Gregg G. Brown I n the age of sound bites, text messages and memes, words can begin to feel like a cheap shortcut, a meaningless means to an end.
But enclaves of eloquence remain, where those with a love of language gather to indulge their bookish bents and immerse themselves in verse.
Poets Wednesday at the Barron Arts Center in Woodbridge is one of them. Since 1978, the event has brought together writers and readers of poetry on the second Wednesday of every month.
“I love the Barron’s readings,” said prolific poet Gregg G. Brown, who will be co-featured at this month’s event. “They’re infinitely useful for an active writer and an active audience.”
Brown is an active writer, indeed. With 19 books — mostly of poetry — under his belt, the Aberdeen Township resident knows well the worth of words.
“In the last three years, I’ve written six or seven books of poetry,” he said, adding, “I just see the coffin coming at me at top speed, man.”
Carrie Pedersen Hudak While the sense of impending death may seem morbid, it’s what drives the writer — a two-time Asbury Music Awards Poet Laureate known by many on the scene as Gregg Glory.
His home — a cocoon-like bastion of books, with volumes filling floor-toceiling shelves and vying for space in piles around them — is a testament to his reverence for the voices of the past. It also speaks to his need to leave behind the stamp of his own.
Brown recalled sitting on an oaken bench in England, where William Shakespeare had sat with Anne Hathaway so long ago.
“It hasn’t changed in 500 years,” he said. “In America, everything’s made out of plastic.”
It’s the rushed impermanence of American culture — “the hackneyed uselessness of modern living” — that is the antithesis of what poetry and literature are about, Brown asserts.
“The age of Twitter, it’s like an invisibility cloak over the individual,” he said, adding that no one voice can be heard above the din of the many. “The only reason I understand is because I have the same affliction.”
Brown spoke of the seductiveness of social media, which creates the illusion of being embraced by a large group of people when, in reality, it is more of a narcissistic pursuit, he said. “I feel like [French poet Charles] Baudelaire,” he said, referring to the 19th-century scribe’s discussions of modernity. “I feel like the prostitute of the modern age.”
He finds refuge from this in poetry.
“Poetry is like a single voice — and so that is the voice of the mother, the father, the brother, the sister, the lover — the single voice in the quiet of oneself,” Brown said. “Poetry is the over-eloquent molester who you never forget and who you confuse with love.”
If his relationship with the medium sounds complex and all-consuming, it’s because it is, and has been, since he was 13 years old. While many of his teen peers of the time were consumed with television or video games, Brown took to more contemplative pursuits.
“You really need to sit down and consider what you’re going to listen to,” he said. “We’re very lucky in this country — we don’t have to spend 90 percent of our time scraping and scratching to get by.”
The luxury of time allows some Americans to look beyond the basics and explore the meaning of life, as well as one’s own consciousness, he said.
“If you really want to follow your bliss, you’re not going to want to follow it ignorantly,” he said.
This is not to say that Brown’s literary pursuits are all bliss, however.
“I have immediate and visceral regrets every time I finish a book,” he said, adding that he asks of himself, “Did I touch beauty, did I approach beauty, or did I just waste my time?”
Whatever the answers to those questions, Brown is in love with the process.
“The reason to create beauty is to connect with others and share that with them,” he said.
It’s fitting that
Brown will be sharing Poets Wednesday with fellow featured poet Carrie Pedersen Hudak. The pair has worked collaboratively on children’s stories and poems, under Hudak’s then-pen name, Carrie Water; co-hosted a French poetry reading series; and worked together to stage one-act plays they had written.
“We’ve been friends since the ’90s, and we both love to read and write and talk about literary things together,” Hudak said.
Like her good friend, Hudak values writing enough to treat the necessary time for it as a sort of sacred space. The author of “Yoga Notes” — a series of newspaper columns on the practice compiled into a book — along with other works of mostly essays and travel writing, Hudak said writing and yoga are connected for her.
“For me, actually, the yoga has become a really integral part of it,” she said. “It’s about showing up and being there … for whatever comes up.”
This quieting of oneself runs contrary to the rapid-fire world of texting and tweeting, she said.
“That’s a way you can explore ways of being and ways of getting in touch with yourself,” she added.
While yoga gives the editor by trade a space in which to go inward, writing from that space within allows her to also connect with others.
“I find that writing and sharing work with people … is a nice way to communicate on a deeper level,” she said. “It ends up being a slower-moving and deeper conversation.”
Brown and Hudak will not only share their own work, but they also will also kick off the evening with a workshop to help other poets get their creativity flowing.
A repeat feature at Poets Wednesday, the workshop provides a forum for good feedback as well as creating a sense of urgency to create, Brown said.
“It’s like holding the gun of poetry up to people’s heads and saying, ‘Go,’ ” he said.
Hudak frames it as consisting of more thought than threat.
“I think a lot of it is about listening — listening in an internal way — taking time to listen to whatever voice comes up for you,” she said.
Poets Wednesday takes place the second Wednesday of each month at the Barron Arts Center, 582 Rahway Ave., Woodbridge. The workshop begins at 7 p.m.; readings start at 8 p.m. and include an open mic after the featured poets.
For more information, go to wednesdaypoet. typepad.com.
To check out Brown’s work, visit amazon.com/author/gregglory, or gregglory.com, where much of Hudak’s work can also be found.