West Chester University Alumna Earns Poetry Honor

Press release from West Chester University:

Sept. 16, 2020

West Chester University Alumna Earns Poetry Honor

The Massachusetts Book Awards recognize significant works of fiction, nonfiction,
poetry and children’s young adult literature published by Massachusetts residents
or about Massachusetts subjects.

Skolfield says, “I loved my time at West Chester University as it set me on the poetry
path. I had always loved writing but had no formal study, no serious feedback on creative
writing until my classes with now-retired faculty members Chris Buckley and Luanne
Smith. My years at WCU were occasionally disrupted by work, the military, and personal
bumps in the road, and when I returned to taking classes I had to maneuver around
my hefty work schedule. I told Chris Buckley that I couldn’t take his poetry workshop
- taking it would mean I’d arrive late almost every class. He told me to sign up anyway,
not worry about being late. I did, and here I am 30 years later, still writing poems,
still publishing. Now, when I have students in the same situation and they come to
me, wanting to be in my classes but knowing they’ll have issues with good attendance,
I tell them my story and that I’m going to give them the same understanding that Chris
gave me, with one caveat: I want them to remember and to pay it forward with another
kindness.”

About Karen Skolfield - Karen Skolfield is the poet laureate for Northampton, Massachusetts, for 2019-2021. Her book Battle Dress (W. W. Norton, 2019) won the Massachusetts Book Award in Poetry and the Barnard Women Poets Prize. Her book Frost in the Low Areas (Zone 3 Press)
won the 2014 PEN New England Award in poetry and the First Book Award from Zone 3
Press, and is a Massachusetts “Must Read” selection.

Skolfield is also the winner of the 2016 Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize in poetry
from The Missouri Review, the 2015 Robert H. Winner award from the Poetry Society
of America, and the 2015 Arts & Humanities Award from New England Public Radio.

Skolfield has received fellowships and awards from the Massachusetts Cultural Council,
Split This Rock, Ucross Foundation, Hedgebrook, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts,
and the Vermont Studio Center. Her poems can be found in 32 Poems, Alaska Quarterly
Review, Baltimore Review, Boulevard, Carolina Quarterly, Cimarron Review, The Cincinnati
Review, Crab Orchard Review, Crazyhorse, Guernica, Indiana Review, Iowa Review, Memorious,
Missouri Review, New Ohio Review, Pleiades, Ploughshares, POETRY Magazine, RHINO,
Shenandoah, Sixth Finch, Slice, Sugar House Review, Superstition Review, Washington
Square Review, Waxwing, and elsewhere.

Skolfield is a U.S. Army veteran and teaches writing to engineers at the University
of Massachusetts Amherst, where she earned her Master of Fine Arts.

About the West Chester University Poetry Center - The West Chester University Poetry Center was created in 2000 to further the study
and appreciation of Poetry. The Poetry Center offers an active, interesting and diverse
slate of activities, all to expand its mission of bringing poetry to an ever-widening
audience.

This press release was produced by West Chester University. The views expressed here are the author’s own.