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EVENTS
Aug 02, 2013
Hunterdon Art Museum Poetry Series
Clinton, NJ
Aug 19, 2013
Beach Bards Poetry & Prose Reading Series
Sea Isle City, NJ
Sep 07, 2013
Shore Thing Writing Getaway: Writing Beyond the Boardwalk
Atlantic City, NJ
Sep 16, 2013
Poetry Reading
Sea Isle City, NJ
Sep 17, 2013
Carriage House Poetry Series
Fanwood, NJ
See all events from NJ.
 



POETRY-FRIENDLY BOOKSTORES



Clinton Book Shop
12 East Main Street
Clinton, NJ
(908) 735-8811

Cranbury Bookworm
54 North Main Street
Cranbury, NJ
(609) 655-1063

Labyrinth Books
122 Nassau St.
Princeton, NJ
(609) 497-1600

Mendham Books
84 East Main Street
Mendham Village Shopping Center
Mendham, NJ
(973) 543-4949

Montclair Book Center
221 Glenridge Avenue
Montclair, NJ
(973) 783-3630

River Road Books
759 River Road
Fair Haven, NJ
(732) 747-9455

Sparta Books
41 Theatre Center
Sparta, NJ
(973) 729-6200

The Town Book Store
270 E. Broad St.
Westfield, NJ
(908) 233-3535

Words Bookstore
179 Maplewood Avenue
Maplewood
(973) 763-9500

LITERARY MAP


Available from New Jersey Council of Teachers of English. Contact: Lynn Carhart, 18 Seward Drive, Ocean, NJ 07712.
New Jersey Add to Notebook

New Jersey, let's admit, is a mishmash that never got unified.
     By its geographical situation it has always been a crossroads, a place for people to commute from, for Revolutionary armies to pass through. This makes any general idea of it difficult to grasp.
X. J. Kennedy

New Jersey's gift to its poets . . . is that it's a place of many places, essentially amorphous, freeing us to look at the world.
Featured Poets

Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman
In the early 1870s, Walt Whitman settled in Camden, New Jersey, to care for his dying mother. He spent the rest of his life there, editing Leaves of Grass and writing his final work, Good-Bye, My Fancy.

William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams
One of the principle poets of the Imagist movement, William Carlos Williams was born in Rutherford, New Jersey. After receiving his M.D. he returned to Rutherford, where he worked as a physician.

Amiri Baraka

Amiri Baraka
The poet and playwright Amiri Baraka was one of the most important figures in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s. He was born and lives in Newark, New Jersey.

Robert Pinsky

Robert Pinsky
Robert Pinsky was born in Long Branch, New Jersey in 1940. A past National Poet Laureate and Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize winner, he is the author of six poetry collections, including Jersey Rain.


Other New Jersey Poets
Stephen Crane
Marianne Moore
Dorothy Parker
Richard Wilbur
Allen Ginsberg
Yusef Komuyakaa
Gerald Stern
Maxine Kumin
C. K. Williams
Lynda Hull
A. R. Ammons
X. J. Kennedy
Stephen Dunn
Rafael Campo
Jane Cooper
Stephen Dunn
David Ferry
Toi Derricotte
Alicia Suskin Ostriker
Ntozake Shange
Laurie Sheck
Judith Viorst
Elinor Wylie
James Richardson
Literary Organizations & Centers

Delaware Valley Poets
Offers monthly workshops and a free poetry reading series in Mercer county.

New Jersey Poetry Society
Part of the National Federation of State Poetry Societies, Inc., New Jersey Poetry Society publishes Strophes, a journal, and sponsors poetry competitions.

The Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College
Sponsors a reading series; holds The Poetry Center library, which contains more than 10,000 volumes of poetry, and a full collection of poetry reference books; features the New Jersey Poetry Calendar, which lists poetry events throughout NJ; publishes books; and sponsors poetry contests.

Walt Whitman Arts Center
A non-profit, multi-cultural literary, performing, and visual arts center in Camden, New Jersey, with special emphasis on educational events for children.

Readings Series, Conferences, & Literary Festivals

DeBaun Auditorium, Spoken Word Series
Features published local writers and includes an open-microphone reading opportunity for local authors.

Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival
The biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival offers four days of poetry readings, panel discussions, conversations on craft and a wide array of other topics, musical performances, and storytelling in Waterloo Village.

The College of New Jersey Visiting Writer’s Series
The Visiting Writers Series at The College of New Jersey is a student-run program committed to enlarging the campus literary community. The program brings nationally-acclaimed authors to campus to read their work and share their experiences as writers. Previously featured poets include Mark Bibbins, Mark Halliday, Robyn Art, Sarah Manguso, and Brenda Shaughnessy.

Warren County Community College Visiting Authors Series
Hosted by Warren County Community College, this reading series features five readings each year. Past readers have included Philip Levine, Stephen Dunn, C.K. Williams, Paul Muldoon, Joyce Carol Oates, Li-Young Lee, Gerald Stern, Stephen Dobyns, Laura-Anne Bosselaar, Jeffrey Harrison, and many others.

William Paterson University Writer's Conference
Each spring the English Department of William Paterson University, in Wayne, New Jersey, host an annual writer's conference. They have hosted such writers as Jimmy Santiago Baca, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Alicia Ostriker.

Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway
This annual conference is held in Cape May, New Jersey. New Jersey teachers can receive 17 hours of professional development credit. Stephen Dunn, recipient of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, will be one of this year's 30 or so workshop leaders.

Princeton Reading Series
Each month of the spring and fall semesters, one poet and one prose writer give a reading. Past readings have included Paul Auster, Russell Banks, Lucie Brock-Broido, J. D. McClatchy, James McMichael, Honor Moore, Haruki Murakami, Sigrid Nunez, and Sharon Olds.

Poetry Festival
This celebration of New Jersey literary magazines includes the display of journals, available for purchase. Editors answer questions about publication, and each journal is represented by poets who have published in the journal. Readings are held throughout the event, and poets' books are available for sale and signing.

Poetic History

Walt Whitman House: Camden, NJ
The house has been preserved with Whitman's letters and personal belongings, a collection of rare photographs, his deathbed, and the 1892 notice of his death nailed to the front door.

The Graves of Poets
When he died in 1966, Delmore Schwartz was buried in Cedar Park Cemetery in Emerson, New Jersey. Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams, and Allen Ginsberg are also buried in New Jersey.

William Carlos Williams's Hometown: Rutherford, NJ
Though schooling and travel took him far away, William Carlos Williams always returned to his hometown of Rutherford, which remained a central presence in his work.

Poems about New Jersey

Night Driving
by Joyce Carol Oates
South into Jersey on I-95 rain and / windshield wipers...

In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus One Day
by X. J. Kennedy
In a prominent bar in Secaucus one day...

Lucky Life
by Gerald Stern
Lucky life isn't one long string of horrors...

Literary Journals & Small Presses

Cavan Kerry Press
Publishes both established and emerging writers, as well as out-of-print work that deserves permanence, collections of essays on the creative process, and anthologies that spotlight and support other arts organizations.

The Nassau Literary Review
First published in 1842, it is the second oldest undergraduate literary review in the country. The Review has published writers such as Galway Kinnell, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Edmund Wilson.

Journal of New Jersey Poets
Presents new work by New Jersey poets and is published biannually by County College of Morris.

The Literary Review: An International Journal of Contemporary Writing
Has been published quarterly by Fairleigh Dickinson University since 1957. Issues focus on introducing new fiction, poetry, and essays from many nations, regions, or languages to English readers.

Ontario Review
Publishes original fiction, poetry, personal essays, drama, photographs, graphics, and interviews with prominent contemporary authors. Each issue is a blend of older, more established writers with promising younger ones.

Paterson Literary Review
Paterson Literary Review publishes poetry, fiction, reviews, and artwork by individuals with international, national, and regional reputation as well as work by promising new voices

Raritan
Raritan publishes essays, poetry, and a limited amount of fiction four times a year: February, May, August, November.

Talisman House
Publishes William Bronk, Theodore Enslin, John Taggart, among others.

The Prism
Princeton University's only literary magazine with a thematic focus on diversity, difference, and international topics. Through two print publications a year along with related event programming (weekly free-writing hours, writing contests, and other initiatives such as the "Faces of America" show), the Prism strives to foster the meaningful exchange of ideas through ongoing dialogue and expression of various forms.

Writing programs & colonies

Fairleigh Dickinson University
The M.F.A. in creative writing is a low-residency program in which students work closely with mentors who are published authors through distance learning. They meet in person with faculty, visiting writers, and other students during two residencies held each year. The M.F.A. degree is offered in three disciplines: Poetry, Fiction, and Creative Non-Fiction.

Middlesex County College Writers' Workshop
The program mixes sessions on craft with practical tips on publishing. There is also a spoken word contest.

Rowan University
Rowan University offers an innovative, interdisciplinary M. A. degree in Creative Writing/Journalism, New Media, or Composition Studies.

Rutgers University-Camden
Rutgers University (Camden Campus) offers an M.F.A. in Creative Writing for students who want both the tools of writing and a background in literary study.

Rutgers University-Newark
Rutgers University at Newark now offers an M.F.A. in Creative Writing for students who want to study various literary backgrounds and learn the craft of writing.

Princeton University
Since 1939, the year in which a Creative Arts Program was set, Princeton undergraduates have had the opportunity to pursue courses in Creative Writing under the guidance of practicing writers. The Creative Arts Program was from the outset notable for the distinction of its faculty, which has included writers such as John Berryman, William Meredith, Robert Fitzgerald, Sean O'Faolain, Richard Eberhart, Kingsley Amis and Philip Roth. Undergraduates work with practicing writers while pursuing a regular liberal arts course of study.

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