Poets

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Magdalena Gómez

Poet Laureate of Springfield, Massachusetts, 2019-2022

Magdalena Gómez was born and raised in the Bronx, New York. She studied English and Theater at Lehman College, and Spanish Literature at the University of Sevilla, Spain. She is the author of Shameless Woman (Red Sugarcane Press, 2014) and the co-editor of Bullying: Replies, Rebuttals, Confessions and Catharsis (Skyhorse Publishing, 2012). Her panoramic poem, Mother to a Stranger’s Child (can I get a witness?), is the focus of a new orchestral work by Maestro Kevin Scott, planned for a Springfield premiere in 2022. The recipient of the New England Public Radio Arts and Humanities Award, Gómez is currently a member of the COVID-19 Cultural Impact Commission for the State of Massachusetts. The Poet Laureate of Springfield, Massachusetts from 2019 to 2022, she received an Academy of American Poets Fellowship in 2021.

Magdalena Gómez
Photo credit: James J. Lescault
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Laureate Project
Poet Laureate of Springfield, MA

Poet Laureate of Springfield, MA

In 2021, Magdalena Gómez was named an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow to support youth poets in Springfield, Massachusetts via in-person and virtual workshops in partnership with Springfield City Libraries. This culminated in virtual and / or in person performances of participants’ original poems to be live-streamed, archived, and distributed for viewing across community access stations around the country in partnership with Amherst Media.