Last Thursday Poetry Series

Middletown Township, the home of Connie Chung, Jon Bon Jovi, Ann McNeil, the former Monmouth County Poet Laureate and the gorgeous Middletown Library, has recently added to its “proud” list, the monthly “Last Thursday Poetry Series”.
The series, created when the Library’s Program Chair, Kathleen Ligon and Shrewsbury poet, Gloria Rovder Healy, joined forces and introduced this series in 2007. Opening the series were poets published in the best selling anthology, The Poets of New Jersey: From Colonial to Contemporary Times, Gloria, as emcee, introduced poet/editor Frank Finale from Bayville, Matawan’s Bob McKenty and Bloomfield’s Madeline Tiger. How kind this trio was to launch this series with no reading fee. All we could hope for were book sales and the audience came through!
About 20 poetry fans attended that first night and now the audience has grown to 35 or more and on the last Thursday of every month you can not only hear the voices of poets from all over New Jersey but you can also hear applause, cheers, laughter and standing ovations. New Jersey poets are being joined by poets from New York, Pennsylvania and Connecticut whom we warmly welcome.
The programs are diverse. Some nights, the poets take us down memory lane –some nights they will bring tears and many evenings are hilarious.
Everything from Black History in January to Irish poets and poetry in March and in April - National Poetry Month are celebrated. At each event, there is an open reading where all poets who attend may read their poetry and featured poets not only do a book signing but now receive a reading fee.
It’s been Gloria Healy’s mission to bring poets and poetry to Monmouth County. T’was once rumored there was no poetry south of the Edison Bridge—just beach bums…we still have bright beach bums but we also have fantastic poets including Pushcart Prize nominees and yes, even a Pulitzer Prize nominee, sharing their words with poetry lovers…and beach buns too.
If you’re driving down Rt 35 near New Monmouth Road some Thursday evening and hear rounds of applause…remember there‘s a poetry reading going on...come and join this celebration of words.
We’ll be hosting these poetry readings on the last Thursday of each month through December, 2009 and we sincerely thank all participating poets …without you we would be sitting on a beach reading your work instead of listening to you read.
How great that is!
Check my Upcoming Events for specific information about who's reading when.