Tom Lagasse and Karen Warinsky
Tom Lagasse, a life-long resident of Bristol, CT, now serves as the town’s poet laureate. He currently emcees Open Mic Night at The Creative Jam Art Co. in Bristol on the last Wednesday of the month. Lagasse was recently recognized as an Edwin Way Teale Artist in Residence last year, a tribute to his nature poetry. Besides his work about nature, Bristol and baseball frequently appear in his poetry. His poem “Open Field” was honored by the National Baseball Poetry Foundation, and his poem “My Mother the Shortstop” won the 2025 E. Ethelbert Miller Prize.
Karen Warinsky, a resident of Woodstock, CT, is an award-winning poet who coordinates Poets at Large, presenting spoken word events in CT and MA, now in its sixth year. She is a former finalist of the Montreal International Poetry Contest (2013), a Best of the Net Nominee (2023) and she won first place in the 2024 Ekphrastic Poetry Trust. She has published widely since 2011 and her fourth collection, Beauty & Ashes was just released from Kelsay Books.