Update 04/03/2022 – we have filled the Administrative Assistant position.  Thank you to all who applied.

The WCPA is seeking someone to fill a contract position.  The Administrative Assistant works as an assistant to the board of directors by handling its technical, web, and direct mail requirements as needed.  The candidate will be responsible and self-motivated with good people skills, a commitment to WCPA’s mission, and the ability to work independently while getting the job requirements completed satisfactorily and on time.  The candidate will have good technical skills.

You can find further details, along with information on how to apply, at https://worcestercountypoetry.org/admin-position/.

Hi all – 4 WCPA (sponsored) events are coming up in the next month. 3 are virtual and 1 is in-person. Maybe we’ll see each other at one of them.

3/22 – Thirsty Lab w/JC Todd – virtual – more info at https://worcestercountypoetry.org/event/4352/

3/23 – Women’s Poetry Reading – virtual – more info at https://worcestercountypoetry.org/event/princeton-womens-poetry-reading-placeholder/

3/29 – Thirsty Lab w/Jenith Charpentier – virtual – more info at https://worcestercountypoetry.org/event/a-virtual-thirsty-lab-with-jenith-charpentier/

4/3 – WCPA Annual Meeting w/Dzvinia Orlowsky – in-person – more info at https://worcestercountypoetry.org/event/2022-wcpa-annual-meeting/

Sharing on behalf of the Stevens Memorial Library in Ashburnham, MA. Join them for a Zoom poetry reading on March 16 at 6:30 pm. Two of the most gifted poets in contemporary poetry, Anselm Berrigan and Maureen Owen, will read their work. Please contact the library to get on the list for the Zoom link.

Phone – 978-827-4115
Email – library@ashburnham-ma.gov
or Facebook DM the library

Join us via Zoom for an evening of poetry and hear two of the most gifted poets in contemporary poetry share their work.

Anselm Berrigan’s most recent book of poetry is Pregrets, published by Black Square Editions in 2021. Other books include Something for Everybody, Come in Alone, and the book-length poems Primitive State and Notes from Irrelevance. He’s the poetry editor for The Brooklyn Rail, and co-editor of Get The Money!: Collected Prose of Ted Berrigan, forthcoming from City Lights this fall.

Maureen Owen, former editor and chief of Telephone Magazine and Telephone Books, is the author of Erosion’s Pull, a finalist for the Colorado Book Award and the Balcones Poetry Prize. Her title American Rush: Selected Poems was a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize and her work AE (Amelia Earhart) was a recipient of the prestigious Before Columbus American Book Award. She has taught at Naropa University and co-edited Naropa’s online zine not enough night through 19 issues. Her newest title Edges of Water is available from Chax Press.

In honor of International Women’s Day we’ve uploaded the recording from last year’s Princeton Women’s Poetry Reading.  Each March, Susan Roney-O’Brien organizes the Princeton Women’s Reading with twenty women poets who read together to celebrate joy, creativity, and poetry.

You can view the video on our YouTube channel by visiting https://youtu.be/0QbHZzr7FRE.

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

Join us for the 2022 reading via Zoom. Details can be found on the Women’s Poetry Reading event page.

Iternational Women’s Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women.

Over the month of February, we’ve shared poems, forms, and history of local and not-so-local poets as part of Black History Month. We’ve saved a list of the articles we published for future reference on a Black History Month page.

Who are the local Black poets whose words excite you?

There are so many more wonderful African American poets whose words have inspired and pushed us. Keep reading and learning by visiting some of these sites.

Poets.org “12 Poems to Read for Black History Month”
Poetry Foundation “Celebrating Black History Month”
TeamBonding.com “11 Inspiring Poems To Celebrate Black History Month”

Susan Conley writing in Ploughshares shares “Yusef Komunyakaa speaks in a gravelly Southern baritone, tinged with a Cajun flavor that reflects his childhood years in Louisiana. He is a man who chooses his words carefully, splicing his speech with long silences, until his conversation resembles something close to a jazz riff — very fitting for this acclaimed poet who says “oral language is our first music, and the body is an amplifier.”

We were honored to include Yusef’s poem “Gingkoes” in the 2012 issue of The Worcester Review which honored Chris Gilbert.  You can read Gingkoes at theworcesterreview.org.

Photo by David Shankbone. Komunyakaa at the 2011 National Book Critics Circle Awards in March 2012; his book The Chameleon Couch was nominated for the poetry award.

Douglas Kearney is a poet, performer, and professor of poetry at the University of Minnesota. Kearney favors a nontraditional layout in his poetry, what he calls “performative typography”. Here’s an example found on poetryfoundation.org.

You can also take Kearney’s free course, “Sharpened Visions: Poetry Workshop” on Coursera for an introduction to the elements of poetry, popular poems, and a chance to workshop your own poems with poets around the world.

Learn about Douglas Kearney at his website, https://www.douglaskearney.com/.
Visit Kearney’s Coursera free course at https://www.coursera.org/learn/poetry-workshop.
Check out the Poetry Foundation for other inspiration at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/152478/-a-ship-crashes-down-.

Click the image on the right to see the full-size image.