Please join us for the Poetry by the Sea online Spring Celebration, to be held in place of the canceled 2021 in-person conference. Our aim is to bring our community together in celebration of the life, works, and vision of our Founder and Director, Kim Bridgford. The event will include readings and a panel discussion of Kim’s poetry, a critical lecture, tributes to Kim, and the awards ceremonies for the Kim Bridgford Memorial Sonnet Contest and for the 2021 Book Contest. The Spring Celebration takes place 5:00-7:45 PM ET on Wednesday, May 26.
Order of Events
Kim Bridgford: a Remembrance
- Introduced by Angela Alaimo O’Donnell
- Tributes by Kelly Bridgford Higgins (sister), Kari Bridgford Waldron (sister), Meredith Bergmann, Eboné Lockett, Josh Mehigan, Clare Rossini, Marilyn Taylor, and Nicki Duval (son)
The Poetry of Kim Bridgford: Selected Readings
- Introduced by Anna M. Evans
- Readings by Maryann Corbett, Sally Nacker, Melissa Balmain, Michael Brown, Anton Yakovlev, Carolyn Raphael, Matt Miller, Debra Bruce, and Annie Finch
Panel Discussion: An ApprECIATION of Kim Bridgford’s Poetry
- Introduced by Linda Stern
- Moderator, David M. Katz
- Panelists: Allison Joseph, Wendy Sloan, and Joyce Wilson
MOMENTS FROM POETRY BY THE SEA: A GLOBAL CONFERENCE
- Introduced by William Conelly
Poetry by the Sea Lecture: “The Fluidity of Form”
- Introduced by A. E. Stallings
- Lecturer, Julie Kane
Poetry by the Sea 2021 Awards
- Introduced by Nicole Caruso Garcia
- Sonnet Contest Judge, Jenna Lê
- Individual Sonnet Winner, David Southward
- Sonnet Crown Winner, Susan Delaney Spear
- Book Contest Judge, Barbara Crooker
- Co-Winners, Jehanne Dubrow and Julie Kane
- Sonnet Contest Judge, Jenna Lê
Selected Participant Bios
William Conelly, an associate professor and creative writing instructor, has poems in Iota, The Lyric, Measure, Pebble Lake Review, Pleiades, Poetry Durham, Poetry Porch, and elsewhere. Conelly’s book of poems Uncontested Grounds was a finalist for the 2013 Able Muse Book Award. His book West of Boston was published in 2021.
Barbara Crooker is the author of nine books of poetry; Some Glad Morning (Pitt Poetry Series) is her latest. Her work has appeared in many anthologies, including: Commonwealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania, The Poetry of Presence, and Healing the Divide: Poems of Kinship and Compassion.
Anna M. Evans is an Advisory Board member at Poetry by the Sea. She gained her MFA from Bennington and teaches at West Windsor Art Center and Rowan College at Burlington County, NJ. Her latest book is Under Dark Waters: Surviving the Titanic.
Nicole Caruso Garcia is an Advisory Board member at Poetry by the Sea and Associate Poetry Editor at Able Muse. Her poems have appeared in DIAGRAM, Crab Orchard Review, Light, Measure, Mezzo Cammin, ONE ART, PANK, Plume, The Raintown Review, Rattle, RHINO, Sonora Review, Spillway, and elsewhere. Visit her at nicolecarusogarcia.com.
Russell L. Goings is an Advisory Board member at Poetry by the Sea. Before studying writing at Fairfield University, Goings played professional football, managed a brokerage firm, served as chairman of the Studio Museum of Harlem, and founded Essence magazine. His book-length dramatic poem, The Children of Children Keep Coming, was published in 2016.
Julie Kane‘s latest books are Mothers of Ireland (LSU Press, 2020) and a new edition of Jazz Funeral (Red Hen Press, 2021). A past National Poetry Series winner, Fulbright Scholar, and Louisiana Poet Laureate, she teaches in Western Colorado University’s low-residency MFA program and is Professor Emeritus at Northwestern State University.
David M. Katz is the author of In Praise of Manhattan (Dos Madres Press, 2020), as well as Stanzas on Oz, Claims of Home, and The Warrior in the Forest. His poems have appeared in Poetry, The Hudson Review, PN Review (UK), and elsewhere. Visit him at The David M. Katz Poetry Blog (www.davidmkatzpoet.com).
Allison Joseph, Professor of English and Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Southern Illinois University, serves as poetry editor of Crab Orchard Review. Her many books include Confessions of a Barefaced Woman, which was nominated for the 2019 NAACP Image Award in Poetry. She is the widow of the late poet and editor Jon Tribble.
Jenna Lê (jennalewriting.com), a two-time Poetry by the Sea sonnet contest winner, is the author of two books: Six Rivers and A History of the Cetacean American Diaspora. Her poems appear in AGNI, Poet Lore, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. She works as a physician and educator in New York City.
Angela Alaimo O’Donnell is a professor at Fordham University in New York City, where she teaches English, Creative Writing, and American Catholic Studies. She also serves as Associate Director of the Curran Center for American Catholic Studies. O’Donnell is the author of eight books of poetry and four books of prose.
Wendy Sloan practiced labor law before returning to poetry. Her collection is Sunday Mornings at the Caffe Mediterraneum. Sloan’s work has appeared in The Able Muse Translation Issue, The Best of the Raintown Review, Extreme Sonnets, and Love Affairs at the Villa Nelle. She co-hosts the Carmine Street Metrics reading series.
A. E. Stallings, a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow and a 2011 MacArthur Fellow, is the author of Archaic Smile, which won the Richard Wilbur Award; Hapax, which won the Poet’s Prize and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Benjamin H. Danks Award; the volumes Olives and Like; and a verse translation of Lucretius’s The Nature of Things.
Linda Stern is an Advisory Board Member at Poetry by the Sea. Her poems have appeared in The New Criterion, Mezzo Cammin, American Arts Quarterly, Pot Hooks ‘N’ Hangers, The Raintown Review, Big City Lit, and elsewhere. Her book, Why We Go by Twos, is available from Barefoot Muse Press and Amazon.
Joyce Wilson edits The Poetry Porch (poetryporch.com), which has been online since 1997. Her poems have appeared in many literary journals, among them Salamander, Poetry Ireland, and Salzburg Poetry Review. Her chapbook The Need for a Bridge and her full-length collection Take and Receive both appeared in 2019.
Two Villanelles for Kim Bridgford:
FOREVER YOUNG
Can it be that we should be forever young?
Would we then be something artificial,
a designed machine that is fully human;
one as elevating as a violin
making the best seem simple?
Can it be that we should be forever young,
the reason for men and women
who have shed their cheek and dimple,
a designed machine that is fully human,
acting as we should, being sprung
as a revolutionary people?
Can it be that we should be forever young
putting a twist upon the bold,
what is pointed to by the church steeple,
a designed machine that is fully human,
something as welcoming as silicon
storing our soul, making it eternal?
Can it be that we should be forever young
a designed machine that is fully human?
Richard Aston
TO SING AGAIN
When can the chorus sing again
in celebration of the gift to be?
With Covid 19 we can’t even hum.
It’s as if we were totally dumb
unable to come on naturally.
When can the chorus sing again,
gather up our meaning and take a stand
on a soap box and speak courageously?
With Covid 19 we can’t even hum.
But now with computerized zoom,
we join each other singing virtually
even with the virus lurking we can hum
not dropping our guard while having fun
we reach out toward Eternity
with those at home and everyone
beyond the technical world to come,
we can witness for the courage to be.
Our chorus can now sing again
even with the virus around, hit a home run.
Richard Aston
Thanks for printing my poems!
I mistakenly missed the conference presentation. Could you post a recording of it on your web site and demonstrate how wonderful and forgiving electronic technology is?
Richard Aston
It’s up on our YouTube Channel! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpyYY0wkCoI&t=381s