Poetry loses a voice

I didn’t get a chance to post about this yesterday, but the news from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation is rather sad: Financial losses have caused it to cancel its 2010 poetry festival and look for a new way to offer public poetry.

Many others in the poetry world lamented the decision.

“It has left me grief stricken. I felt like someone had punched me in the gut,” said Maria Mazziotti Gillan, executive director of the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College in Paterson. “It was a beacon every two years, a celebration of language and the connection that language and poetry can make between people. It was just a high.

“I wish there was some way to get it back,” she said.

I know that most in the poetry community agree.

Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie. View all posts by hankkalet