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Poetry at Highland Park Public Library

THANK YOU to The Friends of The Library for sponsoring poetry events!

For more New Jersey poetry events, click here. Read a daily poem here.

Recent Poetry Readings at the Library:

Poet Jessica de Koninck
Open Reading
Tuesday, May 27, 7:30 PM

The featured poet is Jessica de Koninck. Refreshments and an open mike follow the reading.

Jessica de Koninck published "Repairs," a collection of poems about loss and healing, by Finishing Line Press in 2006. It was a finalist in the Ledge 2005 poetry competition, a semifinalist in the 2005 Black River Chapbook Contest, and won Honorable Mention in the 2005 Juniper Tree Chapbook contest.
De Koninck is director of Legislative Services for the New Jersey Department of Education and a former two-term Montclair councilwoman.
Her poems have been published in "The Jewish Women's Literary Annual," "Edison Literary Review," "Exit 13," and "Bridges." They have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Poet Daniel Zimmerman
Open Reading
Tuesday, April 22, 7:30 PM

The featured poet is Daniel Zimmerman. Refreshments and an open mike follow the reading.

Daniel Zimmerman, chairperson of the English Department at Middlesex County College, is author of the poetry collection "Post-Avant," published by Pavement Saw Press 2001, with an introduction by the poet Robert Creeley. Has he been editor of the single issue journals, "The Western Gate" and "Brittannia" and has served as associate editor of "Anonym," which first published Ezra Pound's last canto.
His work is included in the anthology "The Poets of New Jersey" and the journals Chain, Tinfish, Chelsea, New York Quarterly, Rubber Chicken and many others.

Poet Kathleen Graber
Open Reading
Tuesday, March 25, 7:30 PM

The featured poet is Kathleen Graber. Refreshments and an open mike follow the reading.

Kathleen Graber, currently a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University, is author of the poetry collection "Correspondence," which is winner of the 2005 Saturnalia Books Poetry prize.
A graduate of New York University's Creative Writing Program, she also has taught writing at NYU. Graber is the recipient of fellowships from the Rona Jaffe Foundation and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. Her work has appeared in "The New Yorker," "Ploughshares," "The American Poetry Review," "The Georgia Review," "The Hudson Review," "Washington Square," "Bucks County Review," "Tiferet," "Arts" and "Dragonfire."
"'Correspondence' is a fresh accomplishment, swift with feeling and intelligence, the work of a restless critical mind mapping its way toward a means to bear the weight of love," said poet Mark Doty.
The poet will be the Amy Lowell Traveling Scholar for 2008-2009 and will join the faculty at Virginia Commonwealth University as an assistant professor of English in the Graduate Creative Writing Program.
More information about the poet at http://www.princeton.edu/arts/arts_at_princeton/creative_writing/professor_bios/graber/

Poetry Writing Workshop
Maxine Susman
Thursday, February 21, 7:00 - 8:30 PM

Award winning poet Maxine Susman will conduct a poetry workshop for serious poets and those returning to writing poetry. Please register by calling the library at (732) 572-2750.

An associate professor of English at Caldwell College, Susman will give prompts to encourage fresh poems from the group and give editing suggestions. The poet is author of "Gogama", a chapbook about her father's life in a depression-era logging town in rural Canada. She is currently working on the life of a British friend who lived through World War II.

Poetry Reading
Nancy Scott
Tuesday, November 27, 7:30 PM

Featured poet Nancy Scott will read at 7:30 PM, followed by an open mike and refreshments.

Nancy Scott, an advocate for foster and adoptive children, the homeless and the mentally ill, recently published "Down to the Quick," a collection of poetry that gives voice to the victimized. she is the current managing editor of U.S. 1 Worksheets and a recipient of a Ragdale Residency. The poet's work has appeared in Witness, Slant, the Journal of New Jersey Poets and U.S. 1 Worksheets.
"From the battles for civil rights and equal right, to war and its aftermath, to the enduring tragedies of drugs, racism, poverty and disease that play out daily in American cities, to the interior dramas of her life, Nancy Scott opens our eyes through the compassionate lens of her poetry," said Sander Zulauf, editor of Journal of New Jersey Poets. (Library Journal's Top Ten Poetry Picks for 2006).
Hear poems by Nancy Scott at http://pplpoetpodcast.wordpress.com/2007/04/16/nancy-scott/

Poetry Reading
Stuart Greenhouse
Tuesday, October 23, 7:30 PM

Featured poet Stuart Greenhouse will read at 7:30, followed by an open mike and refreshments.

Stuart Greenhouse, author of "What Remains," a chapbook published in 2005 by the Poetry Society of America, is known as a lyrical poet. His poems have appeared in Antioch Review, Bellingham Review, Fence, Paris Review and Ploughshares. He received his M.F.A. from New York University.
"It is edgy and wise, personal and social, strange and intimate," poet Brenda Hillman said in the introduction of "What Remains." "Neither easy nor safe, it renders experience in a way that shows a shimmering, versatile engagement with the daily world and with current exploratory idioms."
Visit the poet's blog at http://stuartgreenhouse.blogspot.com/

Poetry Reading
Wanda Praisner
Tuesday, September 25, 7:30 PM

Featured poet Wanda Praisner will read at 7:30 PM, followed by an open mike and refreshments.

Wanda Praisner's latest two collections of poetry are "On the Bittersweet Avenues of Pomona" (2005, winner of the Spire Press Poetry Chapbook Completion), and "A Fine and Bitter Snow" (2003). A retired educator, Praisner is currently a Poet in Residence for the New Jersey State Council of the Arts. She has been nominated three times for a Pushcart prize and has received the Kudzu Prize, the Maryland Review Egan Award and First Prize in Poetry at The College of New Jersey Writers' Conference. Her poems have appeared in the Atlanta Review, Journal of New Jersey Poets, Lullwater Review, Margi, New York Magazine and Slant. Praisner is a recipient of poetry fellowships from the New Jersey State Council of the Arts, and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.
"Wanda Praisner's poems in "On the Bittersweet Avenues of Pomona remind us how delicately tangled are the roots of family and individual identity," poet Maria Mazziotti Gillan said. "She takes us into the rich and often frightening country of coming of age."
For more information on this poet, go to http://www.spirepress.org/praisner.html

Alicia Suskin Ostriker
Poetry Reading
Tuesday, May 15, 7:30 PM

Alicia Suskin Ostriker is the featured poet.

Following the reading, there will be a book signing, open mike and refreshments.
FREE! Sponsored by The Friends of the Library.

Alicia Suskin Ostriker is a major American poet and critic who was twice nominated for a National Book Award for "The Crack in Everything" and "The Little Space: Poems Selected and New." She is the author of eleven volumes of poetry including her most recent "No Heaven" (2005), "The Volcano Sequence" (2002) and "The Imaginary Lover" (1986), winner of the William Carlos Williams Award. As a critic, she is the author of two volumes on women's poetry, "Writing Like a Woman" and "Stealing the Language: The Emergence of Women's Poetry in America." Her books on the Bible include "Feminist Revision and the Bible" and "The Nakedness of the Fathers: Biblical Visions and Revisions."
Visit Ms. Ostriker's website at http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~ostriker/home.htm

Christopher Bursk
Poetry Reading
Thursday, April 12, 7:30 PM

Christopher Bursk is the featured poet.

Following the reading, there will be a book signing, open mike and refreshments.
FREE! Sponsored by The Friends of the Library.

Christopher Bursk's most recent collections of poetry include, "The First Inhabitants of Arcadia" (2006), "Improbable Swervings of Atoms" (2004), "Ovid at Fifteen" (2003) and "Cell Count" (1997). The poet is a recipient of National Endowment of the Arts, Guggenheim and Pew fellowships. Bursk is the winner of the 2004 Donald Hall Prize in Poetry. He is a professor of English at Bucks County Community College in Pennsylvania and has been recognized for his work with prisoners, the homeless, food banks and women's shelters. His poems follow his own development as a child, a reader and a poet.

Therese Halscheid
Poetry Reading
Tuesday, March 27, 7:30 PM

Therese Halscheid is the featured poet.
Following the reading, there will be a book signing, open mike and refreshments.
FREE! Sponsored by The Friends of the Library.

Therese Halscheid is the author of three poetry collections: "Powertalk" (1995); "Without Home" (2001); and "Uncommon Geography" (2006).

Halscheid, an award-winning poet and artist in residence for the Camden county Cultural & Heritage Commission, was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She is author of three poetry collections, "Powertalk" (1995), "Without Home" (2001) and "Uncommon Geography" (2006). She has given up many of her earthly possessions to become a full time writer and says she wouldn't call her nomadic lifestyle a sacrifice. Also awarded the 2005 Dodge Fellowship to the Vermont Studio Center, Halscheid became a full time house-sitter in 1993 so that she could travel the country and experience diverse environments. She has written in rugged swamps in Florida, an elk farm in Pennsylvania, a log cabin in the NJ Pine Barrens and an adobe home in New Mexico. Some of her poems depict her time in Andrew Wyeth's home and the Brandywine Museum.
The poet has also been an artist in residence at Acadia National Park in Maine, and while house-sitting at the New Jersey shore she facilitated writing workshops at the Ocean City Art Center and Atlantic Cape Community College. Before giving up her apartment and most possessions in Haddon Township to write full time, she was a teacher for thirteen years in the Franklin and Haddon school systems.

Maxine Susman, Poet
Open Reading (2/1/2007)
Thursday, February 1, 7:30 PM

Poetry reading, held on 2/1/07.
FREE! Sponsored by the Friends of the Library.
Poetry reading by Maxine Susman of Highland Park. An open mike, book signing and refreshments followed the reading.

Maxine Susman of Highland Park recently published the chapbook "Gogama", about her father. Ben Susman traveled to a French Canadian logging community during the Great Depression to live and work as a doctor.

In understated but powerful language, the book describes her father's trial by fire in a rural backwoods. The poet, in her mind's eye, watches her father as a young man, honing his life saving skills in the most difficult of places.

Published by Sheltering Pines Press, "Gogama" was a finalist in the 2005 First Annual Chapbook Competition.
Susman teaches writing and literature at Caldwell College.

Ed Romond, Poet
Open Reading (11/28/2006)
Tuesday, November 28, 7:30 PM

Held on Tuesday, 11/28/2006 at 7:30 PM.
FREE! Sponsored by The Friends of the Library.
Poetry reading by Ed Romond. An open mike, book signing and refreshments followed the reading.

The poet's awards include fellowships from the New Jersey and Pennsylvania State Arts Councils and from the National Endowment for the Arts. He won second place in the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Competition, third place in the Rainmaker's Awards at Austin Peay State University, and his work was selected for the "Anthology of Magazine Verse" and "Yearbook of American Poetry".

Romond is the author of "Home Fire" (Belle Mead Press, 1993), "Dream Teaching" (Grayson Books, 2005) and two chapbooks: "Macaroon" (1997) and "Blue Mountain Time: New and Selected Poems about Baseball" (2002). His poems have appeared in such journals as The Sun, Rockhurst Review, Poet Lore, English Journal, Barrow Street, Spitball, Lake Effect, Zone 3, New Letters, Coal City Review and many others.
Visit Mr. Romond's website at http://www.edwinromond/.