Hooked on Words

Gretna Wilkinson to kick off South Brunswick’s poetry reading series.

By: Megan Sullivan

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GRETNA WILKINSON


   Poet Gretna Wilkinson loves playing with words and messing with language. Born and raised in Guyana, she was exposed to poetry in childhood and recalls having to memorize and recite poetry every Friday in school. "The imagery you can construct with a poem, the immediacy I think is what got to me," says Ms. Wilkinson, who moved to New Jersey in the ’80s. "It got me hooked."
   Now in her third year as a creative writing teacher at Red Bank Regional High School, Ms. Wilkinson encourages her students to similarly get hooked on the power of words. The Somerset resident holds a doctorate in literature from Drew University and taught in the English department at County College of Morris in New Jersey for more than 15 years. She specializes in African-American literature and wrote her dissertation on the works of Gwendolyn Brooks, the first black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in poetry in the United States.
   Ms. Wilkinson will open South Brunswick’s monthly series of Sunday poetry readings Sept. 16 at South Brunswick Public Library. Aspects of Guyanese culture, as well as human suffering, children and love, often feed into her poetry. Although she has a few family members who still live in Guyana, most have moved outside of the country due to the political climate. Ms. Wilkinson highlights the differences between Guyanese culture and that of Americans in her poem "Immigrant Grandparent Leaves Forget-Me-Not in Abandoned Rocking Chair." In Guyana, people are more treasured the older they get, and she feels that’s not the case in the United States. The concept of a nuclear family also doesn’t exist in her homeland, it’s strictly the extended family. "And the concept of taking a village to raise a child — that’s the norm," Ms. Wilkinson says. "You have mothers and aunts almost everywhere."
   Ms. Wilkinson began performing her poetry for audiences in the early ’90s and published a chapbook of poems (Shhh, I’m Thinking) in 1996. Her works can also be found in publications including Poets of New Jersey From Colonial to Contemporary and Spindrift.
   Although she wishes she could write daily, Ms. Wilkinson doesn’t always have the pleasure. "A poem will appear once in a while, it will bless me and grace me with its presence. I feel delight and overjoyed and sometimes I can write two or three or four in the same short period," she says. "And then it’s like a desert again."
   The poet identifies with Wordsworth’s idea that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. "When that’s with me, then I can write," Ms. Wilkinson says. "If they don’t come off, when they do, that euphoria from feeling that you just got this thing out of you, the completed piece — when I’m not writing poetry, I miss that."
   The series will continue Oct. 14 with a reading by Nancy Scott. The Lawrenceville resident’s love for poetry came in through the back door, but it hasn’t left since. "I had been working on some children’s books and was looking for a new way to develop a story," she says. "I thought it would be interesting to do it in poetic narrative form, but didn’t know anything about poetry."
   From there, Ms. Scott set out to learn more about the art form and spent a number of years working with Jean Hollander and attending various workshops and seminars at Rutgers University. At the same time, she had been working in a Section 8 rental assistance program for the state of New Jersey. "I had all of these stories in my head that I was hearing as the people were telling me about their plight," she says. "It kind of came together and that was how I got to poetry in a nutshell and how I had the subject matter to write about."
   Ms. Scott’s writing journey began in the mid-’90s and this past January she released her first book of poems, Down to the Quick (Plain View Press, $14.95). Many of Ms. Scott’s works address social activism, which first entered her consciousness while attending the University of Chicago in the late ’50s. "It was the cutting edge of the civil rights movement and there was a lot of activity going on and around the university," she says. "That lay dormant for a number of years, but then I went on to get involved with foster care and adoption, so there are some poems in the book about that."
   Three of Ms. Scott’s four children are adopted, and she took in about two dozen children (whether for a few days or a few years) while a foster parent. For most of her adult life, Ms. Scott worked in the human services development field, including as a Division of Youth and Family Services intake worker. Now, after retiring in 2004, she’s the managing editor of US 1 Worksheets, the journal of the US 1 Poets’ Cooperative.
   The narrative poet has pondered why she favors that particular style of writing and realized it stems back to her childhood. "I grew up in a Jewish tradition where my grandfather and father and uncles were always spinning some sort of yarn, telling stories, and it ultimately ended in a great punch line," she recalls. "It occurs to me as I wonder why it’s narrative as opposed to anything else, it’s what you hear in those early years."
Gretna Wilkinson will open the South Brunswick Poetry Reading Series, South Brunswick Public Library, 110 Kingston Lane, Monmouth Junction, Sept. 16, 2 p.m. Future readings (same location/time): Nancy Scott and Maxine Susman, Oct. 14; Diane Lockward, Nov. 18; Sam Friedman, Dec. 16; Hank Kalet, Jan. 20; Admission free, but donation of nonperishable food item suggested for the South Brunswick Food Pantry; (732) 329-4000, ext. 7635. Nancy Scott on the Web: www.nancyscott.net