A Celebration of the 30th Anniversary of the Dodge Poetry Festival

The Warren County Community College in New Jersey presents "A Celebration of the 30th Anniversary of the Dodge Poetry Festival."

This free event will be on Saturday, October 21, 2017 at Warren County Community College (475 Route 57 West, Washington, NJ 07882)

Poets and panelists include Martin Farawell (Director of the Dodge Poetry Program), Laura Boss, Kenneth Hart, Susan Jackson, Charles H. Johnson, Tina Kelley, Diane Lockward, John McDermott, Peter E. Murphy, Khalil Murrell, Priscilla Orr, Joe Weil, Gretna Wilkinson and Sander Zulauf.

The program will run from 12 noon through 4:30 pm.

12 to 12:45     Panel Discussions
1:00 to 2:15    Poetry Sampler: The Dodge Festival Poets
2:30 to 3:00    Poems by Martin Farawell
3:00 to 3:45    Favorite Poems by Others, as read by Dodge Poets
4:00 to 4:30    Favorite Poems from the First 30 Years of the Dodge Main Stage, as read by Martin Farawell

For directions to the college: warren.edu
For information, please contact BJ Ward

8th Biennial Warren County Poetry Festival in New Jersey September 28

The 8th Biennial Warren County Poetry Festival is a free one day event that will be held September 28, 2013 with a theme of "Blues Poetics: Working-Class Roots and Rhythms in Poetry."

The Festival is held every two years, and has won two Citation of Excellence from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. It features workshops, panel discussions, book signings, and open mic sessions.

The festival is held on the campus of the Blair Academy, in Blairstown, NJ.

The 2013 Featured Poets are Roger Bonair-Agard, Nick Flynn and Joy Harjo.

Roger Bonair-Agard is a veteran of the spoken-word scene and a two-time National Poetry Slam Champion. He is the author of Tarnish and Masquerade, co-author of Burning Down the House, GULLY and Bury My Clothes. Roger moved to the United States from his native Trinidad and Tobago in 1987.
books by Roger Bonair-Agard 

  Nick Flynn has worked as a ship's captain, an electrician, and as a case-worker with homeless adults. He is also the award-winning author of Some Ether, Blind Huber, The Ticking is the Bomb and Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, winner of the PEN/Martha Albrand Award. His most recent book is The Reenactments. He divides his time between Texas, where he teaches at the University of Houston, and Brooklyn, New York.         books by Nick Flynn

Joy Harjo was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma and is a member of the Mvskoke Nation. 

 Her seven books of poetry include How We Became Human- New and Selected Poems, The Woman Who Fell From the Sky, and She Had Some Horses. For A Girl Becoming, a young adult/coming of age book, was released in 2009. She has also released four award-winning CD's of original music and in 2009 won a Native American Music Award (NAMMY) for Best Female Artist of the Year for Winding Through the Milky Way. She performs nationally and internationally with her band, the Arrow Dynamics. 
  books and music by Joy Harjo

Other poets reading and participating in the day's workshops and panel discussion include: James Arthur,  Laura Boss, Martin Farawell, Maria Mazziotti Gillan,  Jim Haba, Leslie Heywood and Joe Weil.

For the festival schedule, directions and more about the poets, see http://poetsonline.org/wcpf/

Tenth Annual Celebration of Literary Journals May 19

  

Join 12 literary journals and their editors for the free tenth annual POETRY FESTIVAL: A CELEBRATION OF LITERARY JOURNALS in New Jersey. This annual event, organized by poet Diane Lockward, includes readings throughout the afternoon by poets featured in the journals.

Books by the poets will be available for sale and for signing and the 12 journals will be displayed and available for purchase. This is a great opportunity for poets to talk with the editors about their publications. Each journal will be represented by two poets who have published in that journal.

Sunday, May 19, 2013
1:00 PM - 5:00 PM
West Caldwell Public Library (30 Clinton Road, West Caldwell, New Jersey, 973-226-5441)

The journals that will be represented:

1. Adanna
2. Edison Literary Review
3. Exit 13
4. Journal of New Jersey Poets
5. Lips
6. Painted Bride Quarterly
7. Paterson Literary Review
8. Raintown Review
9. Schuylkill Valley Journal
10. Stillwater Review
11. Tiferet
12. US 1 Worksheets

Scheduled poets reading throughout the afternoon:
ROBERT CARNEVALE
MIKE COHEN
LORRAINE DORAN
JUDITHA DOWD
SANDRA DUGUID
MARTIN FARAWELL
ANDREW “INK” FEINDT
JIM GWYN
MIRIAM HAIER
ERIC HELLER
ERNEST HILBERT
LINDA HILLRINGHOUSE
JANET KIRCHHEIMER
DAVID KOZINSKI
FRANCESCA MAXIME
KATHY NELSON
KATHE PALKA
WANDA PRAISNER
ED ROMOND
LINDA STERN
CHUCK TRIPI
EMILY VOGEL
JOE WEIL
EDYTTA WOJNAR

Ample Parking; Refreshments Available; #33 NJT Bus Stop Within Short Walking Distance; Many Area Restaurants

Directions to Event

Festival Information

Poems Out Loud

I enjoy hearing poems read aloud, but not everyone can get to readings in their area, especially ones by well-known poets. And, of course, we only have authors recorded reading their poetry going back about 100 years.

Although the site launched in April 2009, I only recently discovered Poems Out Loud.  It features recorded readings by well-known and award-winning poets, columns and general poetry news.

The name of the site was inspired by the anthology edited by Robert Pinsky called Essential Pleasures: A New Anthology of Poems to Read Aloud and the site is sponsored by that book's publisher, W. W. Norton & Company

Portrait of a Woman by Bartolomeo Veneto,
traditionally assumed to be Lucrezia Borgia.

It seems that the site stopped adding new content back in 2011, but in the archive and on others like are plenty of opportunities to discover poets and poems.

Recently, someone asked a question on Facebook about the poet Walter Savage Landor. I confess that I had never heard of him.

A quick search turned up lots of links, including one to his poem "On Lucretia Borgia's Hair" read by Robert Pinsky on the Poems Out Loud site.

I have heard of Lucretia (AKA Lucrezia) Borgia and the 2011 TV series, The Borgias, brought that family back into discussions.

The family came to epitomize Machiavellian politics and sexual corruption in the time of the Renaissance Papacy. Lucrezia is seen as a femme fatale in many artworks, novels, and films.

So, I clicked over to the poem.

I like the short text attached to the audio:



"The story is that the poet Leigh Hunt showed Landor a long, blonde strand of hair—said to be stolen from an Italian museum by Byron—of the glamorous, powerful, nefarious Lucretia Borgia. (It is tempting to think that the Italians who ran the museum were accustomed to English gentlemen stealing the purported hair several times a month, and that the museum replaced it each time from an ample supply.)

Landor, a great master of the epigram form, composed many dazzling poems of as few as two lines. In this one, the reach of the grammer across the rhyme-word “august” is expressive, a kind of flourish or fanfare preparing the way for the curt “Now thou’rt dust.” Different published versions have the final word as “unfold” and “enfold”—an interesting small ambiguity in itself, the hair as keeping the history it represents either unfolded to us, or enfolded away from us."

The poem is only four lines, and honestly, not one I would probably read if I stumbled upon it, brief as it is. But hearing it read, it worked for me.

Borgia, thou once wert almost too august
And high for adoration; now thou’rt dust.
All that remains of thee these plaits unfold,
Calm hair, meandering with pellucid gold.

Such is the power of poetry read aloud.


For more poetry read aloud, check out these sites:

• The Favorite Poem Project
• Poetry Out Loud
• Poetry Foundation
• Academy of American Poets
• From the Fishhouse: An Audio Archive of Emerging Poets

Ken Ronkowitz Reading at Carriage House October 16

The Carriage House Poetry Series was established by Adele Kenny in 1998 and is held in the Kuran Arts Center, a 19th carriage house, in Fanwood, New Jersey.

The Carriage House Series has featured a wide range of both nationally-known and local poets including Gerald Stern, Renee Ashley, Stephen Dunn, Alicia Ostriker, Patricia Smith, Taylor Mali, and Maria Gillan.

Ken Ronkowitz will be the featured reader on October 16. Ken is a lifelong NJ resident and educator. After many years teaching in public schools, he moved to the NJ Institute of Technology. Ken has been the editor since 1998 of PoetsOnline.org, a monthly online poetry magazine and web site for poetic inspiration. His poems have been published in magazines such as English Journal, Beloit Poetry Journal, Paterson Literary Review, Roadmap, Prague and the anthology, The Paradelle. He has worked with the Geraldine Dodge Foundation on poetry projects in NJ and is the recipient of a two Dodge Foundation Writing Grants. He is a member of the Advisory Board for the Passaic County Cultural & Heritage Council. He has been a volunteer educator for the past 30 years in the NJ Non-Game and Endangered Species Program. Since 2008, he has been the Director of Writing at Passaic County Community College and is an adjunct professor at both PCCC and NJIT.

Readings are held at 8 pm on the third Tuesday of each month from February - June and from September - December. All readings are free and open to the public. Most readings include an open mic after the feature, and audience members are invited to share their poems.

The remaining readings for 2012 will be Nancy Scott and Dave Worrell (November 20) and a 14th Anniversary Celebration on December 11 featuring James Arthur with a book launch, reading and signing for Charms Against Lightning (Copper Canyon Press)

Writers at Rutgers Reading Series Fall 2012, Spring 2013

Click image to enlarge

The Writers at Rutgers Reading Series fosters an exchange between well-known writers of diverse backgrounds and the Rutgers students and faculty.

This year's series will feature readings by Carolyn Forche, Gish Jen, Mary Gaitskill, Sapphire and Natasha Trethewey.

For additional information:  http://english.rutgers.edu

Philip Levine to Lead May 4 Video Conference Today with High Schools and Public Libraries

Philip Levine, the 18th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry at the Library of Congress, will connect with high schools and public libraries via video conference to read and discuss three of his poems: "Our Valley," "The Simple Truth," and "What Work Is." The reading and discussion will be followed by an extended question and answer period with video conference participants.

Event Date: Friday, May 4, 3 p.m. Eastern Time

Viewing the Event: This event will be streamed live on the Web. A link to the live video feed will be available from the Poetry and Literature Center home page – http://www.loc.gov/poetry/

 

PHILIP LEVINE was born in Detroit in 1928, to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, and educated at Wayne University (now Wayne State), the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and Stanford University. He is the author of twenty collections of poetry, and his honors include the Pulitzer Prize, two National Book Awards, and two National Book Critic Circle Awards.

• View Web Guide on Philip Levine
• Public Readings by Philip Levine
• Podcast of Philip Levine (Poet & Poem Series)
• Webcast of 2007 Philip Levine reading at the Library of Congress

 

Toni Morrison at Rutgers-Newark

Toni Morrison is the author of nine major novels. She won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby, Beloved, Jazz, Paradise, Love, and A Mercy have received extensive critical acclaim.

She received the National Book Critics Award in 1978 for Song of Solomon and the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Beloved. In 2006, Beloved was chosen by the New York Times Book Review as the best work of American fiction published in the last quarter-century.

Toni Morrison reads in the Writers at Newark Reading Series on Tues., April 26, 2011, 5:30-7 p.m., in Multipurpose Room 231 at the Paul Robeson Campus Center, 350 Dr. Martin Luther King Boulevard, Newark, New Jersey

Readings are free and open to the public.

Attention: No RSVPs are necessary for the Toni Morrison reading. Seating will be done on a first come, first serve basis. Please arrive early to give yourself plenty of time to park and to obtain seating. For High School teachers interested in bringing their students, please email rnmfa@andromeda.rutgers.edu

http://www.mfa.newark.rutgers.edu/visitingwriters/morrison.htm

        
           

Rutgers-Newark Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing | Visiting Writers | Toni Morrison

Gerald Stern at WCCC

The WCCC Visiting Authors Series continues on Wednesday, March 30th, with a reading by Gerald Stern, recipient of the National Book Award for Poetry.

This event, beginning at 7:30 p.m. at Warren County Community College in New Jersey in Room E208, is free and open to the public. The WCCC Chapter of Phi Theta Kappa, the international honor society for two-year colleges, will provide complimentary refreshments. Originally scheduled for January 26th, Mr. Stern’s reading was moved to March 30th due to inclement weather.

Gerald Stern was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1925. His books of poetry include Early Collected Poems: 1965-1992 (W. W. Norton, 2010), Save the Last Dance: Poems (2008); This Time: New and Selected Poems (1998), which won the National Book Award; Bread Without Sugar (1992), winner of the Paterson Poetry Prize; The Red Coal (1981), which received the Melville Caine Award from the Poetry Society of America; and Lucky Life, the 1977 Lamont Poetry Selection of The Academy of American Poets.

His honors include the Paris Review's Bernard F. Conners Award, the Bess Hokin Award from Poetry, the Ruth Lilly Prize, four National Endowment for the Arts grants, the Pennsylvania Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Jerome J. Shestack Poetry Prize from American Poetry Review, and fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. In 2005, Stern was selected to receive the Wallace Stevens Award for mastery in the art of poetry. He also served as the first Poet Laureate of the State of New Jersey from 2000 to 2002. For many years a teacher at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, Stern now lives in Lambertville, New Jersey.

The WCCC Visiting Authors Series is supported by a grant from the Warren County Cultural and Heritage Commission. All facilities comply with ADA regulations and are fully accessible. After the reading, there will be brief Q & A with the audience and a book signing. Books will be available for purchase at the event.

For directions to the college or to find out about WCCC’s Creative Writing degree program, please call (908) 835-9222 or visit www.warren.edu.

WCCC Visiting Authors Series - Gerald Stern

The reading by Gerald Stern at Warren County Community College
has been postponed until Wednesday, March 30th, due to inclement weather.

The Warren County Community College (New Jersey) Visiting Authors Series continues on Wednesday, January 26th, with a reading by Gerald Stern.

Gerald Stern was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1925. His books of poetry include Early Collected Poems: 1965-1992 (W. W. Norton, 2010), Save the Last Dance: Poems (2008); This Time: New and Selected Poems (1998), which won the National Book Award; Bread Without Sugar (1992), winner of the Paterson Poetry Prize; The Red Coal (1981), which received the Melville Caine Award from the Poetry Society of America; and Lucky Life, the 1977 Lamont Poetry Selection of The Academy of American Poets.

He was Poet Laureate of New Jersey from 2000 to 2002, and received the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets in 2005. Since 2006, Stern has been a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

Stern has taught at Temple University and Indiana University of Pennsylvania and for a number of years prior to achieving fame, he taught at Raritan Valley Community College in New Jersey. Stern is currently serving as distinguished poet-in-residence at Drew University's low-residency MFA Program in Poetry.

This reading, beginning at 7:30 p.m. in Room E208, is free and open to the public.

The WCCC Visiting Authors Series is supported by a grant from the Warren County Cultural and Heritage Commission. All facilities comply with ADA regulations and are fully accessible. After the reading, there will be brief Q&A with the audience and a book signing. Books will be available for purchase at the event.

For directions to the college or to find out about WCCC’s Creative Writing degree program, please call (908) 835-9222 or visit www.warren.edu