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, at the Cape Cod Cultural Center in South Yarmouth as well as the Cotuit Center for the Arts to standing ovations. Her play was taught as a course at Cape Cod Community College by professor Rod Owens 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, at the Cape Cod Theatre Company in Harwich along with poet Charles Harper, and many other venues. 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. She is available for readings. Contact her at <judithpartelow@gmail.com>

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. First public reading will be Sept. 11th, 2022 at 2 pm at the Cotuit Center for the Arts. Free and open to the public.