Poets At Large: Free Spoken Word/Poetry Event

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The second in a series of free, spoken word/poetry readings will be held on May 22 from 2-4 p.m. at the Community Plaza, 60 Douglas Road, Whitinsville, MA from 2-4 p.m. The event will relocate to the Singh Center theater, if rain. An affiliation of regional poets will perform in this series which is split between the Whitinsville location and Roseland Park, 205 Roseland Park Road in Woodstock, CT. All performances include an open mic segment. Sign-ups are at the event; 5-minute limit. Featured on May 22 are authors Gerald Yelle, Loretta (Rhett) Watts and Joshua M. Stewart. Featured Open Mic reader will be Tianna Mercier.

 

Yelle is a member of the Florence Poets Society and lives in Amherst.   His books include The Holyoke Diaries, from FutureCycle Press, and Mark My Word and the New World Order, from Pedestrian Press. He will be releasing a new book in 2023 from FutureCycle Press.

 

Watts has published poems in numerous journals including Sojourners Magazine, Spoon River Review, The Mud Chronicles, and The Worcester Review, Canary. She won the Connecticut Poetry Award in 2013. Her chapbook is No Innocent Eye from Seven Kitchen Press, and her books are Willing Suspension (Antrim House) and The Braiding (Kelsay Books). She facilitates writing and Soul Collage workshops in CT and MA.

 

Stewart is the author of Break Every String and The Bastard Children of Dharma Bums. His poems have appeared in the Massachusetts Review, Salamander, Plainsongs, Brilliant Corners, and many other publications. His third poetry collection, Love Something, will be published by Main Street Rag.

 

All remaining readings in the series will be from 2-4 p.m. and will be on June 5 (Roseland), June 26 (Singh), July 17 (Roseland), September 11 (Roseland), and October 23 (Singh).

 

Sponsors of the Roseland Park readings include Charter Oak Federal Credit Union, Linemaster Switch, Atty Mark Brouillard, Ashford Xtra Mart, CR Premier Properties, WHZ Strategic Wealth Advisors, Bank Hometown & EA Custom Millwork of Northbridge, MA. Sponsors of the Singh Center events include Webster First Bank, EA Custom Millwork and ValleyCast/Open Sky Community Services. Email karen.warinsky@gmail.com with questions.

 

 

Upcoming Clemente Course & Workshop

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In the coming months, Clemente Worcester will offer three opportunities for you to learn more about Storytelling for Social Change. If you have questions, contact Director of Admissions Jude Samuels at juryvybz79@gmail.com. Applications must be submitted for the workshop by Wednesday, May 18 and for the course by Wednesday June 1. Registration is limited to 20 for each opportunity, so if you are interested be sure to register now.

A Civil War Version of Black Lives Matter:
The Social Justice Storytelling of Worcester’s Sarah and Lucy Chase
5:30-7:00 Wednesday, May 25 at the American Antiquarian Society.

During the Civil War broke out, Lucy and Sarah Chase left their home to set up schools in the South for formerly enslaved men, women, and children. Like all of us in Clemente, the Chase sisters believed that education is the best foundation for life as a free citizen of a democracy. But the two women were also promoting social change by writing letters to friends in the north illustrating the hard work, intelligence, and moral courage of the students of the Freemen’s Schools. Those stories directly contradicted the stereotyped characterization of African-Americans as lazy, unintelligent, and amoral that appeared in cartoons, illustrations, and articles of Northern newspapers.

In this one-evening workshop led by Assumption University Professor Lucia Knoles, you will have the chance to learn about racist stereotypes and anti-racist storytelling in the nineteenth century by working directly with letters, newspapers, and graphic arts in the collections of the American Antiquarian Society. The final portion of the workshop will be devoted to a discussion of how we can use the social justice storytelling of the Chase sisters as a way of understanding both contemporary racist stereotypes and the people who practice storytelling for social change today.

Storytelling for Social Change: A Five-Session Clemente Summer Course (no credits)
5:30 – 7:00 Wednesdays: June 29, July 6, July 13, July 20, July 27 (Mix of In-Person and Zoom)

In this five-session summer course, you will learn how to tell the kinds of stories that will make you a more effective advocate for yourselves, your families, your communities, the organizations you belong to, and the causes you believe in. Together, we’ll collaborate in writing several profiles of members of the Clemente community that can later be used in social media campaigns to educate the public about the challenges you face, the values you live by, and the many ways you work to make this a better world. (Note: you do not have to write about your own life in this course. Instead, we’ll be using transcripts of interviews with Clemente alums as the material for our stories.)

The workshop will be led by Lucia Knoles, Professor of English at Assumption University and a charter member of the Worcester Clemente Advisory Board. Media Consultant and former WBUR Executive Producer Iris Adler will serve as a guest advisor and editor.

Paintings Can Tell Stories for Change Too!
A Visit to the Obamas’ Portrait Tour

Date and details will be forthcoming. Stay tuned so you can be included in this field trip.

Why did Barack and Michelle Obama choose African-American artists Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald to paint their official portraits? What stories were the Obamas—and the painters–trying to tell about themselves as the first couple of color to occupy the White House? You be the judge when we visit the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston to take a close look at these remarkable paintings.

 

 

Announcing the 2022 annual Bishop and Knight Poetry Contest

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Congratulations to the winners of our college contests:
The Elizabeth Bishop Manuscript Prize
Winner: Kim Fetherston from College of the Holy Cross
Honorable mention: Tommy Sheehan of Worcester State University
and The Etheridge Knight Performance Prize
Winner: Tommy Sheehan of Worcester State University
You can watch the livestream by following this link:

Tony Brown Chosen for Kunitz Medal

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Proclaimed a “Slam Poet Legend” by Poetry Slam International, Worcester poet Tony Brown has been selected as the 2022 Stanley Kunitz Medal recipient.

Brown is widely known throughout Worcester’s poetry community and beyond. During nearly five decades of shepherding poetry from “the page to the stage,” he has established himself as a poet, essayist, teacher, pacesetter among slam team poets, editor, and venue host. Brown is cofounder of The Duende Project, a spoken word and music quartet that performs locally and along the East Coast, in addition to releasing six collections of their work. Brown’s daily blog, “Dark Matters,” attracts over 3000 readers, and his poems have garnered seven Pushcart Prize nominations.

The Stanley Kunitz Medal originated with a bequest to the Worcester County Poetry Association from former Poet Laureate of the United States and Worcester native Stanley Kunitz (1905-2006). Brown’s award will be the eighth annual medal bestowed on a poet with a strong Worcester County connection who best exemplifies Kunitz’s lifelong commitment to poetry. The award recognizes a poet’s commitment to poetry as Kunitz lived it: teaching poetry, mentoring poets, speaking poetry, publishing poetry, and supporting organizations which nurture poetry.

Also nominated this year were poets Curt Curtin, David Macpherson, and Laura Jehn Menides.

Tony Brown will receive his medal at a ceremony presented by the Worcester County Poetry Association at the Worcester Historical Museum on Thursday, July 28th from 6:30-8:30 p.m. There is limited parking at the museum, with additional parking on street and in the Pearl/Elm Street Garage. Visit the 2022 Kunitz Medal Ceremony event page for details.

 

Haiku workshop this Thursday, April 7, 2022

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Join West Boylston writer Loree Griffin Burns to reconsider and reconnect with the natural world through this seemingly simple poetic form. This group is for teenagers and adults, beginner to master, interested in exploring haiku in English. Join us monthly to wander indoors and out, to read, to write, and to share our poems.

Please email beaman @ cwmars . org at least 24 hours prior to this program to register.

Plan Update – April 2022

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Since our last update, the WCPA has continued to reflect on how we interact with the communities of Worcester County. A part of that process has involved hiring a consultant to help us create a roadmap for incorporating diversity, equity, and inclusion in our activities and membership.

The WCPA hired Sarah B. Lange to lead us through an Adaptive Planning process. It included a survey of all WCPA members, an in-person planning retreat in October 2021, and guidance for two sub-committees focused on Programming and Infrastructure.

Sarah shared several artifacts from the process.

Summary and Key Recommendations

Survey Summary

Retreat Goals

Infrastructure Committee Work Plan

Programming Committee Work Plan

While our time working with Sarah has ended, the work has only just begun. We will share some of the process’s output at our in-person annual meeting on April 3, 2022.

Previous Updates

Plan Update – June 2021

Statement – April 2021

Filed Under: Uncategorized

WCPA Annual Meeting this Sunday (4/3/2022)

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Dzvinia OrlowskyJoin the Worcester County Poetry Association for our Annual Meeting on April 3, 2022! The afternoon consists of a short Business Meeting, a chance to mingle with friends, and a poetry feature by Dzvinia Orlowsky. We’ll start at 2:00 pm in-person at the First Unitarian Church, 90 Main Street, Worcester.

You can view the agenda at this link – 2022 Annual Meeting Agenda [link]

Dzvinia Orlowsky is a Pushcart Prize poet, translator, and a founding editor of Four Way Books.  She is also the author of six poetry collections published by Carnegie Mellon University Press including her most recent, Bad Harvest, named a 2019 Massachusetts Book Awards “Must Read” in poetry; Silvertone (2013) for which she was named Ohio Poetry Day Association’s 2014 Co-Poet of the Year; and Convertible Night, Flurry of Stones (2009) for which she received a Sheila Motton Book Award.  Her first collection, A Handful of Bees, was reprinted in 2009 as a Carnegie Mellon University Classic Contemporary. Her translation from the Ukrainian of Alexander Dovzhenko’s novella, The Enchanted Desna, was published by House Between Water in 2006, and her poem sequence “The (Dis)enchanted Desna” was selected by Robert Pinsky as the 2019 co-winner of the New England Poetry Club Samuel Washington Allen Prize.  In 2014, Dialogos published Jeff Friedman’s and her co-translation of Memorials: A Selection by Polish poet Mieczysław Jastrun for which she and Friedman were awarded a 2016 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Translation Fellowship.  Her co-translation with Ali Kinsella from the Ukrainian,  Eccentric Days of Hope and Sorrow:  Selected Poems by Natalka Biolotserkivets was published by Lost Horse Press in 2021.  Dzvinia is Writer-in-Residence at the Solstice Low-Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing and a contributing poetry editor to Solstice Literary Magazine and Agni.

Our College Poetry Contest Endowment

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The Greater Worcester Community Foundation manages six endowment funds on behalf of the WCPA that provides annual support for WCPA programs such as the Gregory Stockmal Reading, the Stanley Kunitz Medal, and our print journal, The Worcester Review. We also receive operating support through our Founders’ Fund.
We continue to raise money for the recently created College Poetry Contest Fund to support the annual Elizabeth Bishop Manuscript prize and the Etheridge Knight Performance prize for college students. We need to raise an additional $1,500 by June this year to establish the endowment fully.
Please consider a donation of any size to support the College Contest Fund if you are able. Mail checks to the WCPA office (PO Box 804, Worcester, MA 01613) or directly to the Greater Worcester Community Foundation (370 Main Street, Suite 650, Worcester, MA 01608-1738). Please note the College Contest Fund on the memo line of your check.
Thank you in advance for your consideration.