Mapping Poetry in Worcester – Poetry Reading & Open Mic Night

Mapping Poetry in Worcester has been putting Worcester’s best-known poets, such as Elizabeth Bishop and Stanley Kunitz, on the map with self-guided driving and walking tours and exciting plans for exhibits, events, publications, and a story-mapped website. To bring these historic poets into conversation with poets writing today, MWiP is pleased to announce Poetry in and out of Places, a project that includes a contest and free public workshops.

Worcester County residents are encouraged to submit a poem about Worcester and its public spaces by June 1, 2023 to poemsinandoutofplaces@worcestercountypoetry.org. Poems of up to 30 lines, not previously published, with an accompanying translation if written in a language other than English, are welcome. Up to twenty-four poems will be awarded an honorarium of $75, displayed on site or in an exhibit at the Worcester Historical Museum, recorded for YouTube, and published in a special collection. Additional poems will be posted online. For more information, visit Poems in and out of Places.

Leading up to the June 1, 2023 deadline, MWiP will host three poetry workshops that explore writing about place. The first workshop, Writing about History in Place with Susan Edwards Richmond, takes place Saturday, May 7, 2022, 2-5pm at Worcester PopUp. Other workshops, set in other parts of the city, are planned for September 2022 and February 2023. These workshops will be announced in advance on the Worcester County Poetry Association Events Calendar. Workshops are free, but space is limited; spots can be reserved by emailing poemsinandoutofplaces@worcestercountypoetry.org.

Poems in and Out of Places kicks off this month with The City in Motion, a poetry reading and open mic featuring poems about places in Worcester Thursday, April 21, 7-8:30pm at TidePool Bookshop, 372 Chandler Street. For more information on this inaugural event, see Poems in and out of Places: The City in Motion – Worcester County Poetry Association

Please contact Beth Sweeney at ssweeney@holycross.eduand Kate Gregoire at katheanderson@gmail.com or C: 814.321.8786 for more information.

About Mapping Worcester in Poetry

Mapping Worcester in Poetry is an initiative funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (through Scholarship in Action at Holy Cross), with the Worcester County Poetry Association as a community partner. MWiP identifies, documents, and marks sites related to some of the city’s best-known poets while nurturing brand-new poetry about Worcester and Central Massachusetts. For more information, visit us here.