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 “
2007 Poet Laureate – David Simpson
Poet Laureate 2007
DAVID SIMPSON
David Simpson is a musician, poet, and actor. He earned a Master of Music degree in organ performance from Westminster Choir College, before traveling to Paris, France for a year of private study with the world-renowned organist André Marchal, who was also blind. He has given organ recitals, most notably at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church and St. Thomas Episcopal Church in New York City. Singing with the Westminster Symphonic Choir and the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia, he has performed with numerous symphony orchestras, including The Boston, Pittsburgh, and Atlanta symphonies, as well as The New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra.
He also holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from New York University. Mr. Simpson’s poetry has appeared in numerous journals including Alaska Quarterly Review, River Styx, The Cortland Review, Verse Daily, and La Petite Zine. In 2007, he and his twin brother, Dan, released a CD of their poetry entitled Audio Chapbook. Jointly, Dave and Dan have read at venues which include The Free Library of Philadelphia, Philadelphia’s First-Person Festival, WXPN World Café, and on Whyy’s Radio Times with Marty Moss Coane. Dave recently made his acting debut, performing as the character Dan, in the Amaryllis Theatre production of “Blood Guilty,” by the Irish playwright Antoine O Flatharta.
In 2005, he was first runner-up in the Fraser Poetry Competition; in 2006, he received honorable mention in the Passager poetry contest and a Pushcart nomination from the Schuylkill Valley Journal. He was the 2007 Montgomery County Poet Laureate and the recipient of the 2007 Ted Kooser fellowship, awarded by the Nebraska Summer Writers Conference. Within the past two years, he has received fellowships from the Ragdale Foundation, The Hambidge Foundation for Creative Arts and Sciences, and the Independence Foundation.
Dan and Dave began playing four-hand piano and singing in early childhood, but their performance of popular music together really took off in high school. Even though they attended different colleges, they got together frequently to play in coffee houses during the early Seventies. These days, they enjoy performing a show for schools, libraries, churches and conferences which combines music and poetry and tells the story of their development as artists.
David lives in Glenside, Pennsylvania, where he is working on a one-person show. His first book of poems, The Way Love Comes to Me, is in search of a publisher.
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Poets Laureate
