Paterson Literary Review Launches New Website

Founded in 1979 by Maria Mazziotti Gillan, the Paterson Literary Review (PLR) began as a mimeographed publication and, in the more than three decades since, it has become one of the most well-respected resources for poetry in the country.

The journal has published many poets, including Allen Ginsberg, William Stafford, Ruth Stone, Sonia Sanchez, Laura Boss, Marge Piercy, David Ray, and Diane di Prima.

PLR launched a new website this month at PatersonLiteraryReview.com

The new site has information about how to submit your work, the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards, and readings related to the journal.

The site will feature work from the current issue including poetry, fiction and prose.


There is also information on how to purchase the current and back issues of the journal.

Poem: After School on Ordinary Days

After School on Ordinary Days

by Maria Mazziotti Gillan

After school on ordinary days we listened
to The Shadow and The Lone Ranger
as we gathered around the tabletop radio
that was always kept on the china cabinet
built into the wall in that tenement kitchen,
a china cabinet that held no china, except
thick and white and utilitarian,
cups and saucers, poor people's cups
from the 5 & 10 cents store.
My mother was always home
from Ferraro's Coat factory
by the time we walked in the door
after school on ordinary days,
and she'd give us milk with Bosco in it
and cookies she'd made that weekend.
The three of us would crowd around the radio,
listening to the voices that brought a wider world
into our Paterson apartment. Later

we'd have supper at the kitchen table,
the house loud with our arguments
and laughter. After supper on ordinary
days, our homework finished, we'd play
monopoly or gin rummy, the kitchen
warmed by the huge coal stove, the wind
outside rattling the loose old windows,
we inside, tucked in, warm and together,
on ordinary days that we didn't know
until we looked back across a distance
of forty years would glow and shimmer
in memory's flickering light.



"After School on Ordinary Days" by Maria Mazziotti Gillan, from Italian Women In Black Dresses (Essential Poets Series 116 - Guernica Editions) Reprinted with permission.

Allen Ginsberg Awards Reading This Saturday in Paterson

The winners of the 2013 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards will read their winning poems at a Poetry Reading and Awards Ceremony this Saturday, February 1, 2014, at the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College.

This free program will take place at 1:00 PM in the historic Hamilton Club Building of Passaic County Community College, 32 Church Street, corner of Ellison St., in downtown Paterson.

The readers include:  First prize—Svea Barrett, Fair Lawn, NJ, “After my son texts me from college…” and Grace Cavalieri, Annapolis, MD, “Gray's Tea Room, 1940”. Second prize—Charles H. Johnson, Hillsborough, NJ, “Sunday Comics.”

Poetry workshops with Barrett or Cavalieri will be held at 10 a.m. on February 1. Workshop fee is $15; pre-registration required - call 973-684-6555 for more information or to register.

Honorable Mention recipients, include: Stanley H. Barkan, Merrick, NY, “The Alleys of Cefalù”; Howard Berelson, Teaneck, NJ, “A Weekend of Poetry”; Norma Ketzis Bernstock, Milford, PA, “My High School English Teacher Suggests We Listen to FM Radio”; Laura Freedgood, Montclair, NJ, “Requiem”; Gail Fishman Gerwin, Morristown, NJ, “My Skype Cousin”; Jim Gwyn, Clifton, NJ, “Real Men Read”; Antoinette Libro, Sea Isle City, NJ, “Time and Material”; Michael Lupi, Clifton, NJ, “The Source Code in the Snowdrift”; Elizabeth Marchitti, Totowa, NJ, “I Am Not White Bread”; Francesca Marguerite Maxime, Brooklyn, NY, “Bias”; Frank L. Niccoletti, West Orange, NJ, “The Word Made Flesh”; Joseph Rathgeber, Clifton, NJ, “American Poetry”; Robert A. Rosenbloom, Bound Brook, NJ, “Aaron 24/7”; Donna Spector, Warwick, NY, “When Your Mother is Dying”; Hilde Weisert, Chapel Hill, NC, “Berkshire Summer”; and Cherrie Woods, Baltimore, MD, “Hermoso Negro”.

The Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards, honoring Allen Ginsberg’s contributions to American Literature, are given annually to poets, both established and emerging. First prize, $1,000; second prize, $200, and third prize, $100. Winning poems and honorable mentions are published in the following year’s issue of the Paterson Literary Review. Winners are asked to participate in a reading and award ceremony that takes place at the Poetry Center. The deadline for 2014 entries is April 1. For further information, see http://patersonliteraryreview.com/ginsbergawards

The Poetry Center strives to maintain a barrier-free facility including complete access for patrons using wheelchairs. Large print materials and FM listening systems are available on request. The Poetry Center was named a Distinguished Arts Project and awarded several Citations of Excellence, and is funded, in part, by a grant from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, and by funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Gillan Reading for Italian American Writers Association in NYC

On  Saturday, February 8, 2014, the Italian American Writers Association (IAWA) presents writers Maria Mazziotti Gillan and James Mammarella at the Sidewalk Café, 94 Avenue A (at 6th) in New York City.

The reading takes place from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. and kicks off with Open Mic readings of five minutes after which the featured writers take the stage. Cover of $8 includes complimentary beverage.

Maria Mazziotti Gillan is the author of 18 books and a recipient of the 2011 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award from Poets & Writers, and the 2008 American Book Award for her book, All That Lies Between Us (Guernica Editions). She is the founder/executive director of the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College in Paterson, NJ, and editor of the Paterson Literary Review. She is also director of the Binghamton Center for Writers and the creative writing program, and professor of poetry at Binghamton University-SUNY.

James Mammarella is a poet, business journalist and editor. He will read from his newly published poetry collection, Sonnets for Silvertoes. He is founding editor and associate publisher of License! Magazine and won several juried awards, including the Godfrey Lebhar Award for Editorial Excellence and the Jesse Neal National Business Media Award. He studied poetry at George Washington University and performed at antiwar rallies in Washington, D.C. in the 1970s, Native American-based cultural events and most recently at the Enigma Bookstore in Astoria as a member of group Queens Writers Read.

"I Open a Box"

Maria's poem, "I Open a Box" is featured in the online journal, NarrativeNortheast. Click here to read the poem.