Montgomery County Poets Laureate
The Annual Montgomery Poet Laureate Competition is the foundation upon which the MCPL Program was built. The competition is the ultimate expression of the program’s mission; creating an ever expanding community of poets, supporting their work and providing opportunities for poets to elevate their visibility while also benefiting the community with their service project, many of which continue long beyond their tenure.
How does the competition work?
Each year MCPL recruits a celebrity poet with a national reputation, who along with two additional local Delaware Valley poets, adjudicate the submitted manuscripts.
The newly selected Montgomery County Poet Laureate is honored with an award in the amount of $500 along with a personalized statement about their work, which is shared through MCPL and other local organizations.
The Award is presented during an Award Ceremony and Reading, open to the public and attended by the celebrity judge and previous poets laureate to read with and welcome the newest member of their esteemed ranks.
Who can compete?
Poets of all ages and backgrounds are encouraged to submit their poetry for review and adjudication in the annual competition. Poets must also be residents of Montgomery County. The window for submissions generally opens in early December and closes mid-February with the winner to be announced at the end of March.
The role of the Poet Laureate
The Poet Laureate functions as an ambassador for poetry in Montgomery County from April 1 of the year of his/her naming to March 31st of the following year. This role includes working with MCPL’s Executive Director, Joanne Leva, to develop a schedule of readings, workshops
Appearances may include the Forgotten Voices Poetry Group, Farley’s Bookshop First Thursday Poetry Reading Series, and the annual Caesura Poetry Festival. They may also hold the office of “
Steve Pollack, 2025 Montgomery County Poet Laureate
Poet Laureate 2025
Steve Pollack hit half-balls with broomsticks, rode the Frankford El to Drexel University, sailed the equator on the U.S.S. Enterprise, crossed the Mississippi with two kittens and a mustache. He advised governments, directed an affordable housing co-op, built hospitals, science labs and public schools. He found poetry (or it found him) later. His writing has ap-peared in various print and cyber journals including Poetica Magazine, Mukoli – the Magazine for Peace, Schuylkill Valley Journal, and The Jewish Writing Project. His debut chapbook, L’dor Vador – From Generation to Generation, was published by Finishing Line Press. “December 26, 1960” will be re-printed in Keystone: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania, the anthology by Penn State University Press forthcoming in May 2025. On first Saturdays, he circles with Joanne Leva and Forgotten Voices at the Indian Valley Public Library in Telford. He serves on the One Book One Jewish Community advisory team sponsored by Gratz College and sings bass with Nashirah: the Jewish Chorale of Philadelphia.
Link to Chapbook: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/from-generation-to-generation-ldor-vador-
Steve Pollack writes with such specificity that I can visualize where I am and who I encounter. In “The Last Wild Thing” for example, the narrator mentions driving down “Ranch Road 2222” in Texas on a 90-degree day in December 1973. In that poem, I am right there with the speaker having a multisensory experience with a band of folks I meet on the journey. Throughout the collection, there’s “long-haired skinny dippers “ in “Hippie Hollow Park,” siblings who have to “duck and cover” in the halls of Solis-Cohen Elementary, and a man in a wheelchair who wears a t-shirt that reads “We are all the same beneath the skin.” This poet sets up camp on the page and allows the reader to witness the world in a particular way.
Pollack also includes dialogue that does not feel intrusive. In “Deep-Dish,” for example, when the narrator says, “Beneath the skin we all love pies,” and the man replies, “That’s what I’m sayin’,” it adds credibility to the poem and enhances its sound. No matter what subject he tackles, the musicality of the pieces is intact.
When the poet writes about family, it is both musical and relatable because the stanzas are filled with truth and tenderness without being overly sentimental. We see an example of this in the poems “By Heart” and “A Father’s Truth.” We know these characters because we either share their thoughts, or we know someone else who thinks like them.
Overall, Steve’s specific details create images that give readers a sense of time and place, grounding the work and making it easy to visualize the world of each poem. Also, the writers’ passion for family and humanity is clear, and like all great writers, the poet uses specific details to bypass everything that makes us different and speaks to what we all have in common, our humanity.
Deep-Dish
He leaned forward before a diner’s display of assorted pies
thinking from wheelchair angle, slice or tempting whole.
His T-shirt declared: We are all the same beneath the skin.
Fluorescent glare polished his braided hair and ebony skin,
my message for his ears: “Beneath the skin we all love pie.”
“That’s what I’m sayin’ ”, his pleased voice deep and whole.
Young legs disabled, his handshake made us both whole.
Lofty meringue or fruit filled, shell an aluminum skin,
these unbleached faces baked golden, buttery crusted pies.
Each pie round and whole, slices alike; skin one millimeter thin.
The Last Wild Thing
William Barret Travis died at the Alamo in 1836
“Buck” was a 26 year old revolutionary
his name legendary Deep in the Heart of Texas.
In Travis County, on the dragon-tail shores
of Lake Travis, “Hippie Hollow Park” is 103 acres
clothing optional, cash only admission
—no camping, no fires
—no smoking or alcohol
—no lewd behavior
Students named the steep secluded limestone cove
in the free-love era—before hillside haciendas,
yuppie wineries. Far from the Spanish fireclay roofs
of UT campus, it was an oasis without rules.
In sticky summers, long-haired skinny-dippers
refreshed in waters fed by the Pedernales River,
spoken “Purr-de-nail-iz”, in home-grown twang
like Texas independence. Crowded on week-ends
with naked sunlovers, pungent cannabis,
and wide-brimmed beer-guzzling cowboys
in speedboats, close enough to ogle and holler.
Texans boast:“At least one day in every month,
the temperature in Austin reaches 90 degrees.”
It was like that—on the day in December, 1973
when I drove Ranch Road 2222, past natural stands
of live oak and ashe juniper, last half-mile gravel,
to celebrate completion of my Master’s Thesis—
middle-of-the-week, high sky, no more classes.
Soon to be a father at the age of 26, I was not
a revolutionary. Maybe the last wild thing I ever did
was strip and plunge into chilly waters, skin tingling
as arms stroked 100 swift yards to a craggy outcrop,
welcome sun-drenched ledge of radiant warmth,
my fit body and mind free of time and obligation
day-dreaming unfenced joy, just being alive.
In a prior century, sheepherders lost range wars
for open grazing. Today, park rangers protect
Black-capped Vireo, Golden-cheeked Warblers—
senior discount available at the entrance gate
but who wants grandpa to be buck-naked.
By Heart
Before our boys began kindergarten
they loved a beginner’s book,
Fred & Ted, two dogs—one big, one little,
one liked green, the other red.
Though opposites, puppy pals.
Fred said: “Back to bed, Ted.”
No question mark or exclamation,
a simple suggestion. Ted mirrored
in kind: “Back to bed, Fred.”
As we looked at P.D. Eastman pictures
and read, our boys already in bed,
I can’t say their heads nodded fast asleep.
Each night, that tender story delighted again
and again, until they knew all the words
by heart. Our eyelids often first to drowse.
Now, my wife and I are old enough
to have grandchildren in high school.
We gave away that dog-eared book
but, speak that same storied dialogue
in dreamy tones, before we sigh
onto our king mattress. Ahh,
soothing words known by heart
like a goodnight kiss.
Evan Wang named 9th Northeast Regional Youth Poet Laureate of the United States
The National Youth Poet Laureate Program, a program of Urban Word NYC, named Evan Wang, a senior at the Upper Merion Area High School, the 9th Northeast Regional Youth Poet Laureate of the United States.
Poets Laureate
