Welcome!
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Judith Partelow
Poet and Actress, is based on Cape Cod in Massachusetts.
Poet, director and actress. My first chapbook of poetry called A Woman’s Heart was released in 2014. I then created a play from my poetry with the same title, produced six times from 2017 through 2019 with producer Janet Murphy Robertson of artistsandmusicians.org. Meanwhile, my second book published by Scargo Hill Poets called Carry Me Back, A Woman’s Life in Poetry has also been released.
My second play - NEIGHBORS! - will be read on September 11, 2022 at the Cotuit Center for the Arts at 2 pm. It is free and open to the public. It addresses the impact of racism in our society. Please come and bring friends! There will be an opportunity for audience feedback at the end.
The logo for NEIGHBORS was created by Robin Joyce Miller.
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Judith Partelow –
Inspired by her chapbook of the same name, in 2017 Judith Partelow wrote her first play, A Woman's Heart, created entirely from her poetry. It was then produced at The Jacob Sears Library and the Cape Cod Museum of Art in Dennis, for the Women's International Playwrights' Festival in Provincetown, and at the Cape Cod Cultural Center in South Yarmouth to standing ovations. Her play was taught as a course at Cape Cod Community College by professor Rod Owens last spring as part of the Academy of Lifelong Learning. One quote from that class by Catherine Kelly-Mahon (author): "Shakespeare gave us the Ages of Man; now Partelow gives us the Ages of Woman." And also, "A Woman's Heart is the truth of human experience expressed in beautiful poetry."
Judith Partelow's newest book of poems, Carry Me Back, A Woman's Life in Poetry contains some of the poems that appear in her play, among many new ones. She has been a featured poet on numerous occasions, including a 2016 Alzheimer's Benefit; Writers' Night Out of the Cape Cod Writers Center; the Cultural Center of Cape Cod where she has also been a long-time participant in their Mutual Muses exhibit; for Neil Silberblatt's Voices of Poetry in Chatham and Brewster; twice in Wellfleet for Barry Hellman's National Poetry Month; Provincetown's Writers' Cafe; at the Brewster Ladies' Library; at the Dennis Memorial Library as founder and member of the Scargo Hill Poets; Cotuit Center for the Arts in Kami Lyle's Sit Awhile, and at the Cape Cod Theatre Company in Harwich along with poet Charles Harper. She has been interviewed for cable TV programs: Cape Cod Writers' Center Books and the World, by Madeleine Miele Holt; and by Deb Hoch for A Woman's Outlook, Seekonk TV; as well as WOMR-FM programs with Pandora Peoples and Candace Hammond. Her poems have won awards in the WOMR Outermost Poetry Contest, Veterans for Peace, and Katharine Lee Bates poetry contests.
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Partelow is an actress and director who has appeared in many theatrical productions, readings and films over the years. She is a featured character in the cable series Offseason on Amazon Prime. She is a member of Screen Actors' Guild and Actors Equity, and is on the board of the Cape Cod Writers Center. The poetry program of the Brewster Ladies' Library featured her poem, Reading, which was also one of three of her poems selected by WCAI-FM aired on Poetry Sunday. She is published in compilations including: Cape Women On-Line; Voices from A Borrowed Garden; Spiritual Mothering Journal; A Sense of Place; World of Water, World of Sand; Baha'i Anthology on Martyrs; The City of the Covenant News; The Norwalk News; Baha'i Vizier and Lines of Fracture (translated into Dutch); Baha'i World Volumes; Brilliant Star Magazine; Katharine Lee Bates Collections 2013/2014; Veterans for Peace 2013; The Cape Cod Times: Albert Oubochowsky's play, Black Thursday; Slant, A Journal of Poetry; and From the Farther Shore, Cape Cod and the Islands Through Poetry. Her poem Bedtime Story was awarded second place by Marge Piercy in the Cape Cod division of the WOMR Outermost Poetry Contest of 2014, and Summer’s Harvest received Honorable Mention in that same contest for 2021. Her many achievements with poetry won her the Cape Cod Writers' Conference Kevin V. Symmons Scholarship for Second Career Writers at its 2018 conference.
She is developing a play on the impact of racism in our community and society, thanks to a grant from the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod. Entitled: NEIGHBORS, it is a collaboration with a diverse population. More information to come!
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About Us
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Summer’s Harvest
My tomato plant is the harvest
of this summer’s quarantine —
the first fruit I’ve grown
in my seventy years:
a tangible pleasure.
I cradle the pot like a baby
from porch to kitchen
to capture the sun;
water and speak to it
with loving encouragement.
It listens and bears first red --
then, when no longer
ample sunshine
to make it blush --
green tomatoes.
I pluck the largest
most gracefully shaped
to slice and fry
enriching my dinner
with luscious umami.
A pungent aroma
rises from the leaves
when abruptly picked
as if to say,
“ouch!”
The young green ones
line up submissively
along my windowsill
to ripen
under my care.
It’s grown tall
over the summer
like schoolboys do.
It yields such delight
for most all my senses.
I wish I could hear it grow
in the silence of the night.
Revised from Tomato Plant, Oct. 30, 2020 that was printed in the CCT
This version won HM in Joe Gouveia WOMR poetry contest – Marge Piercy, judge - announced in Feb. 2021
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One Summer's Day
I threw my blanket
boldly on the ground
spread wide
to show its many colors.
Then in some peculiar rage
you whipped it up
and spun it round
mocking its display.
I forgave the rage
with equal rage
that loves
but the blanket is now shut away.
Perhaps one corner at a time
I'll reveal the fine design or
on anniversaries more --
but I cannot fling it wide again
to let you
at its core.
- Judith Partelow
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