Staff and Board

Poetry Center Staff

Kim Bridgford
Director

Kim Bridgford is the director of the West Chester University Poetry Center and the West Chester University Poetry Conference. As editor of Mezzo Cammin, she was the founder of The Mezzo Cammin Women Poets Timeline Project, which was launched at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington on March 27, 2010, and will eventually be the largest database of women poets in the world. She is the author of seven books of poetry: Undone; Instead of Maps; In the Extreme: Sonnets about World Records, winner of the Donald Justice Prize; Take-Out: Sonnets about Fortune Cookies; Hitchcock's Coffin:  Sonnets about Classic Films, Bully Pulpit, and the forthcoming Epiphanies.  She was a recent Ucross fellow.

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Jamie Smith
Associate Director

Jamie Smith received her B. A. in English Literature from West Chester University (2002). Following her graduation, she worked in the Marketing Department for a local medical manufacturer. After volunteering at the conference for six years she joined the WCU Poetry Center as the Administrative Assistant in December 2006. She currently serves as Associate Director of the WCU Poetry Conference, and is the administrative director of all the Center's programs.

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Deborah Arnold
Graduate Assistant

Deborah Arnold  received  her B.A. in English from Bethany College, Bethany, WVA, and has worked as an editor at J.B. Lippincott in Philadelphia, PA and at Winterthur Museum, DE. A book artist, papermaker, and printmaker, Deborah has taught classes in papermaking and book arts, including pop-up book structures, to adults and children of all ages and special needs throughout Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. Her commissioned artworks are in private collections, including the White House Collection of American Crafts in Washington, DC. She is currently a graduate student in the Master of Arts in English program, with a concentration in Creative Writing, at West Chester University. 

Poetry Center Advisory Board

Rick Burke

Ellie Byrom-Haley

Kelly Coveny

Rhina P. Espaillat

Dana Gioia

Russell Goings

Darcie Goldberg

Kathleen Byrnes Jarrett

Lester Graves Lennon

Muriel McDaniel

Joe Sequenzia

Kean Spencer

David Yezzi