Poetry READINGS and Events

The Poetry Center at PCCC offers readings as part of the Distinguished Poets Series. It also hosts readings with poets who have been finalists and winners of contests and awards sponsored by the Center, including The Paterson Poetry Prize and The Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards. There is an annual reading to celebrate the latest issue of the Paterson Literary Review and for occasional anthologies sponsored by the Center. Many of the readings and workshops offered at The Poetry Center are also featured on Maria Mazziotti Gillan's blog.

The Poetry Center will be holding both virtual readings and in-person events. The Zoom links for virtual events will take you to the live event and later to the archived recording.

Virtual readings begin at 2:30 PM ET unless otherwise noted below.

In-person readings begin at 1 PM in the Hamilton Club unless otherwise noted below. (directions to Hamilton Club)

Recent readings from the Poetry Center and archived videos from years past are now available on the Poetry Center at PCCC’s YouTube Channel.

Poetry workshops are conducted by most of the featured poets before their readings. For more information on how to register, see the Workshops page.

Nicole Cooley grew up in New Orleans and is the author of seven books of poems, most recently MOTHER WATER ASH (Louisiana State University Press 2024), as well as OF MARRIAGE (Alice James Books 2018),  GIRL AFTER GIRL AFTER GIRL (LSU Press 2017), BREACH (LSU Press 2010), and other collections. She has also published two chapbooks and a novel. She has received The Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets, a National Endowment for the Arts Grant, and the Emily Dickinson Award from the Poetry Society of America.  She teaches in the MFA program in Creative Writing and Literary Translation at Queens College, City University of New York and lives in New Jersey with her family.

Meghan O’Rourke, award-winning poet, nonfiction writer, and acclaimed editor, is the author of the poetry collections Sun In Days, Once, and Halflife, and the memoirs The Invisible Kingdom and The Long Goodbye. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, two Pushcart Prizes, and the inaugural May Sarton Poetry Prize, among her many other awards. Meghan writes for The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, and is the editor of The Yale Review. She is a graduate of Yale University, where she also teaches

THEME: POETRY READING
HOST: The Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College
FEATURES: Nicole Cooley & Meghan O’Rourke
PRICE: N/A
CONTACT: FB - The Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College / 973-684-6555 / mgillan@pccc.edu