Worcester County Poetry Association
Established 1971
Worcester County Poetry Association /1 Ekman Street, Worcester, MA 01607 / 508-797-4770 / wcpaboard@yahoo.com
2012 College Poetry Comptetition
Back row
Michael Samuels (Clark University), Victor Infante (contest judge), Jeff Siegrist (Worcester State University), Dan Lewis (contest judge), Ian Williams (contest chair).
Front row
Courtney Gustafson (Fitchburg State University), Abraham Miguel (Masschusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences), Stephanie Giguere (Assumption College), Claude-Reynald Christian Lecorps (Worcester Polytechnic Institute), Ebony Bailey (Quinsigamond Community College)
(Not pictured) Orquidia Jerez (College of the Holy Cross)
Honorable Mention - Performance Prize
Stephanie Giguere
Assumption College
Faculty Sponsor: John Hodgen
Stephanie Giguere is a senior English major and is the editor of L'Esprit, the Assumption College literary magazine. She is president of the Outdoors Club and an avid rock climber. After graduating, she hopes to go on to an MFA program.
2012 Manuscript Prize
Orquidia Jerez
College of the Holy Cross
Faculty Sponsor: Beth Sweeney
Originally from the Bronx, New York, Orquidia Jerez draws most of her inspiration from her own history and from seemingly trivial memories.
2012 Manuscript Prize
Orquidia Jerez
College of the Holy Cross
2012 Performance Prize
Claude-Reynald Chrisitian Lecorps
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Honorable Mention
Manuscript
Jeff Siegrist
Worcester State University
Performance
Stephanie Giguere
Assumption College
The Worcester County Poetry Association inaugurated the College Poetry Competition in 2008 to encourage and recognize the next generation of poets. The finalists are nominated by faculty and administrators at colleges in Worcester County.
Submissions are judged for the Manuscript Prize and finalists are asked to perform one submitted poem for the Performance Prize.
Students compete for a cash award and a one-year WCPA membership in each category. The winning entry for the Manuscript Prize will be Fall 2012 WCPA literary journal, The Worcester Review. All finalists will be published in the Fitchburg State University literary journal Route 2.
College Poetry Competition Finalists' Reading
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Worcester Public Library
2012 Performance Prize
Claude-Reynald Christian Lecorps
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Faculty Sponsor: James Cocola
Christian Lecorps is a junior at WPI who is majoring in Electronic and Computer Engineering and minoring in psychology.
Honorable Mention - Manuscript Prize
Jeff Siegrist
Worcester State University
Faculty Sponsor: Jonathan Blake
Jeff Siegrist is in his final year as an English major at Worcester State University. He loves to read and write is a fan of Artuad and sleazy pulp fiction.
Finalist
Ebony Bailey
Quinsigamond Community College
Faculty Sponsor: Trent Masiki
Ebony Bailey studies Liberal Arts at QCC. In the future, she will study Writing, Literature, and Publishing at Emerson University. She enjoys spoken word.
Finalist
Michael Samuels
Clark University
Faculty Sponsor: James Elliot
Michael Samuels is a senior English major at Clark University who began writing in the fifth grade. Apart from writing, he enjoys playing music.
Finalist
Courtney Gustafson
Fitchburg State University
Faculty Sponsor: Ian Williams
Courtney Gustafson is a senior English major at Fitchburg State University. In the fall, she will begin a PhD program at UMASS- Amherst.
Finalist
Abraham Miguel
Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
Faculty Sponsor: Mary Bodwell
Abraham Miguel was born and raised in downtown Yonkers, NY. He is majoring in Pharmacy at MCPHS and he also enjoys writing short stories. He hopes to become a retail pharmacist or go into research that would reduce the impact of pharmaceuticals on the environment.
Victor Infante, Ian Williams, Dan Lewis
2012 Contest Judges
Victor Infante
Dan Lewis
Contest Coordinator
Ian Williams
Dan Lewis lives on the edge of the Patch Reservoir in Worcester, Massachusetts. Old enough to know better, he still finds himself walking in the world agog. His work has appeared in numerous journals. A chapbook, Tickets for the Broken Year, was published in 2011 by Naissance Press and a full-length collection, This Garden, was published by Lulu.com in 2012. He can be found at danlewispoetry.com
Victor D. Infante is a poet, editor and journalist living in Worcester. He is the editor of the online literary journal, Radius: Poetry From the Center to the Edge, and the author of City of Insomnia,a poetry collection from Write Bloody Publishing. His poems and stories have been published in numerous periodicals, including The Collagist, Pearl, Chiron Review, The Nervous Breakdown, Spillway, Word Riot and Dark Horizons.
Ian Williams is the author of Not Anyone's Anything (stories, Freehand, 2011) and You Know Who You Are (poems, Wolsak and Wynn, 2010). Williams has held fellowships or residencies from Vermont Studio Center, Cave Canem, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Palazzo Rinaldi in Italy. He was also a scholar at the National Humanities Center Summer Institute for Literary Study. His writing has appeared in Fiddlehead, Arc, Contemporary Verse 2, Rattle, jubilat, Confrontation, The Antigonish Review, Gargoyle, Folio, Pebble Lake Review, Callaloo, Descant, and Matrix Magazine. He teaches at Fitchburg State University.
This is Ian Williams' third and final year coordinating the WCPA College Competition.
