Premiere of Montclair Library Poetry Series

Laura Boss will be reading from her new book, Flashlight (Guernica, 2010) and Maria Mazziotti Gillan will be reading from her new book What We Pass On: Collected Poems 1980-2009 (Guernica, 2010). Come listen -- Montclair Public Library (auditorium), 50 South Fullerton Avenue, Montclair, NJ at 7 pm.

This evening of poetry is open to the public, free admission, and will be followed by an open reading.  For additional information contact Marilyn Kahn @ 973.744.0500.

This reading will also launch the beginning of a new poetry series to take place on the first Thursday of each month.  This is a new location for the monthly poetry readings that were located at the Barnes & Noble store in Clifton Commons.


Laura Boss
Laura Boss, founder and editor of Lips, has received many awards for her own poetry includinga first place in Poetry Society of America's Gordon Barber Poetry

Contest and three Poetry Fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. In 1998, her manuscript was one of ten finalists in the country in PSA's Alice Faye Di Castagnola Award. Her six books of poetry include Reports from the Front ( CCC) and Arms: New and Selected Poems (Guernica). She was the sole representative of the USA at the XXVI International Poetry Readings in Europe.  More recent featured readings include The Dylan Thomas Centre in Wales and the 2010 Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. Her poems have appeared in The New York Times. Her newest book is Flashlight (Guernica, 2010).

Maria Mazziotti Gillan

Maria Mazziotti Gillan won the AmericanBook Award for her book All That Lies Between Us. Her latest book is What We Pass On: Collected Poems 1980-2009 (Guernica Editions, 2010). She is the Founder/Executive Director of the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College in Paterson, NJ.  She is also Director of the Creative Writing Program and Professor of Poetry at Binghamton University-State University of New York. She has published eleven books of poetry, including The Weather of Old Seasons (Cross-Cultural Communications), and Where I Come From, Things My Mother Told Me,  and Italian Women in Black Dresses (Guernica Editions). She is co-editor with her daughter Jennifer of four anthologies: Unsettling America, Identity Lessons, and Growing Up Ethnic in America (Penguin/Putnam) and Italian-American Writers on New Jersey (Rutgers).  She is the editor of the Paterson Literary Review.

About The Montclair Library Poetry Reading Series Thirty years ago, Laura Boss started a reading series for Lips contributors at the Montclair Library. For the past 8 years, a group gathered upstairs in the reading room at the Barnes & Noble in Clifton Commons every first Thursday of the month, from October through May. Now Laura and Maria return to Montclair Library.

Montclair Public LIbrary

December 2, 2010, at 7 p.m. marks the premiere of the Montclair Public Library Poetry Reading Series. The program will include two featured readers, followed by a break, and an open reading when you, the audience are invited to read a poem or two.

This is the first of a series of poetry reading programs, which will continue into 2011 on the first Thursday of each month beginning at 7:00 pm. There is no charge for this program.

The Library is handicapped accessible. For additional information on this program, please call 973-744-0500 ext.2235.