Last year, HoCoPoLitSo announced the establishment of the first-ever position of Howard County Poet Laureate, created in partnership with the Office of County Executive Calvin Ball and the Howard County Arts Council.  Today, we are excited to open applications for the first term of the Howard County Youth Poet Laureate position for all eligible young poets!

The Youth Poet Laureate, an honorary one-year position formally appointed by the County Executive, will act as an ambassador for literacy, arts, and youth expression in Howard County, demonstrating their passion for poetry, and its power to connect our local community through participation in public readings and civic events.

The next Youth Poet Laureate will serve from August 2024 – June 2025, and will receive an honorarium of $500 for their one-year term.  The position is open to young writers, between the ages of 14–21 at the time of application, who either reside in or will be available to present at in-person events in Howard County— for example, those attending a college or university next year within commuting distance.  Applications are open now, until May 30^th, 2024.  To learn more about the program please visit the HCAC program landing page here or review the complete program guidelines.

Eligible candidates may apply now by clicking HERE!  The deadline for submissions is May 30, 2024.

HoCoPoLitSo welcomes all to the March edition of the Wilde Readings Series, with Fran Abrams and Jared Smith, hosted by Linda Joy Burke. Join us at the Columbia Art Center on Tuesday, March 12th at 7 p.m., at 6100 Foreland Garth, Columbia, MD 21045. Please spread the word— bring your friends, family and students! Light refreshments will be served and books by the readers available for sale.

An open mic follows the featured authors and we encourage you to participate. Please prepare no more than five minutes of performance time, about two poems. Sign up when you arrive, or in advance by calling the Columbia Arts Center at (410)-730-0075.

Below, get to know Fran and Jared!

Who is the person in your life (past or present) that shows up most often in your writing?

Fran: My mother who passed away over 50 years ago. She not only shows up but also inspires my writing. I credit her with encouraging my love for the arts and humanities.

Jared: The people I write about most often are working people who find dignity in the jobs they do and who respect those around them. They are thoughtful types who enjoy music, art, and the world around them rather than money or thinking about getting ahead. I have very seldom written in my poetry about individual people I have known, but rather what has been accomplished by them or experienced by them. I seldom mention them by name.

Where is your favorite place to write?

Fran: At my dining room table. Even though I have an office and a desktop computer, I love the afternoon light that comes into my dining room and enjoy writing on my laptop in that setting.

Jared: I take notes in my head for lines of poetry wherever I am, whether at work, or walking in the forest, or observing people at a coffee shop, or any of the other activities I’m involved in each day. These phrases, lines of poetry and the images they come from flow together over a period of time until they begin to lead to a new vision or understanding of some aspect of life that is new and exciting to me. Then I go into my study where I begin to put them down on paper, generally working on my computer because the visions and thoughts flow faster than I can write longhand.

Do you have any consistent pre-writing rituals?

Fran: No. I write when inspiration hits— no time for rituals. I send myself rough drafts by email on my phone, and as I noted, I write at my desk and at the dining room table. Sometimes I will simply stop in the middle of checking emails or other tasks and start writing, picking up a thread that just ran through my mind.

Jared: I’ve always found it important to have a ritual to prepare my mind for entering into the nonlinear poetic trance necessary to my writing. Key for me is my study, which is covered on three walls with bookshelves bulging with both hardcover books and hundreds of small press magazines and journals dating from the European Romantics to the present day. The other walls contains abstract art paintings and drawings. Having those books, journals, and artworks surrounding me somehow infuses me with and makes me a part of the unending conversation all poets and creative people enter into across time as to what life is and how rich it is.

Who always gets a first read?

Fran: I spend a great deal of time revising my own poems. However, I am very fortunate to participate in two workshop groups. When I feel a poem is close to being finished, but not quite there, I share it with one of those groups.

Jared: Generally my wife gets the first read.

What is a book you’ve read more than twice (and would read again)?

Fran: One of my favorite books of poetry is Scattered Clouds by Reuben Jackson who sadly passed away recently. I have read it many times and expect to read it again. I’ve also written a Golden Shovel poem based on one of his poems.

Jared: There are so many books I read and re-read for pleasure . . . books of poetry, novels, essays. I have hundreds of volumes of poetry and novels in my study but I guess that The Wasteland And Other Poems by T.S. Eliot has to be the book of poetry I’ve gone back to most often. Among novels I’ve gone back most often is Catch-22 by Joseph Heller and The Lord Of The Rings by Tolkien. Looking For Dragon Smoke by Robert Bly is the best essay I’ve come across on how modern poetry works.

What is the most memorable reading you have attended?

Fran: A reading by Aaron Caycedo-Kimura at the Gaithersburg Book Festival was the most memorable. His two books—a full-length collection titled Common Grace and a chapbook titled Ubasute—include some of the most moving poems I’ve encountered, and his reading of the poems was superb.

Jared: There have been so many! The earliest was one I attended by Galway Kinnell, when I was a young boy and went up to talk with him afterwards and he told me that he thought I would become a good poet. Somewhat later I took a two hour bus trip to head to a reading by Robert Bly, and that led to many years of correspondence with him. A reading by Beat poet Gregory Corso in New York led to the two of us hanging out together for several months. A reading W.S. Merwin gave to celebrate the publication of his book Migration led to an extended talk with him and resulted in my reviewing the book for The Pedestal Magazine. And then there are all the wonderful meetings and talks I have had with both known and unknown poets at open mics over the years! It is wonderful to listen to poets converse as well as read their works.

• Fran Abrams’ poems have been published in Cathexis-Northwest Press, The American Journal of Poetry, The Ravens Perch, Delmarva Review, Gargoyle, and many others. Her poems also appear in more than a dozen anthologies. Her autobiographical book of poems titled I Rode the Second Wave: A Feminist Memoir was published in November 2022. Her first chapbook, The Poet Who Loves Pythagoras, was released in April 2023. Her second chapbook, Arranging Words, was published in November 2023.

Fran lives in Rockville, Maryland and can be found online at franabramspoetry.com, and on Facebook as Fran Abrams, Poet.

• Jared Smith is the author of 16 books of poetry, as well as two stage productions. His poems, essays, and commentary have appeared in hundreds of journals and anthologies in this country and overseas. He is Poetry Editor of Turtle Island Quarterly, and served on the editorial boards of New York Quarterly, Home Planet News, and The Pedestal Magazine, along with the boards of arts and literary nonprofits in New York, Illinois, and Colorado.

You can find more on Jared at his home page, jaredsmith.info.

HoCoPoLitSo welcomes all to the February edition of the Wilde Readings Series, with Joseph Ross and Michael Salcman, hosted by Laura Shovan. Join us at the Columbia Art Center on Tuesday, February 13th at 7 p.m., at 6100 Foreland Garth, Columbia, MD 21045. Please spread the word— bring your friends, family and students! Light refreshments will be served and books by the readers available for sale.

An open mic follows the featured authors and we encourage you to participate. Please prepare no more than five minutes of performance time, about two poems. Sign up when you arrive, or in advance by calling the Columbia Arts Center at (410)-730-0075.

Below, get to know Joseph and Michael!

Who is the person in your life (past or present) that shows up most often in your writing?

Joseph: What an interesting question. My husband, Robert, probably shows up most but he is often whispering within the poems, even if he isn’t mentioned. Martin Luther King shows up in many of my poems too.

Michael: My father and my wife Ilene.

Where is your favorite place to write?

Joseph: Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C.

Michael: In bed at home in the early hours before rising on my iPad; next best, at anchor in a sailboat.

Do you have any consistent pre-writing rituals?

Joseph: I straighten the things on my desk before I write.

Michael: New ideas and first lines on iPad or paper notebook come at any time; new drafts occur at my desk computer. In the early hours editing on the iPad quickly goes through several drafts.

Who always gets a first read?

Joseph: There’s no one person who reads my work first. I share with very few people.

Michael: My wife Ilene and less so poet friends in New York & Baltimore; Ilene is usually in the kitchen and if I read her a new poem and my eyes get watery I know I have landed a good one. She gives me a rating but doesn’t cry.

What is a book you’ve read more than twice (and would read again)?

Joseph: Martin Luther King’s Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?

Michael: Complete poems of Wallace Stevens more than twice, ditto Geography III by Elizabeth Bishop, Crow by Ted Hughes, and New and Selected Poems of Tom Lux, my teacher; recently finished my second reading of all seven volumes of Proust’s Remembrance of Lost Time (no third one is on the horizon).

What is the most memorable reading you have attended?

Joseph: Naomi Shihab Nye reading at one of the early Split This Rock Poetry Festivals.

Michael: Ilene and I hosted a reading and celebration by Richard Wilbur at the Century Association in New York; I invited Tom Lux and Edward Hirsch to give a joint reading at the City Lit Festival in Baltimore. They were terrific.

The Howard County Poetry and Literature Society (HoCoPoLitSo) is pleased to announce that Steph Sundermann-Zinger of the Baltimore area has been awarded first prize in the 2023 Ellen Conroy Kennedy Poetry Contest for her poem “A Dream of Solitude.” Judges noted the poem’s “gorgeous language” and “strong imagery, alliteration, and meter.” One said, “this poem has the strongest voice,” and another called it “a mature poem that is a moment in time.” A $500 cash prize was awarded, and the poem was published in the Winter 2024 edition of The Little Patuxent Review.

Larraine Denakpo of Columbia was awarded second place with a $100 cash award for her poem “Lullaby for Daughters,” in recognition of the poem’s effective usage of restrained form, while conveying what one judge called “universal resonance.” Another said, “this neatly packed, tiny poem is so enjoyable to read.” In addition, the review panel awarded honorable mentions to Joshua Ward of Dayton for his poem “Some Thrushes on Migration,” and to Eileen Wu of Clarksville for “Why Storms Have Human Names.”

Contest judges evaluated submissions from 60 poets residing throughout Maryland and Virginia for mechanics and technique, clarity, style/music for our contemporary age, imagery/sensory power, and emotional resonance. Each author receiving an award or honorary mention was invited to be interviewed for a blog post hosted at hocopolitso.org.

The Ellen Conroy Kennedy Poetry Prize was established to honor HoCoPoLitSo co-founder Ellen Conroy Kennedy, who passed away in 2020. Ms. Kennedy, who was nominated for the National Book Award in Translation in 1969, translated Francophone African and Caribbean poets, and published her landmark work, The Negritude Poets, in 1975.

Kennedy founded HoCoPoLitSo in 1974, a nationally recognized, community-based nonprofits arts organization that has brought hundreds of writers to Howard County, Maryland, now soon to enter its 50^th year of operation. She served as president and CEO for 30 years, opening her home and sharing her table with an array of literary icons. She also developed and produced The Writing Life, originally a cable television series, featuring conversations with writers, now available free on HoCoPoLitSo’s YouTube channel. In 2019, the Kennedys donated more than 1,500 books, most of which featured authors who read for HoCoPoLitSo audiences, to the Howard Community College library; the Kennedy Collection is housed in a reading room open to the public during normal business hours.

HoCoPoLitSo works to cultivate appreciation for contemporary poetry and literature and celebrate culturally diverse literary heritages. The society sponsors literary readings; the Bauder Writer-in-Residence outreach program to local schools; produces The Writing Life; and partners with the public schools and cultural organizations to support the arts in Howard County, Maryland. For more information, visit www.hocopolitso.org.

Out of consideration for the year-end holidays, the deadline for application to the newly-created position of Howard County Poet Laureate has been extended to Monday, January 22nd, at 11:59 p.m. Don’t miss your chance to be the next, and first-ever Poet Laureate to our local community!

This program, presented in partnership between HoCoPoLitSo and Howard County Arts Council with the office of the County Executive, offers a stipend of $5,000 for each year of the appointed poet’s service representing poetry and the arts in Howard County. You can review all of the information at bit.ly/howardcountypoetlaureate on HCAC’s grants portal, and apply now!

UPDATED: The January session of the Wilde Reading Series, featuring Yvette Neisser and Pantea Tofangchi, has been re-scheduled for the evening of Tuesday, January 30th at 7 p.m.

Due to the severe inclement weather and possibility for flooding expected this evening in Columbia, the Wilde Reading Series event previously scheduled for tonight, January 9th, 2024 at 7 p.m. is cancelled, pending re-scheduling. We apologize for any inconvenience and please check back to this space, or to the Wilde Readings Facebook page, for an adjusted date.

UPDATED 1/10/2024: The Poet Laureate submission deadline has been extended to Monday, January 22, 2024.

The Howard County Poet Laureate program, created in partnership between HoCoPoLitSo, the Howard County Arts Council, and the Office of Howard County Executive Calvin Ball, is pleased to announce the members of the Poet Laureate review panel:

GRACE CAVALIERI is Maryland’s 10th Poet Laureate (2018-2023). Her newest book is The Long Game: Poems Selected & New (The Word Works). She founded and produces The Poet and the Poem series of audio interviews for public radio, now from the Library of Congress, celebrating 47 years on-air. Grace was formerly Assistant Director for Children’s Programming, Corporate PBS, then Senior Program Officer NEH. Among other awards she holds the Allen Ginsberg Award and the CPB Silver Medal. She is an Academy of American Poets Fellow. She has written 26 books of poems and plays produced on American stages.

E. ETHELBERT MILLER is a literary activist and author of two memoirs and several poetry collections. He hosts the WPFW morning radio show On the Margin with E. Ethelbert Miller and hosts and produces The Scholars on UDC-TV which received a 2020 Telly Award. Miller is Associate Editor and a columnist for The American Book Review. He was given a 2020 congressional award from Congressman Jamie Raskin in recognition of his literary activism, awarded the 2022 Howard Zinn Lifetime Achievement Award by the Peace and Justice Studies Association, and named a 2023 Grammy Nominee Finalist for Best Spoken Word Poetry Album. Miller’s latest book is How I Found Love Behind the Catcher’s Mask, published by City Point Press.

SYLVIA JONES is associate poetry editor at Black Lawrence Press and works part-time as an adjunct lecturer in creative writing, she teaches at Goucher College and George Washington University. Her writing appears in DIAGRAM, R&R Journal, Smartish Pace, Sprung Formal, Poet Lore, Shenandoah, The Poetry Society of New York, Revolut, and elsewhere. Sylvia earned her MFA from American University in Washington D.C. and lives in Baltimore, MD.

The deadline to apply to this inaugural position of Howard County Poet Laureate is fast approaching: applications close January 9th, 11:59 p.m. UPDATED: applications have been extended to close January 22nd, 11:59 p.m. All those interested are strongly encouraged to review the application guidelines and eligibility requirements, and to apply soon to allow time for completing the process.

let there be lit.

It is with deep regret that we convey the loss of long-standing HoCoPoLitSo board member and Irish Evening champion and chair, Catherine McLoughlin-Hayes, who passed away peacefully in her sleep this past Thursday, December 28th, 2023. For all you have given us, the wonderful world of Irish writers and music, and, especially, your dear friendship, we thank you and will remember you always with love.

An obituary and information on a viewing and Mass of Christian Burial are provided here:

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/name/catherine-mcloughlin-obituary?id=53964787

If you wish to make a donation in memory of Catherine, you may do so via PayPal or by check made out to:

UPDATED: This January session of the Wilde Reading Series, featuring Yvette Neisser and Pantea Tofangchi, has been re-scheduled for the evening of Tuesday, January 30th at 7 p.m.

HoCoPoLitSo welcomes all to the January edition of the Wilde Readings Series, with Yvette Neisser and Pantea Tofangchi, hosted by Linda Joy Burke. Join us at the Columbia Art Center on Tuesday, January 30th at 7 p.m., at 6100 Foreland Garth, Columbia, MD 21045. Please spread the word— bring your friends, family and students! Light refreshments will be served and books by the readers available for sale.

An open mic follows the featured authors and we encourage you to participate. Please prepare no more than five minutes of performance time, about two poems. Sign up when you arrive, or in advance by calling the Columbia Arts Center at (410)-730-0075.

Below, get to know Yvette and Pantea!

Who is the person in your life (past or present) that shows up most often in your writing?

Yvette: My father. He died young, so I have written many poems processing his loss.

Pantea: Me and my family.

Where is your favorite place to write?

Yvette: In my bedroom, before dawn.

Pantea: My desk.

Do you have any consistent pre-writing rituals?

Yvette: Nothing consistent, though I often write first thing when I wake up, with a cup of tea.

Pantea: I pick a book of poems and read a few poems and then write! Or look at paintings.

Who always gets a first read?

Yvette: Depends on the poem, the subject. If I’m excited about a first draft, I share it with someone who I think would appreciate it–this might be my partner, a good friend, a fellow poet, or my mom.

Pantea: My husband.

What is a book you’ve read more than twice (and would read again)?

Yvette: I’m not sure if I’ve read anything more than twice. Certainly I’ve read several of Pablo Neruda’s works at least twice: Twenty Love Poems, The Captain’s Verses, and Heights of Macchu Picchu, and will probably read them again. I also just read Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain for a second time and would read it again.

Pantea: The Little Prince. One Hundred Years of Solitude. Baron in the Trees. Sharabe Khaam (The Raw Wine). Another Birth (a collection of poems by Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad).

What is the most memorable reading you have attended?

Yvette: The most magical for me were the Dodge Poetry Festival readings (in NJ) that I attended as a young poet— especially Lucille Clifton, who read in the early morning in a small cabin, with people seated all over the floor.

Pantea: Ivy Book Store, Judith Krummeck reading from her book in conversation with Dan Rodricks.

HoCoPoLitSo welcomes all to the December edition of the Wilde Readings Series, with Monica Prince and Carole Boston Weatherford, hosted by Laura Shovan. Join us at the Columbia Art Center on Tuesday, December 12th at 7 p.m., at 6100 Foreland Garth, Columbia, MD 21045. Please spread the word— bring your friends, family and students! Light refreshments will be served and books by the readers available for sale.

An open mic follows the featured authors and we encourage you to participate. Please prepare no more than five minutes of performance time, about two poems. Sign up when you arrive, or in advance by calling the Columbia Arts Center at (410)-730-0075.

Below, get to know Monica and Carole!

Who is the person in your life (past or present) that shows up most often in your writing?

Monica: My mother shows up the most in my work. My first published choreopoem, How to Exterminate the Black Woman, is about and for my mother. Something about all the lessons I’ve absorbed from her makes me want to feature her in my writing. So many of my poems feature her because I have a romanticized idea of what it means to be a Black mother from her. She’s the strongest woman I know. I want her legacy to live after her.

Carole: Billie Holiday, my muse.

Where is your favorite place to write?

Monica: I love writing in public— bars, restaurants, intermissions during plays, in line at the bank. The frenzied nature of being in public, possibly observed, and not having that much time to get something down pushes my creativity. Most of the poems in Roadmap were written while I waited for friends to meet me at a bar, between workshops and events during a writing residency, and during commercial breaks while watching TV with my mom. I joke with my students that I’ve made my career off 7-13 minute stretches of poetry, and it’s not wrong.

Carole: Planes and trains.

Do you have any consistent pre-writing rituals?

Monica: The only thing I do every time I write is I try to find a black pen. I hate the color blue, despite it being my power color, so I can’t get good work done with a blue pen. I don’t have many rituals because I only write when I can get the time, which is infrequent these days.

Carole: No.

Who always gets a first read?

Monica: Typically, my husband Rob gets to hear my work first, but mostly because he’s almost always there while I’m composing work. Other than that, it’s whoever is present when I finish a draft. I’m unafraid of showing off my terrible drafts immediately because I’m a trained slam poet who has been workshopping poems on stage for over a decade. I’m not very precious about my work in that way. I want folks to see how pieces change over time.

Carole: My agent.

What is a book you’ve read more than twice (and would read again)?

Monica: Ntozake Shange’s For colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf. I read that book at least twice a year every year because I teach it. But it’s also the source of my original inspiration for writing choreopoems. I’d also say Meaty by Samantha Irby. I love reading and listening to it, it’s awesome in both versions. I’ve read that at least three times.

Carole: Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje.

What is the most memorable reading you have attended?

Monica: At one of my first AWP conferences, I think it was in Minneapolis in 2015, I attended a Cave Canem reading. It was one of those things that was scheduled before the conference really started. I met all these fellows whose work I’d been following for years. Jericho Brown read from what would later become the Pulitzer Prize-winning collection, The Tradition, and I found myself sobbing. There was something about being surrounded by Black poets after another one of our siblings was murdered for nothing that made me feel at home, even if I wasn’t a fellow myself. I was three months from graduating with my MFA and I had been considering never writing again— nothing felt good about my work, especially after my thesis defense left me a little raw and stinging. But that reading saved me; that community saved me. I’m grateful for them.

Carole: Poet Ntozake Shange and saxophonist Oliver Lake at DC Space in the late 1970s or early 1980s.