HocoPoLitSo Marks 50 Years of Literary Programs and Activities

Today the Howard County Poetry and Literature Society (HoCoPoLitSo) is celebrating its 50th anniversary. For half a century it has been cultivating an appreciation for contemporary poetry and literature, celebrating a culturally diverse literary heritage, and broadening exposure to the literary arts for everyone.

HoCoPoLitSo was the brainchild of Ellen Conroy Kennedy, a translator of Negritude poetry who had moved to Columbia with her husband, Pat Kennedy, the first president of the Columbia Association. Building on Ellen’s idea for a local literary group, she recruited two like-minded neighbors to help establish the organization: the actress, playwright and poet Prudence Barry, and publicist Jean F. Moon, then a journalist. Ellen Kennedy, who provided direction for HoCoPoLitSo for decades, died in 2020. Barry died in 2021.

With a small $1,000 grant from the Maryland State Arts Council, HoCoPoLitSo was officially launched in 1974 with a visit by poets Lucille Clifton and Carolyn Kizer, who read at the Women’s Center at the Wilde Lake Interfaith Center in Columbia, then walked across the parking lot to meet with students at Wilde Lake High School. With that initial programming decision, HoCoPoLitSo embarked upon a half century of championing diverse voices and personal connections between authors and audiences.

The 50th Anniversary season features the schools-based residency of Nigerian American fiction writer and essayist Tope Folarin. In addition, the popular annual Evening of Irish Music and Poetry showcasing writer Sean Hewitt is slated for Feb. 15. Collaborations are set with Howard Community College to present the Blackbird Poetry Festival in April and with the Downtown Columbia Partnership to participate in the Books in Bloom festival in May.

“For the past 50 years, HoCoPoLitSo has distinguished itself with world-class literary programs. We are calling our anniversary year ‘Beyond Words, Beyond Borders’ in recognition of our desire to expand understanding and response to universal truths as expressed in the literature of extraordinary writers and thinkers,” said HoCoPoLitSo Co-Chair Tim Singleton.

“HoCoPoLitSo makes and holds space within our community for people to come together in recognition of our human need to connect through language, ideas, and common experiences. Literature is not only educational but enlightening, enlarging, elevating, and enjoyable. We greet each other in fields of words and learn we are not alone,” said HoCoPoLitSo Co-Chair Tara Hart.

HoCoPoLitSo has often partnered with other local institutions and nonprofit organizations, most notably with Howard Community College, where its programs are often presented and where its offices are located. Other partners have included Columbia Association, Columbia Festival of the Arts, Columbia Film Society, Columbia Pro Cantare, Downtown Columbia Partnership, Howard County Library System, Howard Hughes Holdings, Little Patuxent Review, The Mall in Columbia, Residences at Vantage Point, Toby’s Dinner Theatre, numerous faith communities and other organizations.

The Howard County Public School System has been a substantial beneficiary of HoCoPoLitSo, which has been providing literary artists for student programs for half a century. Through the years, local students heard and saw some of the finest writers and thinkers of the 20th century, including Derek Walcott, Gwendolyn Brooks, Issac Bashevis Singer, Saul Bellow, Richard Wilbur, Grace Paley, Robert Bly, Mark Strand, and Amira Baraka. More than 30 authors have taken part in what is today the Bauder Writer-in-Residence Program, offering visits to all 13 Howard County public high schools, the Homewood Center, and Howard Community College.

Most recently, HoCoPoLitSo has partnered with Howard County Government and the Howard County Arts Council in establishing a local Poet Laureate program. The inaugural appointee, Truth Thomas, was announced at the Blackbird Poetry Festival in April of this year. A Howard County Youth Poet Laureate, Oakland Mills High School junior Mai-Anh Nguyen, was announced in September by Howard County Executive Calvin Ball.

The HoCoPoLitSo Board of Directors has always served as the group’s programming and audience development arm. Members today include Co-Chairs Tara Hart and Tim Singleton, Recording Secretary Susan Thornton Hobby, Treasurer Marie Davidson, and member-at-large David H. Barrett, Kathleen Larson, Ryna May, Faye McCray, Anne Reis, E Welsh and Laura Yoo. Neal Goturi, a senior at River Hill High School, serves as a Bauder Youth on Board member. Current staff members are Nicholas Trappler, program director, and Pamela Simonson, interim managing director. Judy R. Young coordinates the Bauder Writer-in-Residence Program as HoCoPoLitSo’s school liaison.

For more information, contact info@hocopolitso.org, call 443-518-4568, or visit www.hocopolitso.org.