2025 KUNITZ MEDAL PRESS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
VICTOR INFANTE Chosen for 2025 Stanley Kunitz Medal
The Stanley Kunitz Medal committee is pleased to announce Victor D. Infante as the 2025 medal recipient.
Victor D. Infante is a poet, journalist, and fiction writer who was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, raised in Southern California, educated in England, and has resided in Worcester, Massachusetts, with his wife, poet and artist Lea Deschenes, for many years. He was the founding editor of such literary and political journals as The November 4th Club and Radius Lit. Both publications featured poetry and essays from local and globally recognized poets and writers. He has also been a frequent guest on radio programs (on stations such as WCRN, WTAG, WCUW, KXLU and KUCI) including Barbara DeMarco Barrett’s podcast, Writers on Writing, discussing music, literature, popular culture and his own writing. He has also provided writing workshops, most recently an online workshop called “Breaking the Rules (of Writing)” for Poetry Salon.
Victor D. Infante’s poetry publications include The Chiron Review, The Collagist, Barrelhouse, Pearl, Spillway and The Banyan Review, and anthologies such as Poetry Slam: The Competitive Art of Performance Poetry; Spoken Word Revolution Redux; The Last American Valentine: Poems to Seduce and Destroy; Aim For the Head: An Anthology of Zombie Poetry and The Incredible Sestina Anthology. Infante’s book publications include City of Insomnia (Write Bloody Publishing, 2008); the self-released essay collection Feels Like Failure, Every Time: Thoughts on Writing, Pop Culture, Politics and Violence (2019); and his latest book, Suffer for This: Love, Sex, Marriage & Rock n’ Roll which was published by Moontide Press in 2024. He is also the author of more than a dozen chapbooks.
In addition, Victor D. Infante is the features editor for the Telegram & Gazette and the editor of Worcester Magazine. Prior to starting at the Telegram & Gazette in 2002, he was a contributing writer for alt-weeklies including Worcester Magazine and OC Weekly in California, as well as various rock and poetry ‘zines. He’s won six NENPA Awards for Arts & Entertainment Reporting and has been a nominee six years in a row for the Boston Music Awards’ “Music Journalist of the Year.”
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). Infante will be the tenth 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.
Also honored with a nomination this year were poets Bill Tremblay, Robert Eugene Perry, Damary Rosado, Margaret Smith, and long-time poetry supporter, and conservator of the Stanley Kunitz Childhood Home, Carol Stockmal.
Victor Infante will receive his medal at a ceremony presented by the Worcester County Poetry Association at the Museum of Worcester (formerly the Worcester Historical Museum) on Thursday, July 31, from 6:30 pm to 8:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. There is limited parking at the museum, with additional metered parking on the street and in the Pearl/Elm Street Garage. Visit worcestercountypoetry.org for details.
Respectfully submitted,
Heather J. Macpherson, Chair – heathermacph@gmail.com