Who will become the milestone 50th Bucks County Poet Laureate?
While Bucks County Community College (BCCC) searches for its next poet laureate, the program, founded by the former Bucks County Council on the Arts, reaches its 50th anniversary.
The former Bucks County Council on the Arts is now The Arts & Cultural Council of Bucks County.
Launched in 1977, Bucks County’s program is the longest running and first of its kind program in Pennsylvania. Past poet laureates paid tribute to the county’s first poet laureate and one of its program directors, the late Christopher Bursk.
“Dr. Christopher Bursk was the program’s most beloved and significant advocate,” said Ethel Rackin, a BCCC language and literature professor and current poet laureate program director.
Bursk, of Langhorne Manor, was a published poet, poetry book author and BCCC language and literature professor. He became the county’s first poet laureate in 1978 with his poem “Choose One or the Other, Says the Light.”
Bursk was a longtime poetry champion who touched countless lives through his welcoming “open-door persona,” body of work, annual spring workshops and small workshop groups.
He mentored scores of local poets during his lifetime and his workshops continue to produce many county poet laureates; and published and award winning poets.
“He served as a mentor, advocate and friend like no other. He worked tirelessly for poets and poetry. Chris would agree that in an age of AI and increasing societal discord, the art of poetry is vital to our very survival,” Rackin said.
Bursk would go on to be an interim program director from 2001 to 2002 and then co-director with Rackin in 2019 until his death in 2021. His profound and wide ranging impact on the program and the people involved is beyond measure.
“One of Chris’s attributes was that he was tremendously generous and supportive. I think the very fact this program has continued would really gladden his soul. It’s been a way to encourage writers; it’s been a way to recognize them. The community building would make him very happy as he was so good at that himself,” said Luray Gross, of Doylestown and the 2002 poet laureate.
Poet, writer and 1999 Poet Laureate Lynn Levin of Southampton, also credits Bursk with having a profound impact on her writing life.
“Without Chris Bursk, I would not be the writer that I am today,” Levin said. “His legacy is both his own literature and this tradition of nurturing and encouraging poets in our area. All these people he has encouraged – now understand how vital it is to uplift other younger poets along the way.”
Without a dedicated and passionate group of poets, the program never would have reached the 50-year milestone.
“For many of us, being a poet laureate here in the county has meant that you become part of a community of other poets,” Gross explained, “the program has been one of the elements in helping me get very involved with other writers in the area.”
Bucks County’s proximity to major cities like Philadelphia and New York has attracted young artists to the area to seek solitude in the region’s natural beauty and landscape.
The county’s historic features and bucolic vistas continue to inspire artists, musicians, poets and writers.
“Bucks County has always been a place where many writers, artists, playwrights and musicians have lived. Bucks County is special. We have a tradition in the arts. Being part of that tradition and history will always be to me – and everybody who is a working poet and writer here – an important context,” Levin said.
This year’s entries in the poet laureate contest will be vetted by poet and Arcadia University Associate Professor Michelle Messina Reale.
Reale will choose finalists to be read by Poet and Playwright Jeanne Marie Beaumont. Beaumont will name the winner and three runners up.
How to enter:
County residents 18 and older are eligible to enter. While previous runners up are eligible to submit their work; past poet laureates are not.
Submit 10 original poems online; one poem per page, published or unpublished, any style, length or form by the September 25 deadline.
Full submission guidelines may be found here.
There is no cost to enter.
The winner will receive $500 honorarium, a plaque from the Bucks County Commissioners and a reading reception on the Newtown Campus of Bucks County Community College. The reading date will be released after the winner is announced in the fall.
