Our neighbors across the river will tell you there is no reason to visit this side of the Hudson, that the five boroughs are where the “serious” poets are. But anyone who would tell you that is probably a transplant that hasn't even lived there long enough to remember when the Lower East Side was still “Loisaida.” If you listen to them, you'll be missing out on the wonderland of poetry that exists in the state of New Jersey. You can tease us about it being “the Toxic State,” but there is clearly something in the water here that turns the residents into poets. Giants of verse such as William Carlos Williams, Allen Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka, Walt Whitman, Dorothy Parker, Anne Waldman, Gerald Stern, Patti Smith, and former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky all have or had roots in the Garden State. Some of the most important and innovative books of poetry published this century were penned by poets born, raised, or living near an exit on the Turnpike or the Parkway: Boneshepherds by Patrick Rosal (Edison), Overpour by Jane Wong (Tinton Falls), Honest Engine by Kyle Dargan (Newark), You Ask Me To Talk About the Interior by Carolina Ebeid (West New York), The Market Wonders by Susan Briante (Fanwood), Ghazal Games by Roger Sedarat (Montclair), and Digest by Gregory Pardlo (Atlantic City), which happened to win the Pulitzer Prize. Just this small sample of Jersey bred poets also speaks to one of this state's greatest virtues: its diversity. New Jersey is a true melting pot in a way that our neighbor across the river—which is actually the fourth most segregated city in America—is not. The poets named above are a monument to New Jersey's sancocho of ethnicities and cultures; they are Filipino, Chinese, Puerto Rican, Irish, Iranian, African-American, Jewish, Italian, Cuban, and Palestinian. Their poetry speaks to this diversity in the eclectic prism of themes they tackle in their poems and in the sweeping range of traditions they draw from to compose them. Our gritty city streets, our overcrowded beaches, our abandoned factories and strip malls, our ample acres of marshes and woodlands, are woven into their stanzas. With such a wellspring of poetic heritage surging from these twenty-one counties, it's no wonder that New Jersey also houses some of the most important poetry institutions in the United States. New Jersey is home to the Dodge Poetry Foundation, which puts on the largest poetry festival in North America every two years. Not far from Dodge's headquarters in Morristown is the city of Paterson, where you will find the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College in Paterson, run by one of the state's great champions of poetry: Maria Mazziotti Gillan. The Poetry Center presents readings by poets from all over the world and publishes The Paterson Literary Review , one of the foremost literary journals in the country. With the Rutgers University MFA program (whose faculty includes Rigoberto Gonzalez and Cathy Park Hong) and its Writers @Newark Series as a fulcrum, Newark boasts countless literary events throughout the year, including the Brick City Speaks series run by Luso-American poet Marina Carreira. To give you a sense of the close ties between civic life and literature here, consider that the now defunct Verse 4 Verse series was hosted by educator Juba Dowdell and the city's current mayor, Ras Baraka. In Jersey City, the Arthouse, founded by Christine Goodman, produced open mics and literary readings (as well as producing theater, concerts, and art exhibitions) for nearly twenty years. Jersey City also has a formidable slam team that has regularly placed at the National Poetry Slam. Montclair State University is home to the Live Lit series, a one week festival of poetry that brings poets from around the state to their campus for readings and literary discussions with faculty and students. More recently, the city of Montclair has founded its own literary festival which holds readings by nationally renowned authors along with an annual youth poetry slam. And down in Atlantic City, Stockton State University's Emari DiGiorgio curates the World Above Reading Series, which has a devoted group of regulars who come out to see local and national poets share their work just a block away from the town's legendary boardwalk. For twenty years, Long Shot Magazine, a literary journal with a cult following due to its commitment to publishing work that was fiercely anti-establishment, was published in Hoboken. And Fort Lee is home to CavanKerry Press, which has published books by dozens of authors, including Ross Gay, Mary Ruefle, Joseph O. Legaspi, Sandra M. Castillo, Bhisham Bherwani, and Jack Wiler This is not to mention the countless local poetry events and poetry journals that sprout from colleges, high schools, book stores, bars, community spaces, and theaters within our borders. It's safe to say that no matter where you are staying in New Jersey, you're never more than a few minutes' drive from some outpost where ardent verse-slingers are sharing their work (Nor, for that matter, will you be more than a few miles away from a twenty four hour diner. It's highly probable that poets will be found in the diner occupying their regular booths and chatting raucously about the gossip and literary news of the day). Don't get me wrong, our flashy neighbor is still a perfectly decent place to find poetry. If you're looking for spectacle and a market share in the industry, the boroughs probably have what you need. But for authenticity and diversity, to catch a fever for verse, you're going to have to cross a tunnel or bridge westward. The gold you seek is in New Jersey. |
Sidebar: 10 NJ Lit Mags |
