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Friend,

April is National Poetry Month and poetry thrives in New Jersey! Inaugurated by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, this month-long awareness building effort is recognized as the largest literary celebration in the world and this year marks its 10th anniversary.  Founded in 1943, the Academy of American Poets' goal is to increase visibility, presence and accessibility of poetry in the American culture. During National Poetry Month, the Academy-sponsored events highlight past and present achievements of American poets, brings poets and poetry to the public and advocates that poetry remain a part of the school curriculum.

Each year the New Jersey State Council of the Arts funds and co-sponsors projects that support and spread poetry throughout our state.  We place poets in our schools to work with students, help advance the careers of poets, spotlight their talents in popular public events, publish new works and continue the centuries-old legacy of New Jersey as the birthplace and workplace of our nation's greatest writers and poets.  In this newsletter, it is my pleasure to highlight just a few of the many ways that our Council turns very modest public investments into monumental and, yes, poetic results. 

Warmly,

Carol Ann Herbert
Chair, NJ State Council on the Arts

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Celebrating New Jersey Poets

New Jersey is home to many internationally known poets. Three of the five most recent Pulitzer Prize winners in poetry, Paul Muldoon (2003), Stephen Dunn (2001) and C.K. Williams (2000) are New Jerseyans.  One of our most renowned native sons, the 1997 Poet Laureate of the United States, Robert Pinsky, was born in Long Branch and educated in its public school systems before receiving his B.A. from Rutgers University.  And who can forget New Jersey native sons Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams and Alan Ginsburg.

New Jersey is also home to the largest poetry festival in the North America, the Dodge Poetry Festival, sponsored by the Madison-based Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.  Held every other year, the great, the soon to be great and the lovers of poetry everywhere congregate to revel in the spoken word, spoken as true poetry.  The experience has been described as exhilarating, especially as Poet Laureates read their own work to crowds of thousands which include accomplished poets as well as students.

During the month of April, poetry readings and workshops are scheduled across the state.  A hundred miles south of Paterson at the Noyes Museum of Art, NJSCA recognized artist/teacher, Peter E. Murphy, will conduct a poetry reading and book signing.  Murphy's poems and essays have appeared in many of our nation's most venerated journals and he has received awards and fellowships for writing and for teaching from the Folger Shakespeare Library, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the White House Commission on Presidential Scholars, as well as the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.   For almost 30 years, Peter Murphy has taught English and creative writing at the Atlantic City High School and is the founder/director of the Winter Poetry and Prose Getaway, a retreat for writers and artists held annually in Cape May.

Finally, this year six of the New Jersey State Council of the Arts 2005 Fellowships were awarded to poets. They are Constance Bridges of Egg Harbor, Barbara Daniels of Camden, Suji Kwock Kim of Madison, Minnie-Bruce Pratt of  Jersey City, Christine Salvatore of Brigantine and Michael Thomas of Ocean Grove.  These are some of our best up and coming talents.  These modest awards will help them grow, write, teach, create and give back to us a hundred times over.  Poetry soothes the savage beast.  Poetry lights the fire within.  Poetry shows us who we are.  Poetry gives some sense to this confusing world.  Poetry is the language of our psalms and hymns. There is poetry in all of us. 

Celebrate National Poetry Month and be proud of all New Jersey has to offer.

Click here to learn 30 ways to celebrate National Poetry Month...

The Poetry Center in Passaic Celebrates 25 Years!

The New Jersey State Council on the Arts has long supported The Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College in Paterson.  Recognized by the Council with a Citation of Excellence and twice named Distinguished Arts Project, The Poetry Center annually offers thousands of New Jersey residents exciting and engaging poetry programs, including the Distinguished Poets Series, in which poets of national and international reputation listen to New Jersey poets read their work and provide encouragement and critical support for others. These often lead to other publishing and presentation opportunities for New Jersey writers. The Poetry Center also has a vast library of over 10,000 volumes of poetry books, many in Spanish, available statewide through inter-library loan.  In addition, it has videocassettes of poetry readings and interviews with featured poets frequently aired on cable TV stations throughout the State.  Best of all, thousands of New Jersey school children receive hundreds of books each year through The Poetry Center's generous Paterson Prize for Books for Young People.

Children in the Paterson Public Schools also attend professional theater productions free of charge thanks to The Theater and Poetry Project, a collaboration with the Passaic County Cultural and Heritage Council.  Professional poets and authors conduct writing workshops and Meet-the-Author sessions in the Paterson schools as a way to foster excitement for reading and writing. The Cultural and Heritage Council also sponsors a poetry contest for Paterson students in which the winners are awarded savings bonds and then have their poems published in an annual anthology.

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Learning Poetry from Poets

The New Jersey Writers Project, a program now in its third decade of operation and co-sponsored by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, provides unique opportunities for professional poets to work with our children in their schools to develop their creativity.  Nearly 17,000 students each year in all 21 New Jersey counties learn poetry, prose and playwriting with over 150 hands-on workshops. Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, one of five New Jersey theatres designated as a Majors Arts Organization by the Arts Council and a four-time recipient of a Citation of Excellence, serves as an "anchor institution that contributes vitally to the quality of life in New Jersey."

B. J. Ward, a NJSCA Artist Fellowship winner in poetry, a Distinguished Teaching Artist for 2000-2003 and a recipient of the Governor's Award in Arts Education, has been named Teaching Artist of the Year by Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey for his work in the New Jersey Writers Project.  Ward has this to say about the arts and poetry in the forthcoming issue of Teaching Artist Journal:
"...that science and math, while important, address what can be known, but not the great human mysteries. There is no mathematical equation that determines the precise rate of mourning a six-year old experiences when his pet goldfish Mr. Flips dies. Nor is there a scientific formula to explain exactly why we fall in love. To address these mysteries in ourselves, we have the arts-music, theater, dance, painting, sculpture, and-yes-poetry. And perhaps that is why I feel so blessed in my job. Every day I get the opportunity to allow students to acknowledge those parts of themselves that often get overlooked by traditional academic subjects. It's an amazing experience to watch students take stock of themselves in four days. It's inspiring to watch them discover how wonderfully complex and unique they are in this world of six billion people...I arrive at a school hoping to inspire and, even after 12 years of doing this work, leave more inspired."

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Bill Moyers Believes Poetry is Healing

Montclair resident Bill Moyers illustrates poetry's all encompassing reach in his book, The Language of Life: A Festival of Poets, " Poetry is the news of the mind, [and] the news of the heart."  And the National Association for Poetry Therapy convinces us that this universal language is not only beautiful, but also emotional and quite healing.

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