Poet, English Professor To Direct WCU Poetry Center

WEST CHESTER, PA — Cherise Pollard, Ph.D. has been named Director of the West Chester University Poetry Center. The poet and professor hopes to engage students in the world of poetry at WCU and to encourage unpublished poets. She takes her post in August.

Pollard brings 20 years of experience as a poet, scholar, critic, and teacher to the university. Jen Bacon, Dean of the College of Arts and Humanities, announced Pollard's appointment, calling it, "wonderful news."

Pollard began her career at West Chester University in 1999, teaching in the English Department and specializing in African American literature, African American literary theory and criticism, the Black Arts Movement, as well as womanist and feminist critical theory. She said she had been a practicing poet on the side.

Pollard's interest in poetry began at home; her grandparents on the father's side were poets, she said. "I always liked writing, but, for me, poetry was something my grandparents did. I realized, over time, that I loved writing and reading poetry, and developed a passion for it."

Born in Harrisburg, Pollard lived most of her childhood in New Jersey. It was during graduate study in Cultural and Critical Studies at the University of Pittsburgh that she found her way into poetry not as a scholar, but as a poet. She attended workshops with Toi Berricotte and Cornelius Eady, co-founders of Cave Canem Foundation, a non-profit that serves Black poets and promotes critical discussion. "I applied when I was still a student in graduate student in Pittsburgh," Pollard said.

After completing a series of fellowships with Cave Canem, she published her first poems, “whateva you do” and “Call and Response” in the late '90s. Pollard’s 2016 poetry collection, "Outsiders," was the winner of the 2015 Susan K. Collins/Mississippi Valley Chapbook Contest.

During her time at West Chester University, Dr. Pollard has attended the university's poetry conferences, organized public readings and talks, bringing poets like Natasha Trethewey to campus the year Trethewey won the Pulitzer Prize.

Pollard has read her own works many times, on campus and off, most recently at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Residency in Poetry, completing a fellowship in October 2019. This year, she and co-editors Daniela Buccili and Wendy Scott will see the publication of "Show Us Your Papers! An anthology of 80 Poets."

She said as Director of the Poetry Center, she hopes to "demystify poetry for everyone, especially for our students and their families at home." Pollard would like to see people from the community participating in the conferences who are not necessarily academics or published poets. "I want to create programming that appeals to our elite global community of established poets and critics as well as teachers, and people who are working 9-5 jobs, who are writing poetry, but have yet to be published," she said.

She noted the Poetry Center gives several awards each year. This is important for new poets, especially students, she said. "The awards can really contribute to the advancement of a poet's career." Those awards include the Iris N. Spencer Poetry Awards, including the Donald Justice Poetry Prize, for a book of poems, the Iris N. Spencer Undergraduate Poetry Award, the Myong Cha Son Haiku Award, Wil Mills, and the Rhina Espaillat Award.

"Poetry unites," wrote Pollard in a recent paper. "It can help people understand what they've just been through. People articulate their lives through poetry… Post-COVID, when our communities come back together, I think language is going to be the way we start to build ourselves back up, to see who we are."

Pollard said she was thrilled to learn that the conference was moving to April, which is National Poetry month. An April conference could build on Poetry Month energy while also connecting with students who may not be available in the summer, she said.

The Poetry Center's events include a poetry reading series, mini-conferences on topics related to poetry craft, naming a poet-in-residence, and art-song concerts in collaboration with WCU's School of Music and Performing Arts. The first poet-in-residence to be named under Pollard's tenure will be Daisy Fried, of Philadelphia. That event takes place in October.

Pollard is also a founding board member for Poetry by the Sea, and in the past was responsible for their advertising and branding strategy, co-designing their conference program.

To learn more about each of the Poetry Center's awards, visit the Contests and Awards page.