of affirmation amid a tide of loss. In the doing, her lines come to us both in time and out of time, as with a nod to Virginia Wolf….”

RIFKAH co-founded Poetry Oasis, Inc. (1998-2012), a non-profit poetry association dedicated to education and promoting local poets. She was the founder and editor of Diner, a literary magazine and earned her MFA from Vermont College. She also teaches poetry with the WISE program at Assumption University.

Rifkah is the author of Dear Suzanne (WordTech Communications, 2010) and Outcasts: The Penikese Island Leper Hospital 1905-1921 (Little Pear Press 2010). Her next book Lost in Sight, will be coming out in 2021 from Silver Bow Publishing. Rifkah has published two chapbooks: Scar Tissue (Finishing Line Press, 2017), and At the Leprosarium, 2003 winner of the Revelever Chapbook Contest. Her single poems, flash fiction stories and essays have appeared in many journals.

Eve Rifkah will receive her medal at an event presented by the Worcester County Poetry Association at the Worcester Historical Museum on Thursday, August 19, 2021 at 6:30 p.m.

Please note:  Because the event is indoors, and the Covid-Delta variant is still about, masks will be required. 

Broadside – 2021 Kunitz Medal honoring Eve RifkahDownload
Press Release – 2021 Kunitz MedalDownload

Action Plan

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April 19, 2021: In response to an ill-considered, offensive, and disrespectful public engagement on social media by a member of our board on April 16, 2021, the Worcester County Poetry Association is embarking on a strategic pause in programs and activities to begin our crucial work in developing a diversity, equity, and inclusion action plan. We can, and must, do better in engaging, including, promoting, and amplifying the voices of all members of our diverse community, particularly BIPOC, as creatives, collaborators, and audiences.

The WCPA Board has voted to immediately pause our programming for a minimum of three months so that we can reevaluate our practices, policies, and programs in a sustained and meaningful way. The WCPA intends to embark on a path of exploration to identify how to build the core values of diversity, equity, and inclusion into all our activities, as well as how to model those values as we advance our mission. We will be engaging in a professional evaluation by a third-party consultant experienced in assessing and facilitating diversity, equity, and inclusion plans to better engage diverse creatives in our programming, membership, and leadership.

We look forward to engaging in further discussions about combating inequity and building community through poetry. Please stay tuned for more information about concrete steps we will take in this effort, which will be ongoing and extend beyond this pause. We will communicate actions for which we will be transparent and accountable as an organization as they are developed during our evaluation process. Thank you again for your passion for poetry, your past service to the WCPA, and your commitment to making Worcester an inclusive and welcoming space for all.

2021 College Contest Results

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Congratulations to the winners of the WCPA’s 2021 College Poetry Contest: the Elizabeth Bishop Manuscript Prize and the Etheridge Knight Performance Prize.

Christopher McClure of Anna Maria College and North Grosvenordale, CT won the Elizabeth Bishop Manuscript Prize for “All I Do is Wait” Christopher’s poem will be published in an upcoming volume of The Worcester Review, the WCPA’s print journal.

The winner of the Etheridge Knight Performance Prize is Isabella Sampino of the College of the Holy Cross and Bay Shore, NY.

Kat Gatto of Assumption University and Webster, MA received an Honorable Mention in the Manuscript Prize for “Where I Am” and an additional Honorable Mention in the Performance Prize.

McClure, Sampino, and Gatto were joined by finalist Marina Petrillo of WPI and Worcester, MA.

Many thanks to our contest judges, Nicole DiCello and Susan Roney-O’Brien. The 2021 College Contest was organized by Craig Blaise of Anna Maria College.

Gather in Poems on Tuesday, April 13

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Join organizer and host Eve Rifkah for a virtual poetry reading on Tuesday, April 13, 2021, at 7:00 pm. In this time of pandemic, poets lack a regular forum for performing, and we lack the ability on our parts to see/hear what poets are writing.

In the virtual reading, each poet will read one poem of his/her own and one of another Worcester area or Worcester connected poet. The reading will be aired live and recorded and available through the WCPA archive to preserve our voices and a link that will have the poems read in print.

Registration is needed to join the event. Visit the Zoom registration link and fill in the form. A meeting link will be e-mailed to you.

This program is supported in part by a grant from the Worcester Arts Council, a local agency, which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.

Zoom into Poetry with Charles Coe – tomorrow!

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The next Zoom into Poetry virtual reading will take place on Sunday, April 11, 2021, at 7:00 pm.  Host Christopher Reilley welcomes Charles Coe to our virtual stage.  Register via Zoom to join the virtual audience or view the reading on Facebook Live.

Charles Coe is the author of three books of poetry: All Sins Forgiven: Poems for my Parents, Picnic on the Moon, and Memento Mori, all published by Leapfrog Press. He is also the author of Spin Cycles, a novella published by Gemma Media. Charles was selected as a Boston Literary Light by the Associates of the Boston Public Library and is a former artist fellow at the St. Botolph Club in Boston and a current artist-in-residence at the Manship House in Gloucester.

Join us Saturday for the College Poetry Contest

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Join us on Saturday, April 10, 2021, at noon for the WCPA College Poetry Contest where we will award the Elizabeth Manuscript Prize and the Etheridge Knight Performance Prize.  In its thirteenth year, area colleges send representatives to compete for bragging rights, complimentary membership in the WCPA, and the publication of a poem by the manuscript winner in The Worcester Review.

We are excited to hear the poetry of Kat Gatto (Assumption College) and Marina Petrillo (Worcester Polytechnic Institute) with additional readings by this year’s judges (Susan Roney-O’Brien and Nicole DiCello) and the contest chair (Craig Blais).

Registration is needed to join the event. Visit the Zoom registration link and fill in the form. A meeting link will be e-mailed to you.

Join our e-mail list (and help wanted)!

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One of the challenges of the past year is keeping connected with our members.  Our traditional method of sending periodic postal mailings with a few flyers became near-impossible with social distancing.  As a volunteer organization, we also struggle with burdening any one person with the effort needed to create flyers, make sufficient copies, collate, fold, seal, and organize a bulk mailing.

So we’ve created an e-mail mailing list that we’ll use to send out periodic updates on events and happenings of poetic interest.  You can join it today by filling in the short form below.

The fine print – we will never share the information you share with us with others. We may, on rare occasions, use the mailing list to cross-promote an event by another organization.

Help Wanted – if you are interested in helping to promote poetry in central Massachusetts, and are comfortable with Facebook, Twitter, and websites, then we’d love to chat with you.  Coordinating postings on our website and Facebook takes a bit of work.  Adding a mailing list is a new wrinkle, and an extra hand would help spread the burden.  Drop an e-mail wcpaboard at yahoo dot com if you are interested in chatting.

Here’s the e-mail mail list sign-up form.

 

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Reminder – submissions are open for our annual poetry contest!

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Submissions for the our Annual Poetry Contest: The Frank O’Hara Prize are open through Friday, April 30, 2021. The contest is open to all members, Worcester County residents and students, and employees of Worcester County businesses. Winning poems are published in The Worcester Review, and the poets are honored with a winners’ reading.

Winners are notified in June and a Winners’ Reading is held each September.

For 2021 our contest judge is Pam Bernard, an adjunct professor of writing at Franklin Pierce University.

Contest rules and submission details can be found on the 2021 Annual Contest Submission Guidelines page.

Online submissions are powered by Submittable – https://theworcesterreview.submittable.com/submit.

submit

25 Years of National Poetry Month

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Launched by the Academy of American Poets in April 1996, National Poetry Month reminds the public that poets have an integral role to play in our culture and that poetry matters.  That’s half the time the WCPA has existed but it’s still a pretty awesome anniversary! 🙂

All teasing aside, here are some ways you can celebrate National Poetry Month.

 

Tonight – a virtual Thirsty Lab with Francine Sterle

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Join the WCPA tonight for the (sorta) rare 5th Tuesday Thirsty Lab.  You can register via Zoom or join us on the WCPA’s Facebook page and view the program on Facebook Live.

Register for Zoom at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwscO2vrj4qHty22fKA-grIzouMUgMLohX5.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A native of northern Minnesota, Francine Sterle has an MFA in poetry from Warren Wilson College and has furthered her studies in a variety of settings, including Oxford University, Oxford, England, the Spoleto Writers’ Workshop in Spoleto, Italy, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, and the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Her awards include multiple Pushcart Prize nominations, a Loft-McKnight Foundation Award, a Jerome Foundation Travel, and Study Grant, a Lake Superior Contemporary Writers Award, residencies at the Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, the Leighton Studios at the Banff Centre for the Arts, the Blacklock Nature Sanctuary, a Career Initiative Grant from the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council as well as both a Fellowship Grant and a Career Opportunity Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. Her poems have been published widely in such literary journals as The North American Review, Ploughshares, Poetry International, Nimrod and have been anthologized in To Sing Along the Way: Minnesota Women Poets from Pre-territorial Days to the Present, 33 Minnesota Poets, The Cancer Poetry Project, and Broad Wings, Long Legs: A Rookery of Heron Poems, forthcoming in 2022. Her poetry collections include The White Bridge (Poetry Harbor, 1999), Every Bird is One Bird (Editor’s Prize, Tupelo Press, 2001), Nude in Winter (Tupelo Press, 2006), and What Thread? (David Martinson-Meadowhawk Prize, Red Dragonfly Press, 2015).

Princeton Women’s Reading – 3/24/2021

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The annual Princeton Women’s Reading moves online this year and is taking place tomorrow night (3/24/2021) at 7:00 pm via Zoom. We know it can be difficult for folks to find the link to register so here it is – https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYtce2srzMuH9FJ8Rr25HNJ9ILSglhlt8B4.

The following poets are scheduled to read – Pam Bernard, Polly Brown, Therese Carr, Devon Evans, Kathleen Fagley, Rushelle Frazier, Jennifer Freed, Joyce Heon, Emily Judkins, Maura MacNeil, Cheryl Perreault, Catherine Reed, Eve Rifkah, Susan Roney-O’Brien, Francis Sterle, Nancy Strong, Beth Sweeney, Rhett Watts, and Kate Zebrowski.

Coming up this week

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It’s a busy week in the world of virtual poetry readings with three events for you to join if you so desire.

Tonight, 3/21 @ 7:00 pm – Zoom into Poetry with Karen Friedland
Tuesday, 3/23 @ 7:00 pm – A virtual Thirsty Lab with Curt Curtin
Wednesday, 3/24 @ 7:00 pm – Princeton Women’s Reading

Registration via Zoom is needed to join the actual events; you’ll find a link in each calendar event.

Sisters Outsider: Black Women Creating Poetry – tonight!

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Reminder – join the Worcester Black History Project, Worcester Historical Museum, and the WCPA tonight at 7:00 pm for Sisters Outsider: Black Women Creating Poetry. Moderators Tina Gaffney and Lydia Fortune will host Worcester poets Rush Frazier, the Reverend Dr. Catherine Reed, Xaulanda Thorpe, Zoe Vilicic, and Ashley Wonder.

Register via Zoom to join us live; details are in the calendar event.

Broadsided Press

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Our featured reader from our last Zoom into Poetry session, Jeff Walt, shared a fascinating website with us – Broadsided Press @ https://broadsidedpress.org.

Broadsided Press connects poets and visual artists in the creation of the beloved broadside. The WCPA has a long history of creating broadsides and you can find digital versions of some of them in our Broadside Archive.

What’s interesting about Broadsided Press is that they create a collaboration between art forms and then make the result available via their website for anyone to distribute.

Take a look at the broadside created for Jeff Walt’s poem, “After the Fight” at https://broadsidedpress.org/broadsides/after-a-fight/. And let us know if you have a favorite broadside.

Ethridge Knight, 1931-1991

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Etheridge Knight, who we honor each year with The Ethridge Knight Performance Prize as part of our annual College Poetry Contest, died on this day in 1991 of lung cancer.

Born in 1931 in Mississippi, he saw active duty in the Korean War. While serving an eight-year prison term in the Indiana State Prison, Knight wrote poetry. In 1968 Knight saw his first book published, Poems from Prison (Broadside Press). Knight entered into a successful period during the early 1970s, enjoying Popularity and recognition. He led Free People’s Poetry Workshops, gave numerous readings, and was a poet in residence at the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Hartford, and Lincoln University. His critical acclaim included a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (1972) and a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation (1974). In 1980, Knight published Born of a Woman and received a second National Endowment for the Arts grant. In 1986 he published The Essential Etheridge Knight.

After making Fran Quinn’s acquaintance at the Great Mother Conference, he began giving readings in Worcester regularly and eventually moved to Worcester. While Knight lived in Worcester, he continued the Free People’s Poetry Workshop in area bars. Knight explained that if someone reads poetry and can stop a drunk man with a bladder full of beer on his way to the bathroom, you know it is a good poem.

Join us (virtually) on Saturday, April 10, 2021, for our annual College Contest Reading. Details can be found on the event listing.

 

Reminder – submissions are open for our annual poetry contest!

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Submissions for the WCPA’s Annual Poetry Contest: The Frank O’Hara Prize are open through Friday, April 30, 2021. For 2021 our contest judge is Pam Bernard, an adjunct professor of writing at Franklin Pierce University.

Contest rules and submission details can be found on the 2021 Annual Contest Submission Guidelines page.

Online submissions are powered by Submittable – https://theworcesterreview.submittable.com/submit.

submit

Zoom Into Poetry with Jennifer Martelli

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Join us tomorrow, Sunday, March 7, 2021, for Zoom Into Poetry with Jennifer Martelli. visit this Zoom registration link, fill out the form, and Zoom will send you an e-mail link.  The reading starts at 7:00 pm.

Jennifer Martelli is the author of “My Tarantella” (Bordighera Press) and “The Uncanny Valley” (Big Table Publishing Company), as well as the chapbook “After Bird” from Grey Book Press. Her work has appeared in The Aeolian Harp Anthology, The Superstition Review, The Bitter Oleander, Thrush, Carve, Glass Poetry Journal, The Heavy Feather Review, and Tinderbox Poetry Journal. Jennifer Martelli is the recipient of the Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant in Poetry. She is a poetry editor at The Mom Egg Review.

Recapping the 2021 Annual Meeting

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Thanks to everyone who joined our Annual Meeting today. Despite being all virtual we had genuine engagement and discussion. Tim Mayo shared a wonderful reading of his poetry.

Please join me in thanking long-time board member Jim Cocola for his commitment to the WCPA over the past decade. Newer board members Irena Kaci and Lyndsey Uvanitte are also stepping down. We thank all of them for their service.

The following individuals were voted to serve on the WCPA board for 2021-2022. Their first meeting as a board will be on Wednesday, March 10, 2021.

Elizabeth Bacon
Robin Boucher
Therese Carr
Nicole DiCello
Joe Fusco Jr.
Robert Gill – Treasurer
Kate Gregoire
Johnhaynes Honeycutt
Carle Johnson
Jay Lavelle
Sam Lalos
Ann Marie Lucci
Rodger Martin – President
Kate McIntyre – Editor, The Worcester Review
Laura Jehn Menides
Carolyn Oliver
Christopher Reilley – VP, Programming
Susan Roney-O’Brien
Karen Sharpe
Robert Steele
Linda Warren – Treasurer

Quote of the Day

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Sonia Sanchez is an American poet, writer, and professor. She was a leading figure in the Black Arts Movement and has authored over a dozen books of poetry. The Black Arts Movement was an African American-led art movement, active during the 1960s and 1970s. Through activism and art, it created new cultural institutions and conveyed a message of black pride.

Corrine Bostic

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Corrine Bostic served on the Worcester County Poetry Association’s founding executive committee at its creation in 1971. She served as its vice president from 1972 to 1973, on The Worcester Review editorial board, and as a board member until she died in 1981.

A poet and playwright, Corrine contributed to Worcester’s culture through her books, teaching, public appearances, and readings. In her book of poetry, “Requiem for Bluesville,” she states her obligation as a Black poet to “pour out / The lamentations of my people.”

She also edited an anthology of work by local writers, Messages in Black, which contained what are considered two of her best poems, “These Riotous Days” and “Ballad for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr..” Additional publications include The Horns of Freedom, Other Places, Other Faces, and Go Onward and Upward.

Corrine was born on March 28, 1927, in Providence and had seven siblings. She served in the Army Medical Corps during the Korean War. In 1953 Bostic moved to Worcester to attend Worcester Junior College. She later graduated from Clark University. The Corrine Bostic Memorial Scholarship from Worcester State University is awarded annually in her honor.

Zoom into Poetry this Sunday, February 14, 2021

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Join us this Sunday, February 14, 2021, at 3:00 pm for our next Zoom into Poetry virtual reading. This month we welcome western Massachusetts poet Dane Kuttler. Dane Kuttler has been writing heretical prayers since 2016. She gives a darn good reading and loves zoom.

This is a free event, however, registration is required. You can register at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUkd-ygrT8rG9ZrObGi1q1TCwTJLdTg5Wev

Please join us.

 

New YouTube video – Celebrating Pat Fargnoli

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The WCPA has added a new video to our YouTube channel.  Today we share an edited recording of “Celebrating Pat Fargnoli”, a virtual poetry reading that took place on Sunday, January 24, 2021.

As with all WCPA activities we rely upon volunteers to create our content. We couldn’t share these videos, have updates to our website, or continue to hold virtual poetry readings without dedicated individuals. If you have a talent you would like to share with the WCPA or poetry lovers of central Massachusetts please e-mail wcpaboard@yahoo.com.

Clemente Worcester students part of anthology

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The WCPA serves as the fiscal agent for the Worcester Clemente Course in the Humanities, an award-winning college-level seminar for highly motivated low-income adults seeking to build better lives for themselves, their families, and their communities. Last summer, in the midst of the chaos created by COVID-19, Clemente pivoted to an online writing program.

The Worcester Telegram & Gazette recently published an article on an anthology that came out of the experience for Clemente Worcester, and other Clemente courses in Massachusetts. Give the article a read and consider picking up a copy of the anthology (you can get it through the Harvard Book Store.)

You can read the article at https://www.telegram.com/story/lifestyle/2021/01/24/clemente-students-offer-vision-nation-we-too-america/4159514001/.

New YouTube video – Jamie Samdahl @ the Thirsty Lab

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Our video editing volunteer has delivered another recording to our YouTube channel for your enjoyment.  Today we are pleased to share the wonderful reading by Jamie Samdahl.  The recording was made on October 27, 2020, at the virtual Thirsty Lab Poetry Reading.  Susan Roney-O’Brien hosts.

You can find the video at https://youtu.be/P8W8ayjO3Jk.

Jamie Samdahl

“Take Me Out to the Ballgame!”

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A Special edition of “The Issue,” WCPA’s semi-regular poetry anthology series returns with the boys of summer, as we celebrate not only our 50th anniversary year but National Poetry Month and the opening day of the WooSox at Polar Park!

Submission of your best baseball poetry is now open until the day after Valentine’s Day, 2021. Submit your poems in the body of an email, along with a brief bio and a head shot, to c.reilley@usa.com.

Jennifer Freed at the Thirsty Lab Poetry Reading.

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A week from tonight (Tuesday, January 26, 2021) the WCPA will support A virtual Thirsty Lab with Jennifer Freed at 7:00 pm. Registration is required; click here to be taken to the Zoom registration page.

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIvc-isqTMoHNVEdqYuxmFsu6GNCHX8TM5Y

Jennifer L. Freed (she/her) has poems appearing in various print and on-line journals including Atlanta Review, Comstock Review, Connecticut River Review, Naugatuck River Review, The Worcester Review, and Zone 3, as well as in various anthologies, such as Forgotten Women, a Tribute in Poetry. ​ Her chapbook, These Hands Still Holding, was selected as a finalist in the 2013 New Women’s Voices Competition (Finishing Line Press). She was awarded the 2020 Samuel Washington Allen Prize for a long poem or poem-sequence (New England Poetry Club) and has been a finalist for the Frank O’Hara prize multiple times.

Celebrating Pat Fargnoli on January 24, 2021

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WCPA is honored to support Celebrating Pat Fargnoli next Sunday, January 24, 2021, at 3:00 pm. Fifteen readers will each read one of her poems. Pat is scheduled to finish off the reading with three poems if she is able.
 
Registration is required to attend. Visit https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYvf-qvrjkjG9RcjRN5p5swwymzHSmjNEWo to register and Zoom will email you the link to join the event.
 
Patricia Fargnoli, the New Hampshire Poet Laureate from 2006-2009, is the author of six poetry collections. Her newest book is Hallowed: New and Selected Poems (Tupelo, 2017). Her other three full-length books, Then, Something, Duties of the Spirit, and Necessary Light were each award-winning (The Sheila Mooton Award, The ForeWord Magazine Silver Award for Poetry, The May Swenson Award, and The NH Literary Award for Outstanding Poetry). She has also published three chapbooks: Small Songs of Pain, Lives of Others, and Greatest Hits. A retired clinical social worker, “Pat” has been a Macdowell Fellow and is a past Associate Editor of The Worcester Review. She has been on the faculty of The Frost Place Poetry Festival and its teaching conference and has taught at the New Hampshire Institute of Art, for Road Scholars, and in the Lifelong Learning Program (CALL) of Keene State College. She currently teaches privately. Awards for her poems include an honorary B.F.A. from The New Hampshire Institute of Art, The Robert Frost Foundation Award, and five Pushcart nominations. She was twice a finalist for The Nation, Discovery Award. A native of Connecticut and a graduate of Trinity College, Hartford College for Women, and the University of Connecticut School of Social Work, she has published more than 300 poems in such journals as Poetry, Ploughshares, The Harvard Review, The Massachusetts Review, Barrow Street, Alaska Quarterly, et al. A member of The New Hampshire Writer’s Project and the New England Poetry Club, she’s lived for over twenty years in New Hampshire.

Board Meeting Schedule change

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At our January 4, 2021 meeting the WCPA the board voted to move our future meetings to the second Tuesday of each month. This move will provide more time to complete financial reports.

The WPCA board meeting monthly from September through June, taking a break from official meetings in July and August each year. If you want to join us for a future board meeting the dates through June 2021 include February 10, March 10, April 14, May 12, and June 9.

2021 Annual Poetry Contest Submission are open!

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Submissions for the WCPA’s Annual Poetry Contest: The Frank O’Hara Prize are now open. For 2021 our contest judge is Pam Bernard, an adjunct professor of writing at Franklin Pierce University.

Contest rules and submission details can be found on the 2021 Annual Contest Submission Guidelines page. New for 2021 – the submission deadline will end on Friday, April 30, 2021. It seemed to make sense to extend submissions through National Poetry Month.

Online submissions are powered by Submittable.

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2021 Stanley Kunitz Medal Nominations

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Nominations for the Stanley Kunitz Medal, which is presented annually by the Worcester County Poetry Association, are now open. The award recognizes the total commitment to poetry as Kunitz lived it: teaching poetry, mentoring poets, speaking poetry, publishing poetry, and supporting organizations that nurture poetry.  Past recipients include Judith Ferrara, Carle Johnson, Dan Lewis, Fran Quinn, Susan Roney-O’Brien, and Michael True.
Nominations for this year will close on March 1, 2021.
 
Additional information can be found on our Stanley Kunitz Medal program page.
Michael True and Carle Johnson

Michael True (left) and Carle Johnson at the 2017 Kunitz Medal presentation.

 

Zoom into Poetry with D. Keali’i MacKenzie on January 10th

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January 10th we continue our monthly virtual poetry feature series with Zoom into Poetry with D. Keali’i MacKenzie. Born in western Massachusetts, he is a past member of the Worcester Poetry Slam Team which represented the Poets’ Asylum at the National Poetry Slam.

Join us at 3:00 pm (Eastern) on Sunday, January 10, 2021. Registration is needed to join the event. Visit the Zoom registration link and fill in the form. A meeting link will be e-mailed to you.

WPL poetry writing workshops

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2020 Stanley Kunitz Medal recipient, Susan Roney-O’Brien, is leading two more Poetry Writing 101 workshops with Worcester Public Library​.

Sign-up for this Saturday’s class, Poetry Writing 101 with Susan Roney-O’Brien: Sound, Resound​. It’s taking place on January 2, 2021. Or you can sign up for Poetry Writing 101 with Susan Roney-O’Brien: In Form, Conform, Reform​ on Saturday, February 6, 2021.  Registration links can be found in the event listings linked above.

Both workshops take place between 11 a.m. and noon.

a website banner with a winterscape background

2020 Clemente update

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Elizabeth Bacon, WCPA board member and Coordinator for Clemente Worcester, shared this update with Clemente Worcester supporters as the end of 2020 approaches.

Dear Clemente Worcester Supporters,

A table covered with a brown table cloth has multiple gifts including 2 apples, a blue graduation cap with an orange tassle, balloons, and a book

Graduation 2020 gifts

We HOPE this finds you well during these last, dark days of this difficult, still unfolding year.
2020 Worcester Clemente Graduation Program

We wanted to let you know that we paused our in-person program in March. With the ardent support of Mass Humanities, we provided all our 2020 students with Chromebooks and Hot Spots to finish on-line in October. All 20 students graduated, and faculty and staff delivered graduation gifts to each person’s home in mid-October. I have attached photos, a copy of this year’s graduation program, this year’s Graduation Speech, and a Welcome from Worcester County Poetry Association President Rodger Martin. All will bring you JOY and HOPE.

This summer, Professor Lucia Knoles taught an online course for alumni on Op-Ed Writing funded through a Mellon Foundation Grant in partnership with Mass Humanities and four other Clemente sites across the state. The result was a beautiful publication called, We, too, Are America. 2020 Worcester graduate Mallory Shelly’s writing was featured in the Clemente National newsletter on December 8th. Please explore her work and that of others through the link below. Our graduates bring us HOPE:

https://www.blog.clementecourse.org/post/for-mallory-shelly-everything-offers-a-chance-to-learn

Lorenza Villatoro and family members stand in front of several balloons

Lorenza Villatoro

Starting in February, Clemente Worcester faculty will offer a three-credit, on-line course to Clemente Worcester graduates and newly accepted students to the Class of 2021-22, and Clemente students from across the state will be invited to join a new writing class led by Mass Humanities and funded by the Mellon Foundation.

By September, we HOPE to be back in person at The Worcester Art Museum and Trinity Lutheran Church – resuming the life-giving connection to scholarship and community that has become Clemente Worcester’s hallmark. YOU are an important part of that Community, and we HOPE to see you back with us then.

Until then, THANK YOU for joining us in making this amazing opportunity possible for so many and for bringing HOPE in this time of isolation and challenge.

In solidarity – on behalf of all of us,

Elizabeth

PS: If you would like to make a gift this year, please go to:

www.worcestercountypoetry.org

#508Fridays – Main IDEA

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Main IDEA Youth & Arts empowers youth by providing quality accessible arts programs to under-resourced communities. The organization has offered free after-school and summer arts programs to youth in Worcester since 2011, with a priority given to youth residing in the Main South neighborhood.
 
As the year closes out, you can help Main IDEA by donating an art kit or art supplies at C.C. Lowell via an online portal. Your gift will help make 2021 a little brighter and colorful.