Poetry, Art and Music

I think poetry, art, and music are received differently in different places. Outside of the United States, there is a different kind of cultural admiration for poets and artists. There’s a desire to support the poet and artist. That is certainly true in Italy which I felt when I was reading my poem there, but I found it in other countries as well. There’s more of a sense that this is something really valuable. We are poets and there is a visual element to poetry, so the visual artists will come to the poetry readings. And very often poetry, art, and music are combined in a reading or show, which is quite wonderful and very open. I don’t find that quite so much in the United States.

Here it is like the three are divided. There is a unity there that I'd like to see more of. Let’s have people exhibit art and also listen to poetry or a musician. Linda Hillringhouse and I did a combined exhibit at the Art Center of Clifton last fall and we also read our poetry there surrounded by our paintings. I would like to see more of that.

see Maria's artwork at mariamazziottigillan.com

The Creation and Future of the Poetry Center at PCCC

One of the things I was trying to do in starting a poetry center in Paterson was to involve as many people as possible in loving poetry the way I love poetry. I wanted them interested in poetry as readers, listeners, and writers.

I’ve read my poems in Italy and other countries, and I found that there are a lot of poetry communities all over the world. Why not in Paterson, New Jersey? It is where I grew up but it has a rich history including Allen Ginsberg and William Carlos Williams.

I love conducting a poetry workshop in-person but after the COVID pandemic when we started doing readings and workshops virtually, I realized there were some advantages. We could reach an audience who would never come to Paterson either because it was at a distance or because they just were not comfortable going out to events. I have had people do a workshop with me in Italy and then because of that connection, they come to my workshops in the United States on Zoom.

The past year and this year we have split our reading series from the Poetry Center between in-person and virtual readings and workshops in the hope of offering something that suits different needs.

Six Notes from the Desk of Maria Mazziotti Gillan

We’ve been doing a great many virtual Zoom workshops which I’ve come to really enjoy. A couple of weeks ago we finished the first series of Mature Adult Workshops where people produced exceptionally fine work and I was incredibly happy. We start the next series of workshops in late February and March. What I love about them is how enthusiastic people are about them and the way that we can bring people from a long distance into the workshop. We have people from California, Canada, Florida, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Because of this, I have decided that although we are starting in-person workshops again in March, continuing forward I will do one in-person workshop and reading and one virtual workshop and reading each month. In this way, I hope to expand the reach of the Poetry Center and to give more people opportunities to participate.

I want to remind everyone that the Paterson Prize for Poetry books and the Paterson Prize for Books for Young People is open. Go to our Contests & Awards page for submission information.

I also want to invite people to subscribe to the Poetry Center’s YouTube channel. We have been uploading new content every day since the start of the year. We hope to put as much of the video made from the past 42 years of readings available. Subscribers will see what is new on the site when they visit. For me, it’s a trip down a poetic memory lane to see readings by poets who have since passed away and see myself at a younger age.

I want to notify everyone that the Laura Boss Narrative Poetry Book award competition for an unpublished manuscript is open The submission rules are on the Laura Boss Poetry Foundation website. I encourage poets to submit. There is a $5000 award, publication of the book and a reading at the Poetry Center for the winning manuscript.

We have our first return to in-person workshops and readings in March. This certainly has been a trying couple of years but I count on poets and our audience to be resilient and resourceful. It will be wonderful to be together again. Our apologies that we’re not able to offer food and or drinks for this session due to remaining COVID restrictions.

Finally, I hope that you’ve been writing and enjoying poetry throughout these trying times. It has lifted me above this pandemic and I hope we can give you renewed energy and joy in writing and in sharing our writing.

Maria

William Stafford 1986

Recently we added to the Poetry Center’s YouTube channel a Distinguished Poet Series video of William Stafford from 1986. As I watched and listened to it I remembered his reading very clearly but most of all because when I picked him up at the airport he was so upset that a critic had called him “simple.”

When he began his presentation, he talked about poetry and language and why he uses language as he does. It was amazing to listen to him talk about language in poetry and to hear him read his beautifully spare and moving poems and listen to his comments about poetry and about what he was trying to do in his poems.

When I drove him back to the airport he was worried that he would be late, though we were two hours early. He was so worried he wanted to jump out of the car and across three lanes of traffic to get to the door at the airport. I said to him, “No, please don’t because I don’t want to be known as the woman who killed William Stafford!”

When I introduced him at that reading, I was 46 years old. Watching the video, we had digitized to add to our growing collection, I realize how I didn’t know at the time how young I was how much more I would have to learn.

Please look at the Poetry Center’s YouTube channel and subscribe so you can see what’s new. We will be adding videos every day this month and continuing as we digitize old videos.

Poets Who Are Wild and Brave

I am very excited to report that Martin Espada will be giving a workshop and reading for us on Saturday, December 4, 2021. Martin has been awarded the 2021 National Book Award for Poetry for his book Floaters (WW Norton).

It is an amazing book and for those of you who have not read it, yet please do. This book reminds me how important it is that the Poetry Center has featured poets who tell the truth about their lives and experiences and who speak with honesty and clarity about what it means to be human. I believe poetry like this can save our lives and it certainly has saved mine.

>

Poetry enables us to form a bridge between our experiences and the lives of others. It is both a window and a door.

I was very grateful this Thanksgiving week for what poetry has done for me and for so many others. I think of the poems I’ve memorized and that I carry with me that give me comfort when I am most frightened or grief-stricken.

What tremendous gratitude I feel for all the poets, like Martin Espada, who are wild and brave and willing to make themselves vulnerable. What I find in their work are solace and courage.

Maria

For information on attending Martin’s reading live online
or to view the archived video go to
mariagillan.blogspot.com/2021/11/martin-espada…

Writing in a Supportive Space

This past week, we had the good fortune to have Jan Beatty as our visiting writer for the Mature Adults Workshop. She provided excellent prompts, read some of her poems, and gave lots and lots of encouragement to the writers in the group. She brought her energy and enthusiasm to the workshop and was kind and supportive. It was an exciting session and I got many emails extolling her virtues from people who participated. Check out her new memoir and collection of poetry.

I have to admit I miss in-person workshops and readings, but I am finding great joy in virtual workshops as well. The wonderful thing about them is that we can bring people from very far away to participate whereas in-person, we normally only recruit from New York and New Jersey. This past summer, we had someone from Vancouver, Canada, and several from California. In a couple of interviews and virtual readings I have done, I had people write to me afterward from France, Italy, Wales, and other parts of Great Britain. It’s exciting to think of how poetry connects us and how it forms bridges between us.

I fell in love with poetry when I was a very young, immigrant child. I did not speak English when I went to school. I feel great gratitude for the teachers who read aloud to us in Public School #18 in Paterson, New Jersey. They shaped the way I heard English, heard poetry and they made me want to read more and more and to write. One of the functions of the poetry center which I established officially in 1980, is that it brings poetry to people. It allows other people to enter the house of poetry with its many rooms, as Lucille Clifton said. I think poems teach us how to be human and have compassion. For me, poetry has always been a kind of salvation. I want to share it with others the way my mother shared food.

Meanwhile, until we can get back to in-person meetings, I am loving the reach of Zoom and I hope to continue to run virtual programs even when we can have in-person programs again.

We have our Distinguished Poets Series program scheduled monthly through January 2022. You can watch live and each is archived and available on our YouTube channel. These poets also offer a poetry workshop before their reading which you need to register for in advance. They are very popular, so be sure to check it out and sign up as soon as possible.

Sincerely,
Maria