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.

 

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.

Join us tonight for A virtual Thirsty Lab with Beth Sweeney.  Beth will be joined by composter Matthew Jaskot, with whom she is collaborating on a sequence that includes eight poems she wrote for musical adaption.

Just a reminder that you need to register using the link in the event in order to join the virtual reading on Zoom.

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.