ENTERTAINMENT

Holden woman wins Worcester County Poetry Association's Frank O'Hara Prize

Richard Duckett
Telegram & Gazette
Jennifer Freed

WORCESTER — Jennifer L. Freed of Holden has won the 2022 Frank O'Hara Prize in the annual poetry contest of the Worcester County Poetry Association.

Freed's poem "Kangaroos in Kharkiv" was selected by contest judge Usman Hameedi from 89 submissions by 34 entrants.

Lis Beasley of Uxbridge was awarded second place in the contest for "The Father as a Magician," and Cheryl Bonin of Sutton was named third place winner for her poem  "Burnt." Honorable mentions went to Glenn D'Alessio of West Brookfield for "A Lobotomy," and Dennis Rhodes of Naples, Florida, for "Question."

The winning poems will be published in the next edition of The Worcester Review, the journal of the WCPA. The winners also receive a cash award. The WCPA will invite all the winners to read their work at the Winners' Ceremony and Reading at First Unitarian Church, 90 Main St., at 3 p.m. Sept. 25. Contest judge Hameedi will be the featured reader.  

Freed is the author of "When Light Shifts" (Kelsay, 2022), a memoir-in-poems about the aftermath of her mother’s cerebral hemorrhage, and of a chapbook, "These Hands Still Holding," a finalist in the 2013 New Women's Voices Competition (Finishing Line Press, 2014). She was awarded the 2020 Samuel Washington Allen Prize for a long poem or poem-sequence (New England Poetry Club), has been a finalist for the Frank O'Hara prize multiple times, and has received nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Orison Anthology. She leads adult education programs online and in-person.

Hameedi is a Pakistani-American scientist, poet and educator. He also serves on Mass Poetry's Board of Directors. Neuroscience and oncology are his primary areas of scientific interest and expertise. Since 2008, he has also competed in and coached for collegiate, national and international level poetry slams. He has been featured in The Huffington Post, Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, and The Story Collider: Storytelling for Scientists podcast. His first full-length collection of poems will be published in 2023 by Button Poetry.

The WCPA contest was established in 1973, renamed the Frank O'Hara Prize in 2009,  and continues to be generously supported as a tribute to the late poet Frank O'Hara, who grew up in Grafton, by the O'Hara family.