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Ada Limon and Space

Ada Limón, Poet Laureate

Ada Limón Sends Poem to Space

Read opening paragraph here:

In the moments before NASA’s Europa Clipper was set to launch Oct. 14 from the legendary Kennedy Space Center, everything got quiet. All eyes were fixed on a towering SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket that would carry NASA’s largest spacecraft ever designed for a planetary mission on a 1.8-billion-mile journey.

The mission to explore Jupiter’s moon Europa was in the making for decades and imagined for far longer. Galileo first discovered Europa through a homemade telescope in 1610. Now, scientists believe Europa is another water world covered with an icy crust and may hold the ingredients for life...."

NE Poetry Club Grant Opportunity

NEW ENGLAND POETRY CLUB
GRANT OPPORTUNITIES
for BLACK POETS
and POETS of COLOR


The NEPC is awarding up to $10,000 in grants, specifically for Black poets and poets of color: two grants for individual
poets for poetic achievement and one grant for a project that forwards the mission of the NEPC to promote the
appreciation of poetry, and which has a particular focus on BIPOC community involvement.


To learn more and to apply, go to nepoetryclub.org and navigate to “Grant Opportunities” under “Contests and
Awards.”

The application period will open on August 1.
Deadline for applications is October 15, 2024.


A panel appointed by the NEPC Board will review the applications and determine grant recipients. Grant recipients will be announced in December 2024. 


The New England Poetry Club, founded in 1915 by Amy Lowell, Robert Frost, and Conrad Aiken, seeks to nurture poetic expression, to recognize poetic achievement, to foster a diverse community, and to deepen the understanding and love of poetry. 

 

Here's how to apply:
https://nepoetryclub.org/contests/nepc-grant-opportunities/

New England Poetry Club Contest 2024

New England Poetry Club

Congratulations to all 2024 contest winners, honorable mentions, and finalists! And many thanks to everyone who entered.

We’re grateful for your participation. 

1) Samuel Washington Allen Prize, selected by Enzo Silon Surin
Winner:
Jennifer Garfield, “my own animal”
Honorable Mentions:
Ivy Schweitzer, “Manchester”
Carolyn Oliver, "Phantasia on Dvořák’s Poetic Tone Pictures, Op. 85 "
2) E.E. Cummings Prize, selected by Marcia Karp
Winner:
Owen Lewis, “(from captivity) When living children”
Honorable Mentions:
Sara Backer, “Shifting”
Susan Donnelly, "Chattanooga Choo Choo"
Mary Beth Hines, “Waking Uncle Edward”
3) Diana Der-Hovanessian Prize, selected by George Kalogeris
Winner:
“The Girl Grown Up” by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated from the German by Donald Mace Williams
4) Amy Lowell Prize, selected by Sarah Audsley
Winner:
J. Kates, “The Rainmaker”
Honorable Mentions:
Wendy Drexler, “Gossip and Metaphysics”
Laura Rodley, “A Matter of Physics”
Quintin Collins, “Dying Laughing”
5) Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize, selected by Jennifer Jean
Winner:
Naomi Mulvihill, We All Might Be
Honorable Mention:
Carolyn Oliver, Night Ocean
6) Sheila Margaret Motton Book Prize, selected by the NEPC Board
Winner:
Heather Treseler, Auguries & Divinations
Honorable Mentions:
Andrea Cohen, The Sorrow Apartments
Daniel Tobin, The Mansions
Finalists:
Linda Carney-Goodrich, Dot Girl
Rebecca Faulkner, Permit Me to Write My Own Ending
Richard Fein, Dear Yiddish
Matthew E. Henry, The Third Renunciation
Halyna Kruk, translated by Dzvinia Orlowsky and Ali Kinsella, Lost in Living
Gary Metras, Marble Dust
Jeffrey Thomson, Museum of Objects Burned by the Souls in Purgatory
 
 

 

 

Talking Book Library Invites Poets

Within the Worcester Public Library building is the Talking Book Library, which provides materials to patrons who have difficulty with regular print materials.

The TBL staff invites local poets to contact them and make an appointment to record their spoken-word poetry.

These recordings will be made available to our patrons.

 

 

Poetry in the Parks

Click here to learn more about:

Poetry in the Parks with Poet Laureate Ada Limón

Rodger Martin Wins Stanley Kunitz Medal

New Hampshire poet Rodger Martin "has earned the right to be called a citizen and poet of the world," says the Stanley Kunitz Medal committee of the Worcester County Poetry Association.

Martin has also earned the right to be named the 2024 Stanley Kunitz Medal recipient.

 

Click below for more details:

Rodger Martin Wins Medal

WSU Professor Wins Poetry Prize

Worcester State University Professor Heather  Treseler won the prestigious 2023 May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize for her first full-length book of poems, "Auguries & Divinations."

 

Click here for more info:

Heather Treseler Prize

Can Poetry Make a Difference in Our Lives?

April is National Poetry Month.

What role does poetry play in your life?

"In the guest essay “How to Breathe With the Trees,” Margaret Renkl writes about Ada Limón, who is serving her second term as poet laureate of the United States. Ms. Renkl says that in a new poetry anthology, Ms. Limón makes a case for poetry being able to heal us and the earth itself:..."

Click on the link below for the rest of the story:

Can poetry make a difference?

Poetry in MA in 1998

On this day in 1998, 25 Bostonians, including the president of the Massachusetts Senate, a homeless man, and a fifth grade student, recited their favorite poems to a packed auditorium at the Boston Public Library. The president of the library came dressed in western attire, complete with bolo tie and hat, and read a cowboy poem. Others presented poems in Spanish, Vietnamese, and American Sign Language. The event helped launch the Favorite Poem Project, the brainchild of Boston-based poet Robert Pinsky, the 39th Poet Laureate of the United States. Over the next year, 18,000 Americans responded to Pinsky's call to share their favorite poems. Three anthologies, 50 video documentaries, and an award-winning website are the result.....

To read more, click here: Favorite Poem - 1998

Poetry to train doctors

2/17/2024

João Luís Barreto Guimarães, a breast cancer specialist and prizewinning poet, is pioneering the teaching of poetry alongside medicine to help trainee doctors empathise with their patients:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/feb/17/joao-luis-barreto-guimaraes-cancer-surgeon-poetry-pessoa-prize

How Poetry Helps

November, 2023

Worcester Youth Poet Laureate

Library of Congress and Hispanic Poets

Richard Fox [- 2023]

Local poet Richard Fox died this morning after a many-years fight with cancer.

You can watch his funeral online on Tuesday, 10/3/2023 at:

Richard Fox funeral

Richard's website:  website

In memoriam...

Richard

d 10.2.23

.

the Fox has crossed the meadow

swum across the stream

climbed the last hill

& vanished from our sight.

.

we who watch with weary eyes

the afterglow of his luminescence

bid our beloved bon voyage

on this, his final earthly journey.

.

yet even as tears choke out these words

truth shimmers in plain sight –

nothing is ever truly lost to us

memory is not then, but now

.

each time his name is mentioned

his presence reawakens –

may his memory be a blessing

in every mouth, in each heart

.

today.

Robert Eugene Perry 2023

Poetry and the military

Poet Laureate Ada Limón

Ada Limón: 'You Are Here'

U.S. Poet Laureate to Publish Anthology, Bring Poetry to National Parks

Ada Limón’s signature project as the nation’s 24th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, “You Are Here,” will feature two major new initiatives: an anthology of commissioned nature poems and poetry installed as public art in seven national parks.

“I want to champion the ways reading and writing poetry can situate us in the natural world,” Limón said. “Never has it been more urgent to feel a sense of reciprocity with our environment, and poetry’s alchemical mix of attention, silence, and rhythm gives us a reciprocal way of experiencing nature — of communing with the natural world through breath and presence.”

Click here for more information.

SFWA and poetry

The SFWA is the Science Fiction Writers Association....

 

Poetry and Translations Now Accepted

SFWA is now accepting poetry and translated fiction as qualifying works for membership in the organization, thanks to the votes of full SFWA members this past spring. These overwhelmingly positive votes affirm that SFWA members are eager to welcome poets and translators into the organization, joining prose, game, comics, graphic novel, and screenwriters working on traditional, work-for-hire, self-publishing, and independent career paths. 

Our combined efforts bolster SFWA’s mission of promoting, advancing, and supporting science fiction and fantasy writing. Interested individuals are welcome to review the full membership guidelines and submit an application. Please help us spread this good news! Full press release.

Poetry lovers

Anu Garg provides a free email service to people who loves words on his website wordsmith.org (A Word A Day).

This week's theme is "Words with AI usage examples".

Click below for a word for "poetry lover":

Poetry lover

Rhode Island State Poet

Could you be Rhode Island's next State Poet? Click below for details!

Rhode Island State Poet

Ancient Poem

Seal of Inana

Why Does God Keep Making Poets?

Why Does God Keep Making Poets - an interview 

Mapping Worcester in Poetry

"A new project aims to capture the places poets have trodden, and take residents and visitors alike with them, with self-guided walking and driving tours of locations important in the lives of poets who have left their mark."

Upcoming Poetry Events - June 10, 2023

Gerald Stern's Final Boko of Poetry

Richard Fox Tribute

Tidepool and Stanley Kunitz

TidePool Press Book Launch

Judith Ferrara:

A Feast of Losses, Yetta Dine and Her Son,

the Poet Stanley Kunitz

 

Book Launch, Reading and Book Signing

Thursday, June 8, 2023 at 7:00pm

TidePool Bookshop

372 Chandler Street

Worcester, Massachusetts 01602

508-753-2500

Slightly Off-Beat Poets

Poet-Pourri

Tidepool Bookshop Poetry Event: Tuesday, April 11, 2023 at 5:30pm

National Poetry Month 2023

Baseball Poetry Festival

That Rarest Thing: a Bestselling Poet

Blackout Poetry

Poetry and Endangered Languages

Worcester Poet Laureate Inauguration

 

 

National Poetry Month Poster - April 2023

Worcester Poet Laureate

Phillis Wheatley

Charles Simic

Local Poetry Series

Griffin Poetry Prize Changes

Kayden Hern - MA poet laureate

Urdu Poetry Festival