“When my heart fills up and I can’t hold something in there anymore, I write,” Kai Coggin says in an interview with Billy Lezra for Rough Cut Press. “When my heart breaks for some cruel injustice, I write. When my heart longs, I write. When my heart is bursting with love or sex or joy … Read More
Cornelius Eady is having, quite deservedly, a great year – and at Poetry by the Sea, we’re happy and proud to be part of it. In addition to the many other honors Eady has gotten, last year he received the Academy of American Poets’ Wallace Stevens Award, which recognizes lifetime achievement in Poetry. And just … Read More
A “thank you” and “welcomes” for the Poetry by the Sea Board of Directors and Advisory Committee. With profound thanks for her unstinting commitment to Poetry by the Sea, the Board announces that Nicole Caruso Garcia has stepped down as Vice President of the Board of Directors. Nicole has been with the Conference nearly from … Read More
Ten years since the first Poetry by the Sea Conference, founded by Kim Bridgford! We celebrated at the 2025 Conference with a champagne toast, an anniversary cake, and a display of memorabilia, among other happenings. Now, to keep the Conference vibrant into the future, we’re launching our 10X Challenge. If you look forward to the Conference … Read More
This year’s Conference is lucky to have as one of our Spotlight readers Oliver de la Paz, the 2023-2025 Poet Laureate of Worcester, Mass. You can read his bio here. In one of his recent books, The Boy in the Labyrinth, de la Paz engages deeply with the experience of raising his neurodivergent sons. Asked in a … Read More
Perhaps no major poet other than Thomas Hardy rivals W. H. Auden in the variety of verse forms, meters, stanzas, and rhyme schemes the poet makes use of. If you’re interested in a deep study of Auden with like-minded poets, this year’s Master Poets Critical Seminar: The Forms of Auden might be for you. Seminar attendees gather over … Read More
Hard to believe that it’s been ten years since Kim Bridgford successfully organized and ran the first Poetry by the Sea Conference, in Madison, Conn. Much has changed—new faces, new poetry—but the essentials are the same, including Kim’s vision of a conference that fostered “interconnectedness, enrichment, acceptance, and inspiration.” To mark the year, we’ve co-sponsored (with Wild … Read More
It is with great excitement that we announce the winning poems in the 2025 Kim Bridgford Memorial Sonnet Contest: Individual Sonnet winner “Slowing Time” by Erica Reid, and Sonnet Crown winner “Night” by Rick Mullin. They each will be awarded a prize of $500 and are invited to read the pieces in May at Poetry … Read More
For the 2025 Conference (May 27-30), we are pleased to announce that Poetry by the Sea is sponsoring a special Jane Caruso Memorial Scholarship. Thanks to a donor’s generosity, we are able to offer a full scholarship to a poet-educator who would like to deepen their commitment to poetic craft. The scholarship recipient is entitled to full conference registration, including … Read More
by Dustin Brookshire As I reflected on why community is important to me, I was transported back to childhood and adolescence. Growing up Southern Baptist in a small, north Georgia town as a closeted member of the LGBTQIA+ community was not a welcoming experience. I had to present a facade to survive and blend in. … Read More
