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HoCoPoLitSo Announces Winners of 2023 Ellen Conroy Kennedy Poetry Prize
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 50th 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.
Meet Larraine Denakpo — 2023 Second Place Winner of the Ellen Conroy Kennedy Poetry Contest
1n 2021, Howard County Poetry and Literature Society launched the Ellen Conroy Kennedy Poetry Prize in honor of its founding member, Ellen Conroy Kennedy. Now in its third year, contest judges evaluated many submissions for mechanics and technique, clarity, style/music for our contemporary age, imagery/sensory power, and emotional resonance. Here, judges noted this poem’s “restrained composition” and “universal resonance.” One said, “This neatly packed, tiny poem is so enjoyable to read.” Congratulations on the second place win.
Tell us about your poem “Lullaby for Daughters”. How did it come about? What sparked or inspired it?
The poem was written around 1988-89 when our small family was living overseas in Bujumbura, Burundi. I had written some poems in a journal with no date and left them to mull for many years. The sentiment was inspired once as I watched our two young daughters sleeping. I am white, my husband black, and I was struck by how little the girls looked like me.
What was an early experience where you learned that language had power?
The written word has always been my friend; I was an early reader and devoured books constantly, escaping boredom and looking for answers. Later the poetry of lyrics in the 60s and 70s—from Bob Dylan to Joni Mitchell to Leonard Cohen – helped me cope with the world. But I first felt the power of poetry moving me to new ways of thinking in the works of women (Nikki Giovanni, Lucille Clifton and others) when I was in college. I attended Seton Hill College in Greensburg, PA and I credit several of the faculty there (the late Sister Lois Sculco and Dr. Lynn Conroy) for encouraging me to explore and practice poetry. I was lucky to attend poetry readings in Pittsburgh when I was in college and experienced readings by powerful poets like Derek Walcott and Adrienne Rich. I even put together a collection of poems as a senior in college (1975) and won an award, but then life happened and I only wrote poems when I found some calm in the daily bustle.
As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal?
I feel a stronger connection to all things green than to any animal. One of my earliest poems evokes a 10-year old me sitting in a maple tree and dreaming; no longer a tree climber I get inspiration from woods and gardens and memories of the green hills of tea and bananas that I found in Burundi.
Tell us about a writer or a book that you return to over and over for inspiration.
While I was working full-time and raising a family, I didn’t find much time for poetry or books. Now I am enjoying exploring much loved poets and discovering new ones. I do go back to both the poet A.R Ammons and the writer Annie Dilliard for the way they communicate about nature.
What are you working on next and where can we find you?
I am mostly retired after working for years on education projects in Africa. I have been focusing on quilting–combining African fabrics with the calico cottons of my childhood. I also explore my new hometown, Columbia, as well and just recently learned about HoCoPoLitSo. This contest took me by surprise and I entered a few old poems on a whim. Maybe I will work on putting together a collection in the years ahead. I have a LinkedIn profile if anyone wants to connect there.
Here, Larraine Denakpo reads “Lullaby for Daughters:
Bio:
I grew up in Carlisle, PA and left after high school in 1971, rarely returning during the next fifty years. After college (BA in English), I joined the Peace Corps and taught English in a small town in Benin. There I met my husband and together we spent time in the US with me getting an MA in Linguistics from the University of Pittsburgh. Then we raised a family while working on education and health development programs in Burundi, Egypt, and Senegal. Our daughters went off to college and we continued working, often separately, for shorter assignments including stints for me in Madagascar, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. I still work part-time at FHI 360 as an education specialist but more and more of my time is spent enjoying my grown children and grandchildren and catching up on my own creative aspirations like quilting and learning to draw. I also enjoy living in Columbia and spend time most days pondering nature on one of its pathways.
Meet Steph Sundermann-Zinger — 2023 First Place Winner of the Ellen Conroy Kennedy Poetry Contest
1n 2021, Howard County Poetry and Literature Society launched the Ellen Conroy Kennedy Poetry Prize in honor of its founding member, Ellen Conroy Kennedy. Now in its third year, contest judges evaluated many submissions for mechanics and technique, clarity, style/music for our contemporary age, imagery/sensory power, and emotional resonance. Here, judges noted the poem’s “gorgeous language” and “strong imagery, alliteration, and meter.” One said, “This poem has the strongest voice of all,” and another called it: “a mature poem that is a moment in time.” Congratulations to this year’s winner, Steph Sundermann-Zinger and the wonderful “A Dream of Solitude”.
Tell us about your poem “A Dream of Solitude” How did it come about? What sparked or inspired it?
Sometime last fall, I woke up to find the word “beekeeper” written in my bedside journal. The details of the dream that prompted my midnight scribbling were hazy even then, but I couldn’t get the word out of my mind, so I decided to dig deeper. It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon – my children were in the backyard, giggling, sword-fighting with sticks, and part of me wanted to join them. The rest of me realized that sitting down to write was remarkably like putting on a bee suit – I was choosing solitude, making room to nurture something small and new. I didn’t know anything at all about beekeeping, so I spent the next hour or so watching YouTube videos about various mid-Atlantic hives. That’s one of the things I enjoy about writing poetry – you never know where the development of a piece might take you.
What was an early experience where you learned that language had power?
I learned to talk very early; by the age of two, when my parents decided to have me baptized, I was speaking in complete sentences. I knew the priest very well, as he dined at our house regularly, so I went willingly into his arms – when he began to pour cold water from a dainty silver seashell onto the crown of my head, though, I decided enough was enough. I sat bolt upright in his arms and screamed, “Get that water off my head, Wally!” That was the first time I embarrassed my parents with my blunt, poorly-timed honesty – it was by no means the last.
As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal?
My study has a big window that looks out onto our backyard, and I’m lucky enough to be visited by a lot of animals while I’m writing. Families of deer, a fox or two, a stumpy-legged groundhog, and a surprising variety of birds – goldfinches, woodpeckers, red-winged blackbirds, cardinals, crows, we even have a Cooper’s hawk nesting on the back hill. They show up in my poetry regularly – so I guess I’d say regional wildlife.
Tell us about a writer or a book that you return to over and over for inspiration.
Oh, goodness. Ada Limon, Ross Gay, Mary Oliver, Ellen Bass, Louise Gluck, Lucille Clifton, Victoria Chang, Brenda Shaughnessy – I could go on. There are so many poets whose work inspires me to push the boundaries of my own, but these are the ones who come immediately to mind.
What are you working on next and where can we find you?
I’m currently completing my thesis year in the University of Baltimore’s MFA program. We’ll be holding our graduation reading and bookfair on Sunday, May 19, and copies of my thesis project will be available; you’ll also have the chance to hear my very talented classmates read their work, so I’d definitely recommend marking your calendar! You can also find me at stephwritespoems.com and on instagram @steph_writes_poems.
Here is poet Steph Sundermann-Zinger reading “A Dream of Solitude”:
Bio: Steph Sundermann-Zinger (she/they) is a queer poet living and writing in the Baltimore area. Her work explores themes of identity, relationship, and connection with the natural world, and has appeared or is forthcoming in Blue Unicorn, Lines + Stars, The Little Patuxent Review, Literary Mama, Every Day Fiction, Litbreak, and other journals.
You will find this winning poem published in the January 2024 issue of Little Patuxent Review. Thanks to LPR for their partnership in presenting the winning poem of the Ellen Conroy Kennedy Poetry Contest each year.
Howard County Poet Laureate Application Deadline Extended to January 22
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!
Darragh McKeon and Cóilín Parsons Headline HoCoPoLitSo’s 46th Annual Irish Evening
7:30 p.m. Saturday, February 3, 2024
Smith Theatre, Horowitz Center, Howard Community College
HoCoPoLitSo’s 46th annual Evening of Irish Music and Poetry on Saturday, February 3rd, 2024, at 7:30 p.m. presents Novel Approach: Troubles in Ireland and America, featuring novelist Darragh McKeon, reading from his new book, Remembrance Sunday, followed by a conversation moderated by Cóilín Parsons, Georgetown University Associate Professor and Director of Global Irish Studies, wherein the two will explore the crossroads between the Troubles and our current political moment in America and worldwide. The evening also features music by Poor Man’s Gambit; and Ireland’s Deputy Ambassador to the United States, Orla Keane, will give opening remarks.
The evening program begins at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, February 3rd, 2024. Irish beverages, scones, and books will be offered for sale beginning at 7 p.m. and during intermission. A book sale and signing follows the reading and discussion. After intermission, Poor Man’s Gambit will play traditional Irish music.
General in-person admission is available for $45 up to the day of the event. Ticket sales are now available, and we invite you to take advantage of this offer with our promise of a memorable evening in February that would make an excellent holiday gift, today.
Proceeds from the event are used to underwrite HoCoPoLitSo’s literary programs in the community, and the production of The Writing Life, a writer-to-writer talk show now seen worldwide on youtube.com/hocopolitso, and through Howard Community College’s Dragon Digital TV.
Wilde Reading Series 1/9/2024 Re-scheduled
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.
Howard County Poet Laureate Review Panel Announced
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.
A Fond Farewell to Catherine McLoughlin-Hayes
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:
Wilde Readers of January: Yvette Neisser & Pantea Tofangchi
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.
• Yvette Neisser is the author of two poetry collections, Iron Into Flower (2022) and Grip (2011 Gival Press Poetry Award). Her translations from Spanish include South Pole/Polo Sur by María Teresa Ogliastri and Difficult Beauty: Selected Poems by Luis Alberto Ambroggio.
Founder of the DC-Area Literary Translators Network, she has taught writing at The George Washington University, The Writer’s Center, and elsewhere. By day, she works in international development. You can find her online at yvetteneisser.net.
• Pantea Amin Tofangchi is an Iranian-American poet, writer, and graphic designer. She writes poems (in English), essays, stories and plays (mostly in Persian). Her work has been published in Ploughshares, Little Patuxent Review, Welter, Atlanta Review—in which she won the International Merit Award—and other journals. She was selected as a finalist for The National Poetry Series’ 2016 and Georgia Poetry Prize 2018. Her latest book, Glazed With War, is a poetic memoir about growing up in Iran.
You can learn more about Pantea’s writing at panteatofangchi.com, and find her graphic design portfolio at panteaat.myportfolio.com.
Wilde Readers of December: Monica Prince & Carole Boston Weatherford
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.
• Monica Prince, one of the foremost choreopoem experts in the country, teaches activist and performance writing at Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania. She is the author of Roadmap: A Choreopoem, How to Exterminate the Black Woman: A Choreopoem, Instructions for Temporary Survival, and Letters from the Other Woman.
Keep up with her at www.monicaprince.com; @poetic_moni at Instagram and Twitter (she’s not calling it X); and @MonicaPrinceChoreopoet on Facebook.
• Carole Boston Weatherford is a two-time NAACP Image Award winner and the author of Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre, which won the Coretta Scott King Author and Illustrator Awards, a Caldecott Honor, and a Sibert Honor. She is also the author of the Newbery Honor book Box: Henry Brown Mails Himself to Freedom and the Caldecott Honor books Freedom in Congo Square; Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement; and Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom, as well as the Coretta Scott King Medal book Standing in the Need of Prayer. Born in Baltimore, Weatherford now teaches at Fayetteville State University in North Carolina.
Find her online at cbweatherford.com; on X as @poetweatherford; @carole.weatherford on Facebook; and @caroleweatherford on Instagram.
