April, the most poetic month
The West Windsor Arts Council is taking poetic license with its eighth annual poetry event. Spring Poetry Awakening, to be held Sunday, April 26, will feature a workshop with esteemed poet, professor and editor Maria Mazziotti Gillan at 12:30 p.m. The one-and-a-half-hour workshop, open to anyone with a pen and a notebook, will be followed by a reading at 3 p.m. by Ms. Gillan and Pushcart Prize nominee David Vincenti.
As usual, there will be an open mike for the “poets among us.”
Ms. Gillan has transformed the town of Paterson into a vibrant poetic hub through her work as executive director of the Poetry Center of Passaic County Community College and editor of the Paterson Literary Review.
She is a prolific author whose newest poetry book, published in March 2007, is ominously titled, “All That Lies Between Us.” Among her seven other poetry books, titles include “The Weathering of Old Seasons” (1988), “Where I Come From” (1995), “Things My Mother Told Me” (1999), and “Italian Women in Black Dresses” (2002). With her daughter Jennifer, she is co- editor of three anthologies that examine identity and ethnicity in America: “Unsettling America,” “Identity Lessons” and “Growing Up Ethnic in America.” She has also co-edited an anthology titled “Italian American Writers on New Jersey.”
Her literary accomplishments have earned her several notable awards, including the 1998 May Sarton Award, two New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowships, and a Chester H. Jones Foundation Award. She was also a finalist in the PEN Syndicated Fiction competition. She is professor and the director of the Creative Writing Program at Binghamton University-State University of New York.
What’s a father to do when his daughter hates beards? For David Vincenti, the answer is a shave and a contemporary ode inspired by the little one. Engineer by day and poet at night, Mr. Vincenti explores the intimacies of parenthood with a seamless literary precision. The Caldwell resident is also a cultivator of the arts in traditionally technical venues such as Stevens Institute of Technology, where he serves as adviser and artist-in-residence for the Center for Performing Arts at Debaun Auditorium.
His work has appeared in the Paterson Literary Review, the Christian Science Monitor, and The Journal of New Jersey Poets, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
In addition, Mr. Vincenti has judged creative writing contests and conducted poetry workshops with grammar school students around New Jersey. He supports his “poetry and family habits” as a product development manager in the medical device industry.
A native of New York City, Mr. Vincenti has traded in his Ozone Park accent in an attempt to blend into northern New Jersey, where his family has made it clear they intend to stay.
The workshop with Ms. Gillan will be held at Grover’s Mill Coffee, 295 Princeton-Hightstown Road (McCaffrey’s Shopping Center), West Windsor, and the reading will be held at the West Windsor Branch of the Mercer County Library, 333 North Post Road, West Windsor.
The cost to attend the workshop is $15, $10 WWAC members.
The poetry reading is free. Because spaces will be limited, those planning to attend are encouraged to pre- register at www.westwindsorarts.com. Workshop participants are asked to bring a pen and a notepad, paper or notebook.
WWAC, a nonprofit organization, is dedicated to providing quality arts programming for the greater West Windsor community. A goal of WWAC is to renovate the historic Princeton Junction firehouse to serve as a community arts center. This event is supported by Cleveland-based Developers Diversified Realty, owners/ operators of Nassau Park Pavilion. This program is also made possible in part by a grant from the Mercer County Cultural & Heritage Commission/New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
For more information, visit www.westwindsorarts.org or call 609-919-1982.

