Tonight’s three poets, Ilene Millman, Enriqueta Carrington, and Maxine Susman, all have deep
connections to Highland Park and are delighted to be kicking off National Poetry Month at the
Library. They have been personal and poetry friends for over a dozen years.
Ilene Millman is a retired speech/language therapist from Hillsborough with more than 40 years
experience teaching literacy skills to children who learn differently, and she taught for years at
the old Center School in Highland Park. She has also taught conversation and literacy to adults
through her local Literacy Volunteers organization. She has published poems in numerous
journals and her first poetry collection, Adjust Speed to Weather, was published in 2018. Last
year one of her poems was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Enriqueta Carrington is a poet, translator, and mathematician. Originally from Mexico, she
now lives in Highland Park. She enjoys translating good writing, especially poetry and novels,
from Spanish to English or the other way round. Her own poems have appeared in many journals
and anthologies, most recently in The Road not Taken and the International Human Rights Arts
Festival. She is a recipient of a translator grant from the NEA and is the Senior Poetry Editor of
the US1 Worksheets.
Maxine Susman is a retired English professor and lived in Highland Park for 30 years. Her
work has appeared in several dozen literary journals and she has published seven poetry
collections, most recently her book My Mother’s Medicine. She has led poetry workshops for
many years, including here at the Library; currently she teaches poetry at The Osher
Lifelong Learning Institute of Rutgers. She finds poems in art, history, personal experience,
and the more-than-human world.
