Worcester County Poetry Association

Worcester Senior Center Hosts Humorist Joe Fusco Jr.
2024-04-16 10:30 - 11:30 (America/New_York) | Worcester Senior Center, 128 Providence St, Worcester, MA, 01604, United States
Worcester humorist/stand-up poet Joe Fusco Jr reads his latest musings, many from his new book ‘Random Thoughts from A Curmudgeon,’ then answers questions about the meaning of life.

Free admission. Ample parking. All ages welcome.

Join Joe later for lunch at Bobby Mac’s Diner in the Senior Center. Great hot dogs!

Charlton Library Celebrates National Poetry Month with an Open Mic night featuring Joe Fusco Jr.
2024-04-16 18:00 - 20:00 | Charlton Public Library, 40 Main St., Charlton, MA, 01507, United States
Celebrate National Poetry Month at the Charlton Library by reading in the Open Mic and enjoying the musings of Joe Fusco Jr.Admission is free. Ample parking. Dexter Hall is an awesome space to be creative!Contact the library at 508-248-2219 to register for the open mic

Joe Fusco Jr. is a well-seasoned humorist/stand-up poet from Worcester, Massachusetts.He is the author of five books of semi-amusing poems and essays: “Random Thoughts from a Curmudgeon “ (2023), “Pondering the Pandemic during The Rust years”(2021); “Hmm…That’s Different” (2020); “Three Score” (2014); and “The Lost and Found Essays” (2012), all available at local bookstores and Amazon. Joe’s musings have appeared in Damfino Press, Ballard Street Poetry, Worcester Review, Asinine Poetry, Soul Lit, and the naughty ezine Clean Sheets. He was a co-winner of the Jacob Knight Poetry Award in 2002 and was named Best Poet by Worcester Magazine readers in 1999 and 2002.Joe is a Humor columnist for Worcester Magazine and the last Worcester Mega-Slam winner in 2017. He features at bookstores, libraries, clubs, and coffeehouses throughout Central Massachusetts and Belgium. He is the host of The Poetry Extravaganza at Redemption Rock Brewery and The Richard Fox Poetry Series at Root and Press Café and Books in Worcester. Joe has taught “Humor 101” for high-school students at Gateways Academy in Shrewsbury and for adults at the Worcester Senior Center, Eisenberg Assisted Living, Notre Dame Assisted Living, The Residence of Orchard Grove, and Christopher Heights Assisted Living. He is the Vice-President of Programming for the Worcester County Poetry Association. Joe has lived in lovely Worcester with his better-half Cyndi and their large family for thirty-nine years. He is a registered Independent and sleeps with one eye always open.

An Evening of Poetry
2024-04-16 19:00 - 20:30 | Phelan Center, Blessed Sacrament Church, 551 Pleasant Street, Worcester, Massachusetts, 01602, United States
Join the Center for Nonviolent Solutions for an evening of Verse

Open Mic Poetry Night
2024-04-17 17:30 - 19:30 | Bah-Bah- Q, 397 Chandler St, Worcester, MA, 01602, United States
Featuring Readings from Chis Noonan’s New Release: The Theory of Xera Altamon

Bonnie Johnson & Nat Needle: Spine Poems and Jazz Night
2024-04-19 19:00 - 20:30 | TidePool Bookshop, 372 Chandler St. Unit 101, Worcester, MA, 01602
Bonnie Johnson & Nat Needle: Spine Poems and Jazz NightFriday, April 19, 7pmIn honor of National Poetry Month and Jazz Appreciation Month, join us for our second – hopefully-annual! – Spine Poems and Jazz Night! Create a Spine Poem and listen to music provided by Nat Needle and his students with WICN Colors of Jazz host Bonnie Johnson! We will use Annette Dauphin Simon’s fabulous book Spine Poems: An Eclectic Collection of Found Verse for Book Lovers as the model for creating our own short verses using the spines of books here at the bookstore. “Writing” a spine poem is fun, it’s quick (~5 minutes, unless you start reading the books), it’s easy. In fact, they pretty much write themselves!

Bonnie Johnson is an innovative design thinker, radio personality and public speaker. She is producer and on-air host of Colors of Jazz, a weekly program streaming live online at the NPR affiliate station 90.5 WICN. In addition to positioning herself in media as a jazz presenter, Bonnie is a content creator, podcast producer and data engineer. Stealth in her track record of advancing the cultural exchange, Bonnie delivers STEM leadership, and seeks to find pathways for collaboration through the lens of music and social justice.

Booklover's Gourmet Open Mic
2024-04-20 14:00 - 16:00 | Booklovers’ Gourmet, 72 E. Main St., Webster, MA, 01570
Join us for a monthly round robin style, open poetry reading.Bring original pieces to share.

Sign up to reserve your spot by calling 508-949-6232 or emailing deb@bookloversgourmet.com

Space is limited to 14 participants and usually fills quickly!

Worcester County College Contest!!
2024-04-21 13:00 - 15:00 | WCPA Headquarters, 61 Harvard St., Worcester, Massachusetts, 01602

Auguries & Divinations: Heather Treseler's Book Launch
2024-04-23 14:30 - 17:00 | WSU Eager Auditorium, 486 Chandler Street, Worcester, Massachusetts, 01602, United States
Auguries & Divinations, winner of the 2023 May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize, tracks a young woman’s coming of age, attuned to the unspoken liabilities of women’s lives, the suburban underworld, and the energies of eros. The narrator claims a life of her own making, drawing on the classical practice of augury, or observing birds to discern human fate.HEATHER TRESELER is also the author of Parturition, which won the Munster Literature Centre’s international chapbook prize. Her poems appear in The American Scholar, Harvard Review, The Irish Times, The Kenyon Review, and PN Review. Her essays appear in Boston Review and the Los Angeles Review of Books, and in eight books about American poetry. Recipient of the W. B. Yeats Prize, Frontier Poetry’s prize, and the Editors’ Prize at The Missouri Review, she is professor of English at Worcester State University and a resident scholar at the Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center.

Introduction by Holy Cross’ Susan Elizabeth Sweeney, and book available for purchase or pre-order at Bedlam Books.

Solo/Duet: Music & Poetry in Harmony
2024-04-23 18:00 - 20:30 | Woods Memorial Public Library, 19 Pleasant St., Barre, Massachusetts, 01005, United States
A poetry and music series at the Woods Memorial Public Library Free and open to all! Please stop by or call the Library at 978-355-2533 to reserve your seat.

Featuring Poets Clair Degutis & Jonathan Blake. and music by Jerry Wilfong (bass) and Rich Falco (guitar)

It is difficultTo get the news from poems,Yet men die miserably every day

For the lackOf what is found there

~William Carlos Williams~

A Virtual Thirsty Lab with Nancy Baillie Strong
2024-04-23 19:00 - 20:00 | Zoom Online Meeting, United States
he Thirsty Lab poetry reading, normally based out of Princeton, Mass., continues to meet virtually. On Tuesday, April 23rd, 2024 Nancy Baillie Strong will be the featured reader. Please Click Here to register.

Nancy Baillie Strong lives in Manchester, NH. While cleaning out her parents’ home in 2019, she discovered that her mother had kept a not-very-good poem written by Nancy when she was 10 years old. She began writing poetry more seriously in the early 1990’s, and workshopped with Jim Beschta at the Worcester (MA) Art Museum from 2012-2018. She has participated in the Monadnock Pastoral Poets annual retreat, and presently workshops with several other fine poets in Susan Roney-O’Brien’s virtual workshop. Her poetry has been published in The Poets’ Touchstone, Smoky Quartz, and was included in the anthology Women’s Uncommon Prayers (2000). Her poem “Four Corners” was named by Worcester’s Poet Laureate Oliver de la Paz as one of two dozen winners in the “Poems in and out of Places” contest of the “Mapping Worcester in Poetry” project of the Worcester County Poetry Association.

Poetry Workshop at New Dawn
2024-04-23 19:00 - 22:00 | New Dawn Center, 84 Main St., Ashburnham, MA, 01607, United States
Come out to the New Dawn Writers’ Group’s Poetry Workshop. Every third Tuesday from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm we will discuss poems and writing, write to prompts, give feedback, encourage one another, and discuss upcoming projects. It’s a friendly, pressure-free atmosphere at the New Dawn Arts Center in Ashburnham. The address is 84 Main Street, Ashburnham, MA. The workshop is being led by Fred Gerhard.

Fred Gerhard leads the Poetry Workshop, and is one of the open mic hosts, for the New Dawn Writers’ Group. His poems appear in numerous anthologies and magazines. His new book is Drifting to “Hello” (Khotso Publishing), and his first chapbook, Lilacs Still Bloom in Ashburnham: Songs of Spring came out in 2023 from Local Gems Poetry Press. He is also an editor at Quabbin Quills Press and Smoky Quartz. For many years he led a poetry therapy group in Worcester at UMASS Memorial’s Community HealthLink. More about him can be found at FredGerhard.com

John Hodgen Library Reading Series: Hubbardston
2024-04-24 18:00 - 19:00 | Hubbardston Public Library, 7 Main St # 8, Hubbardston, MA, 01452, United States
John Hodgen reading from his new book at the Hubbardston Public Library.

John Hodgen is the Writer-in-Residence at Assumption University in Worcester, MA, and Advisory Editor for New Letters at the University of Missouri in Kansas City. Hodgen won the AWP Donald Hall Prize in Poetry for Grace (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005). His fifth book, The Lord of Everywhere, is out from Lynx House, which is also publishing his new book, What We May Be, this spring. He has won the Grolier Prize for Poetry, an Arvon Foundation Award, the Yankee Magazine Award for Poetry, the Bluestem Award, the Balcones Prize, the Foley Prize, the Chad Walsh Prize from Beloit Poetry Journal, the Collins Prize from Birmingham Poetry Review, and a Massachusetts Cultural Council Award in Poetry. His poem “Hamlet Texts Guildenstern About Playing Upon the Pipe,” published in The Antioch Review, was chosen for inclusion in Scribner’s Best American Poetry 2017.

Poetry Presentation by Bill Tremblay and Bill O’Connell
2024-04-25 18:30 - 19:30 | Jacob Edwards Library, 236 Main St., Southbridge, MA, 01550, United States
Inaugural Town of Southbridge Poet Laureate Bill Tremblay will present a reading and discussion of his newest collection of poetry The Luminous Racetrack as well as other work that relates to Southbridge followed by fellow poet Bill O’Connell reading from his own work including his latest book When We Were All Still Alive

Individual Teen Poetry Prelims: Worcester Edition
2024-04-25 18:30 - 20:30 | MA

Poets @ Large: Saturday Night Poetry
2024-04-27 19:00 - 21:00 | Vanilla Bean Cafe, 450 Deerfield Road, Pomfret, CT, 06259, United States
The Vanilla Bean Café, 450 Deerfield Road in Pomfret, will again host Poets at Large spoken word and poetry performances on the last Saturday of the month, 7-9 p.m., from February through May. Poets at Large is a regional group of poets who read in CT and MA, now in its fifth year. The group’s coordinator, Woodstock author/poet Karen Warinsky, is the Emcee, and those wishing to be in the open mic segment can sign up by contacting her at karen.warinsky@gmail.com. There is a 5-minute limit for open mic readers and these events are recommended for ages 14 and up.

April 27th will feature two women poets reading in a volta-style on the issue of child abuse and healing, MA residents Candace Curran and Janet MacFayden created the piece and began performing it last year.

Curran, twice named as Western Massachusetts Poets’ Seat Laureate and winner of the 2022 Elyse Wolf Prize, collaborated with MacFayden, who is the author of three full-length collections, the recipient of a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council grant and a 7-month Fine Arts Work Center fellowship. She is managing editor of Slate Roof Press.
Also on the program will be MA resident Roger Kechawah Mbianda, a native of Cameroon in Africa. He is presently pursuing a Doctorate in Curriculum Development and Instruction. Mbianda has a poetry collection titled Rays of My Days and is about to finish his first novel. The evening will also present several “Quiet Corner Poets” who will present work created through their monthly writing group.

Poets @ Large: Candace Curran, Janet MacFayden & Victor Infante
2024-04-27 19:00 - 21:00 | Vanilla Bean Cafe, 450 Deerfield Road, Pomfret, CT, 06259, United States
The Vanilla Bean Café, 450 Deerfield Road in Pomfret, and Poets at Large will host a special National Poetry Month reading of spoken word and poetry on Saturday night, April 27th. This performance will be from 7-9 p.m. Admission is $15.00 and includes a give-away. Poets at Large is a regional group of poets who read in CT and MA, now in its fifth year. Featured poets will be Massachusetts residents Candace Curran, Janet MacFadyen and Victor Infante. Special readers in the open mic will be members of the Quite Corner chapter of the CT Poetry Society.

Curran and MacFadyen will read their new work, “Rocking the Boat,” which is about childhood trauma, abuse and healing. This will be done in the style of a Volta. Curran, twice named as Western Massachusetts Poets’ Seat Laureate and winner of the 2022 Elyse Wolf Prize, collaborated with MacFayden, who is the author of three full-length collections, the recipient of a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council grant and a 7-month Fine Arts Work Center fellowship. She is managing editor of Slate Roof Press.

Also on the program will be Victor Infante. He has published his poetry and fiction in numerous publications, and is the author of the full-length poetry collection, “City of Insomnia,” from Write Bloody Publishing. He’s won five NENPA Awards for Arts & Entertainment Reporting, and has been a nominee five years in a row for the Boston Music Awards’ “Music Journalist of the Year.” Infante is the features editor for the Telegram & Gazette and the editor of Worcester Magazine.

Contact Poets at Large coordinator Karen Warinsky if you are interested in reading in the open mic at karen.warinsky@gmail.com. There is a 5-minute limit for open mic readers and these events are recommended for ages 14 and up.

One more show remains in the spring Vanilla Bean season set for May 25. Poets at Large is a project of Windham Arts. This series is sponsored in part by bankHometown, Charter Oak Federal Credit Union, and Weiss, Hale & Zahansky Strategic Wealth Advisors.

Poets At Large: April Edition
2024-04-27 19:00 - 21:00 | The Vanilla Bean, 450 Deerfield Road, Pomfret, CT, 06259, United States
POETS AT LARGE PRESENTS A NEW SHOW

The Vanilla Bean Café, 450 Deerfield Road in Pomfret, and Poets at Large will host a special National Poetry Month reading of spoken word and poetry on Saturday night, April 27th. This performance will be from 7-9 p.m. Admission is $15.00 and includes a give-away.

Poets at Large is a regional group of poets who read in CT and MA, now in its fifth year. Featured poets will be Massachusetts residents Candace Curran, Janet MacFadyen and Victor Infante. Special readers in the open mic will be members of the Quiet Corner chapter of the CT Poetry Society. Curran and MacFadyen will read their new work, “Rocking the Boat,” which is about childhood trauma, abuse and healing. This will be done in the style of a Volta.

Curran, twice named as Western Massachusetts Poets’ Seat Laureate and winner of the 2022 Elyse Wolf Prize, collaborated with MacFayden, who is the author of three full-length collections, the recipient of a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council grant and a 7-month Fine Arts Work Center fellowship. She is managing editor of Slate Roof Press.

Infante has published his poetry and fiction in numerous publications, and is the author of the full-length collection, City of Insomnia from Write Bloody Publishing. He’s won five NENPA Awards for Arts & Entertainment Reporting, and has been a nominee five years in a row for the Boston Music Awards’ “Music Journalist of the Year.” Infante is the features editor for the Telegram & Gazette and the editor of Worcester Magazine.

Contact Poets at Large coordinator Karen Warinsky if you are interested in reading in the openmic at karen.warinsky@gmail.com. There is a 5-minute limit for open mic readers and theseevents are recommended for ages 14 and up.

Poets at Large is a project of Windham Arts. This series is sponsored in part by bank Hometown, Charter Oak Federal Credit Union, and Weiss, Hale & Zahansky Strategic Wealth Advisors.

A Virtual Thirsty Lab with Cynthia Snow
2024-04-30 19:00 - 20:00 | Zoom Online Meeting, United States
he Thirsty Lab poetry reading, normally based out of Princeton, Mass., continues to meet virtually. On Tuesday, April 30th, 2024 Cynthia Snow will be the featured reader. Please Click Here to register.

Cindy Snow’s writing has appeared online and in the Massachusetts Review, Peace Review, Worcester Review, Crannóg, and Maria Sibylla Merian: Changing the Nature of Art and Science. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart, and her chapbook, Small Ceremonies, was published by Slate Roof Press. Cindy served as a Platte Clove Artist in Residence and was a writing fellow at Cill Rialaig, Ireland. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Drew University, works at Greenfield Community College, and lives in Shelburne Falls, MA, with her family.

Poetorium at Starlite
2024-05-02 06:30 - 21:30 | Starlite Bar and Gallery, 39 Hamilton St, Southbridge, MA, 01550
Please join us for a special double feature edition of our monthly open mic and featured poetry reading series The Poetorium at Starlite hosted by Paul Szlosek and Ron Whittle. It will be a full evening of poetry and spoken word starting with a brief interview on stage with our two featured poets John Hodgen (Author of The Lord of Everywhere and What We May Be) and Karen Elizabeth Sharpe (Author of Prayer Can Be Anything and This Late Afternoon) followed by poetry readings by our features, a 10-minute tribute to a dead poet by a guest reader, a short intermission, and then an open mic (with 5-minute slots for each reader). Admission is free, but a hat will be passed for donations to pay our features and compensate Starlite for the use of their space. For more information, please contact us at poetorium@mail.com or visit our website at https://poetorium.home.blog/2019/04/29/the-poetorium-at-starlite-2/

John Hodgen is Writer-in-Residence at Assumption University in Worcester, MA, and Advisory Editor for New Letters at the University of Missouri in Kansas City. Hodgen won the AWP Donald Hall Prize in Poetry for Grace (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005). His fifth book, The Lord of Everywhere, is out from Lynx House, which is also publishing his forthcoming book, What We May Be, this spring. He has won the Grolier Prize for Poetry, an Arvon Foundation Award, the Yankee Magazine Award for Poetry, the Bluestem Award, the Balcones Prize, the Foley Prize, the Chad Walsh Prize from Beloit Poetry Journal, the Collins Prize from Birmingham Poetry Review, and a Massachusetts Cultural Council Award in Poetry.

Karen Elizabeth Sharpe is a poetry editor at the Worcester Review, and her poems have appeared in Columbia Journal, West Trade Review, Mom Egg Review, Catalyst, Mason Street Review, and other magazines and anthologies. She is the author of Prayer Can Be Anything (Finishing Line Press, 2023) and This Late Afternoon (Dunn & Co. 2004). She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Karen has been a member of Marge Piercy’s juried poets group and a member of the PoemWorks community in the greater Boston area.

National Baseball Poetry Festival
2024-05-03 16:00 - 21:00 | Worcester
National Baseball Poetry Festival Day 1 Schedule:

4:00 PM Welcome Reception at Polar Park (DCU Club)

5:00 PM Polar Park Stadium Tour

6:05 PM WooSox Game vs. The Lehigh Valley Ironpigs (Triple-A Affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies)

Tell It Slant: A Generative Poetry Workshop with Meg Kearney
2024-05-04 13:00 - 16:00 | WCPA Office @ Salisbury House, 61 Harvard St., Worcester MA, MA, 01605, United States
THE TELL IT SLANT WORKSHOPEmily Dickinson suggested, “Tell all the truth, but tell it slant.” Together, we will read, discuss, and create poems that come at a story, emotion, or idea, slantwise—and often express the inexpressible. This strategy works well for emotionally difficult material, but can also be just the right tool for a comic twist. There will be an emphasis on poets producing new work, with feedback that focuses on what’s memorable and working in each piece. Together we will form a group where each individual feels seen and safe to share new poems.

Meg Kearney’s All Morning the Crows, winner of the Washington Prize, made SmallPress Distribution’s poetry bestseller list April through September, 2021. Meg is also author of An Unkindness of Ravens and Home By Now, winner of the PEN New EnglandL.L. Winship Award; a heroic crown/chapbook, The Ice Storm; three verse novels for teens; and award-winning picture book, Trouper, illustrated by E.B. Lewis. She directs the Solstice MFA Program at Lasell University in Massachusetts. Visit her WEBSITE for more information.

National Baseball Poetry Festival
2024-05-04 19:00 - 22:00 | Boland’s, 81 Water Street, Worcester, Massachusetts, 01602, United States
National Baseball Poetry Festival Day 2 Schedule:

2:00 PM Youth Poetry Readings The Berm, Left Field, Polar Park

3:30 – 5:30 PM Poetry Readings & Open Mic at Worcester Public Library

4:05 PM WooSox Game vs. The Lehigh Valley Ironpigs (Triple-A Affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies), plus Poetry Contest Recognition and Sunset Catch on the Field

7:00 – 10:00 PM Canal District Open Mic Night Featuring Two Evening Open MicsVenues: Steel & Wire and Boland’s Cafe

National Baseball Festival Open Mic
2024-05-04 19:00 - 22:00 | Steel & Wire, 124 Millbury Street, Worcester, Massachusetts, 01610, United States
Bring your best Baseball Poetry

National Baseball Festival
2024-05-05 08:30 - 11:00 | Homewood Suites, 1 Washington Square, Worcester, Massachusetts, 01604, United States
8:30 – 11:00 AM Coffee with Poets & Visitors, Lobby, Homewood Suites by Hilton Worcester

Slightly Off-beat Poets Presents: An Afternoon with Curtin/ Tremblay/ Szlosek
2024-05-05 13:00 - 16:00 | Deb’s House, 15 Eddy St., Webster, MA, 01570, United States
Our next event is a triple feature in Deb Horan’s backyard! The second Sunday of May is Mother’s Day, so we will be having the event on the first Sunday 5/5/24.

In the event of rain we will move the whole thing to Booklovers’ Gourmet which is just down the street at 72 E Main Street Webster, MA.

IMPORTANT: PLEASE BRING YOUR OWN CHAIR FOR THIS OUTDOOR EVENT

WHAT: Slightly Off-beat Poets Presents: An Afternoon with Curt Curtin/ Bill Tremblay/ Paul Szlosek

WHERE: Deb Horan’s Backyard: 15 Eddy St Webster, MA

WHEN: Sunday May 5th, 2024 @ 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm

WHAT HAPPENS: Our feature poets of the month will each read for 15 minutes. Then we will take a quick break for book sales, snacks and the raffle before starting the open mic. Open mic will be round robin, one poem at a time until 4 PM.

COST: There will be a 50/50 raffle, split between the feature and the winner. 5$ to enter.

SIGN-UPS: There is room for 20 poets/ 30 total guests. To reserve a spot please email: roberteugeneperry@gmail.com

Curt Curtin is a lifelong poet with six full-length poetry collections, three chapbooks, and many individual poems published in anthologies and journals. Curt has twice been nominated for a Pulitzer prize. In 2010 he received the first Frank O’Hara Poetry award from the Worcester County Poetry Association, and in 2019 he won second place in the annual contest of the Connecticut Poetry Society. In 2023 Curt won grants from both the Worcester Arts Council and the Mass Cultural Council to support his work, including translating some of his young adult poetry into Spanish. Curt taught college English and creative writing for 20 years at Westfield State College, MA, following several years teaching younger students. He has been a featured reader in many poetry venues in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and twice in Ireland. Updates on his poetry can be found at www.curtcurtinpoet.com. Due to Curt’s low vision and other challenges, Curt’s poems will be read by his wife of 43 years, Dee O’Connor.

Bill Tremblay has published ten full-length volumes of poems, two limited edition collections, and a novel, and is also well-known as librettist, editor and reviewer. During his more than forty years on university faculties, he became a legendary teacher who drew students to Colorado States’s Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing, of which he was director for many years, from all over the continent. He has been honored with the Colorado Book Award, a Pushcart Prize, and publication in Best American Poetry. His work is notable for its muscular music, its clarity, its great feeling for those who suffer or are down-trodden, and its pointed and eloquent critique of the persons, forces and institutions that are its ongoing course. He was recently named by the Town Council of Southbridge MA as it’s first Poet Laureate. Born and raised in Southbridge, BILL TREMBLAY will present readings from his books of poetry which include among others: Crying in the Cheap Seats (U Massachusetts Press), The Anarchist Heart (New Rivers Press) as well as Duhamel: Ideas of Order in Little Canada (BOAEditions, Ltd.), Shooting Script: Door of Fire (Eastern Washington U. Press), Walks Along the Ditch (Lynx House Press) and most recently The Luminous Race Track (Lynx House Press). In 1973, Bill left Amherst with his wife Cynthia and three sons to take a professorship at Colorado State University. During his tenure he has received honors including a Fulbright-Hays Lectureship in Portugal, a National Endowment for the Humanities at NYU, poems in Best Poems (2003) and Pushcart, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, Pushcart Prizes, inclusion in Best American Poems (Scribner’s: NY), the Colorado Book Award (for Shooting Script) and grants from the Corporation at Yaddo and the Mountain Writers Center. He retired from Colorado State University having been awarded the Stern Distinguished Professorship. Bill has just been appointed by the Town Council as the inaugural Poet Laureate of his home town of Southbridge, Massachusetts.

Paul Szlosek, a recipient of the Jacob Knight Award for Poetry in 2001 and the Stanley Kunitz Medal in 2023, was born in Southbridge, Massachusetts, but currently resides in the nearby metropolis of Worcester. He was co-founder and host of the long-running Poet’s Parlor poetry reading in Southbridge and Sturbridge. In May 2019, Paul started a brand new open mic and featured poetry reading series with poet Ron Whittle called The Poetorium at Starlite (also in Southbridge) which closed in March 2020 due to COVID, but reopened in June, 2022 (during the two-year interim, he ran an online print version entitled The Virtual Poetorium which he still occasionally continues under the name The International Imaginarium For Word & Verse). Last year, Paul’s poem “My Mother’s Dreams” made the shortlist for the International Dylan Thomas Day’s “Love the Words” poetry competition. His poetry has appeared in various local & national print & online publications including The Worcester Review, Worcester Magazine, Radius, Sahara, Concrete Wolf, Silkworm, Soul-Lit, and Diner. He’s probably best known in the Central Massachusetts poetry community for his fanatical obsession with obscure poetry forms, and has invented his own including the ziggurat, the streetbeatina, the hodgenelle, the lux, and the singsangsong which he often shares with readers on his poetry blog Paul’s Poetry Play Ground.

John Hodgen Library Reading Series: Concord Edition
2024-05-05 15:00 - 16:30 | Concord Public Library, 129 Main Street, Concord, Massachusetts, 01742, United States
John Hodgen reads in the Goodwin Forum with Henry Walters and Charles Coe on Sunday May 5th. Come listen!

John Hodgen is the Writer-in-Residence at Assumption University in Worcester, MA, and Advisory Editor for New Letters at the University of Missouri in Kansas City. Hodgen won the AWP Donald Hall Prize in Poetry for Grace (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005). His fifth book, The Lord of Everywhere, is out from Lynx House, which is also publishing his new book, What We May Be, this spring. He has won the Grolier Prize for Poetry, an Arvon Foundation Award, the Yankee Magazine Award for Poetry, the Bluestem Award, the Balcones Prize, the Foley Prize, the Chad Walsh Prize from Beloit Poetry Journal, the Collins Prize from Birmingham Poetry Review, and a Massachusetts Cultural Council Award in Poetry. His poem “Hamlet Texts Guildenstern About Playing Upon the Pipe,” published in The Antioch Review, was chosen for inclusion in Scribner’s Best American Poetry 2017.

Blacksmith Poetry Reading Series: Heather Tressler
2024-05-06 20:00 - 20:30 | Brattle Street, 56 Brattle Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
Auguries & Divinations, winner of the 2023 May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize, tracks a young woman’s coming of age, attuned to the unspoken liabilities of women’s lives, the suburban underworld, and the energies of eros. The narrator claims a life of her own making, drawing on the classical practice of augury, or observing birds to discern human fate.HEATHER TRESELER is also the author of Parturition, which won the Munster Literature Centre’s international chapbook prize. Her poems appear in The American Scholar, Harvard Review, The Irish Times, The Kenyon Review, and PN Review. Her essays appear in Boston Review and the Los Angeles Review of Books, and in eight books about American poetry. Recipient of the W. B. Yeats Prize, Frontier Poetry’s prize, and the Editors’ Prize at The Missouri Review, she is professor of English at Worcester State University and a resident scholar at the Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center.

Brattle Street Poetry Reading Series with Luke Allan.

SOLO/DUET Poetry & Music Series
2024-05-07 18:00 - 20:00 | Merriam-Gilbert Library, 3 W. Main Street, West Brookfield, Massachusetts, 01585, United States
Each evening will feature solo readings by area poets book-ended by a musical duet. This program is made possible by the West Brookfield Cultural Council as supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

It is difficultTo get the news from poems,Yet men die miserably every day

For the lackOf what is found there

~William Carlos Williams~

Poets:

Eve Rifkah was co-founder of Poetry Oasis, Inc. (1998-2012), a non-profit poetry association dedicated to education and promoting local poets. Founder, and editor of DINER, a literary magazine with a 7-year run. She is the 2021 recipient of the Stanley Kunitz award. She has run an ongoing writing workshop for 15 years and taches workshop and classes at WISE (Worcester Institute for Senior Education). She lives in Worcester, MA with her husband, musician, artist, writer Michael Milligan and their cat Bela.

Paul Szlosek is a poet born in Southbridge, Massachusetts, but currently resides in the nearby metropolis of Worcester. He was co-founder and host of the long-running Poet’s Parlor poetry reading in Southbridge and Sturbridge, as well as a past recipient of the Jacob Knight Award for Poetry. In May 2019, Paul started a brand new open mic and featured poetry reading series with poet Ron Whittle called The Poetorium at Starlite (also in Southbridge) which closed in March 2020 due to COVID, but reopened recently in June 2022 (in the two-year interim, he ran an online print version entitled The Virtual Poetorium which he still continues under the name The International Imaginarium For Word & Verse). His poetry has appeared in various local & national print & online publications including The Worcester Review, Worcester Magazine, Radius, Sahara, Concrete Wolf, Soul-Lit, and Diner. He’s probably best known in the Central Massachusetts poetry community for his fanatical obsession with obscure poetry forms, and has invented his own including the ziggurat, the streetbeatina, the hodgenelle, the lux, and the singsangsong which he often shares with readers on his poetry blog Paul’s Poetry Play Ground .

The Poetry Extravaganza Featuring Kate Gregoire
2024-05-07 18:00 - 20:00 | Redemption Rock Brewery, 333 Shrewsbury St,, Worcester, MA, 01604, United States
Join us on Tuesday, May 7th from 6:00-8:30 pm for an evening of poetry, humor, and contemplation.Two open-mic sessions sandwich our feature poet Kate Gregoire.

Sign up for the open-mic at jfjr6969@gmail,com .

Five-minute maximum, please.Free admission.

Separate area for our event.

On-the-street parking or check redemptionrock.beer for other parking options.

Redemption Rock Brewery (RRB) serves craft beers, coffees, teas, and delicious snacks. You can bring your own food but outside beverages are not allowed.

The Poetry Extravaganza is sponsored by Lewandowski Painting.

Kate Gregoire is a rhythmic truth seeker, wielding her pen as a tool for divination. She is a mother, a church wife, and a teacher, doing her darndest to sing and dance the cosmic breadcrumb trail before her. Kate is also a member of the Worcester County Poetry Association’s (WCPA) Executive Board and is the coordinator of the annual Rain Poetry contest and event.

Third Annual "Poet-Pourri"
2024-05-09 18:30 - 21:00 | WCPA Office @ Salisbury House, 61 Harvard St., Worcester MA, MA, 01605, United States
{Poetpourri}

Local poets, storytellers and humorists will read from their latest musings. A night that won’t soon be forgotten. Featuring:
Cheryl Bonin
Tarique Cooper
Laura DiCaronimo
Judith Ferrara
Joe Fusco Jr.

Carolyn Oliver
Xaulanda Thorpe
Robert Eugene Perry
Oliver de la Paz
*Admission and Parking are free*Books by the “Poet-pourri” writers will be available for purchase via cash, check, Venmo, and PayPal.
Co-sponsored by Lewandowski Painting.Join us in celebrating Worcester County writers!
