SOUTH BRUNSWICK – Library hosts poetry reading

By Mary Brienza, Staff Writer
    A handful of dedicated people braved the freezing winter temperatures to attend a poetry reading at the South Brunswick Public Library, Sunday.
    About a dozen attendees listened to the featured poetry of Betty Lies, 75, of Montgomery and John McDermott, 58, of Cranford, and also had an opportunity to present their own poetry to the audience.
    “Poems are my biography,” Ms. Lies, said as an introduction to the poems she presented.
    Ms. Lies said she has been writing for more than 20 years as an adult and writes about anything she sees, hears or thinks.
    Ms. Lies said the poems she presented were mostly from her 2010 book of poems “The Day After I Drowned,” published by WordTech Communications.
    Some of the poems dealt with her late husband’s illness and death from Lou Gehrig’s Disease, also known as ALS, Ms. Lies said.
    ALS is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, according to the ALS Association website.
    The disease effects motor neutrons, which transmit messages from the brain to the spine and then to muscles, causing them to deteriorate and die, according to the website.
   ýPage=001 Column=001 OK,0011.01þ Ms. Lies said she wrote poems about his illness and death because that was “what I was absorbed with at the time.”
    The book also has poems, selected by the editors, written before his illness, she said.
    She said she wrote a poem about the process called “Rejection” which she read at the event.
    Ms. Lies said she has performed poetry readings since she started writing poems, and that her first poetry book was published five years ago.
    Before the book was published, the former English teacher had work published in magazines and journals, Ms. Lies said.
    Ms. Lies said she was inspired to write poetry after poet Lynn Powell worked with her class in 1988.
    Mr. McDermott has been writing poetry since attending college at Rutgers University, New Brunswick in the 1970s and writes about the “everyday world.”
    Mr. McDermott said he picked the poems that were “good for listening” to present before he came to the library.
    Mr. McDermott said he currently teaches English as a second language at Union College and has taught in China and Japan for two years.
    His wife, Mila, is a Chinese- American and has family in China, who they visit, he said.
   ýPage=001 Column=002 OK,0006.01þ James Corsini, 24, of South Brunswick, who substitute teaches for the district, presented poems he wrote. Mr. Corsini said it was his third reading at the library, and that he has been writing poems about “whatever comes into my head” since high school.
    Gary Varjian, 33 of Park Ridge, a special education teacher, said it was his second time presenting poems where he writes down his frustrations of the day before going to bed.
    Gina Larkan, 73, of Edison, who attended with her husband, John, said she is the editor of the Edison Literary Review and that she has a poetry book, “When Gods Play Hide and Seek,” due to come out the end of the month.
    Mr. and Ms. Larkan read a few of their poems during the event.
    Ms. Larkan said she tries to perform her work two or three times a year, and that attending poetry readings is “the best way to get new work for the magazine.”
    Event organizer Hank Kalet introduced the poets before they came on and said he approached the South Brunswick Art Commission initially suggesting poetry readings.
    Fran Nimeck, who is retired from the arts commission, said she would like more people to attend the events and that the commission was “very proud of the program.”