Richard Blanco and José Antonio Rodríguez May 2 in Paterson

This Saturday, May 2, 2026, The Poetry Center in Paterson will offer morning poetry workshops and afternoon readings by Richard Blanco and José Antonio Rodríguez as part of the Distinguished Poets Series.

Registration is required for workshops. Please check registration availability by emailing Cynthia Pagan at the Poetry Center. Workshops are available for a fee of $20. In-person workshops will be held at the Poetry Center in Paterson from 10 AM to 12  PM. 

Following their workshop, poets will give a reading at 1 pm. Poetry Center readings are always free and open to the public. These readings are recorded and archived for later viewing on the Poetry Center’s YouTube channel.

Photo By: Matt Stagliano

Selected by President Obama as the fifth Presidential Inaugural Poet in U.S. history, Richard Blanco was the youngest, the first Latinx, immigrant, and gay person to serve in that role. In 2023, Blanco was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Biden from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Born in Madrid to Cuban exile parents and raised in Miami in a working-class family, Blanco’s personal negotiation of cultural identity and the universal themes of place and belonging characterize Blanco’s many collections of poetry, including his most recent, Homeland of My Body, which reassess traditional notions of home as strictly a geographical, tangible place that merely exist outside us, but rather, within us. He has also authored the memoirs For All Of Us: One Today: An Inaugural Poet’s Journey and The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood. Blanco has received numerous awards, including the Agnes Starrett Poetry Prize, the PEN American Beyond Margins Award, the Paterson Poetry Prize, and a Lambda Prize for memoir. He was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and has received numerous honorary degrees. Currently, he serves as Education Ambassador for The Academy of American Poets and is an Associate Professor at Florida International University. In April 2022, Blanco was appointed the first-ever Poet Laureate of Miami-Dade County.

José Antonio Rodríguez is the author of four poetry collections, the most recent of which are This American Autopsy, cited as “new and noteworthy” by The New York Times, and The Day’s Hard Edge. He’s also the author of the memoir House Built on Ashes, shortlisted for the PEN America Los Angeles Award and the Lambda Literary Award. His poems have been published widely, including in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, The Nation, The New Republic, The Missouri Review, and Paterson Literary Review. His work has been anthologized most recently in Latino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology, A Century of Poetry in The New Yorker: 1925-2025, How to Get Home in the Dark: Poems on Mental Health and Healing, and the fifteenth edition of The Norton Introduction to Literature. He holds degrees in Biology and Theatre Arts and a Ph.D. in English from Binghamton University. He is a gay Mexican immigrant and first-generation high school and college graduate who teaches writing and literary translation in the M.F.A. program at The University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley. Learn more at jarodriguez.org

The Poetry Center offers poetry writing workshops in-person and virtually in conjunction with the Distinguished Poets Reading Series. Over the years, distinguished poets have included poet laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners, Inaugural poets and others of national and international reputation, such as Allen Ginsberg, William Stafford, Amiri Baraka, Lucille Clifton, Stanley Kunitz, Billy Collins, Marge Piercy, Mark Doty, Marie Howe, Kim Addonizio, Billy Collins, Dorianne Laux, Jan Beatty, Robert Sward, Patricia Smith, Martín Espada, Toi Derricotte and Richard Blanco.

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Maria Mazziotti Gillan's newest poetry collection is When the Stars Were Still Visible (2021). Other recent publications are the poetry and photography collection, Paterson Light and Shadow, and the poetry collections What Blooms in Winter and The Girls in the Chartreuse Jackets, a pairing of her poems with her paintings. Maria's artist website is MariaMazziottiGillan.com, and her poetry website is MariaGillan.com.

Poetry Workshops and Readings with Richard Blanco and José Antonio Rodríguez May 2

On May 2, 2026, The Poetry Center in Paterson will offer morning poetry workshops and afternoon readings by Richard Blanco and José Antonio Rodríguez as part of the Distinguished Poets Series.

Registration is required for workshops. Coffee, tea, and a light breakfast will be provided for workshop participants. You can check registration availability by emailing Cynthia Pagan at the Poetry Center. Workshops are available for a fee of $20. In-person workshops will be held at the Poetry Center in Paterson from 10 AM to 12  PM. 

Following their workshop, poets will give a reading at 1 pm. Poetry Center readings are always free and open to the public. These readings are recorded and archived for later viewing on the Poetry Center’s YouTube channel.

Photo By: Matt Stagliano

Selected by President Obama as the fifth Presidential Inaugural Poet in U.S. history, Richard Blanco was the youngest, the first Latinx, immigrant, and gay person to serve in that role. In 2023, Blanco was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Biden from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Born in Madrid to Cuban exile parents and raised in Miami in a working-class family, Blanco’s personal negotiation of cultural identity and the universal themes of place and belonging characterize Blanco’s many collections of poetry, including his most recent, Homeland of My Body, which reassess traditional notions of home as strictly a geographical, tangible place that merely exist outside us, but rather, within us. He has also authored the memoirs For All Of Us: One Today: An Inaugural Poet’s Journey and The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood. Blanco has received numerous awards, including the Agnes Starrett Poetry Prize, the PEN American Beyond Margins Award, the Paterson Poetry Prize, and a Lambda Prize for memoir. He was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and has received numerous honorary degrees. Currently, he serves as Education Ambassador for The Academy of American Poets and is an Associate Professor at Florida International University. In April 2022, Blanco was appointed the first-ever Poet Laureate of Miami-Dade County.

José Antonio Rodríguez is the author of four poetry collections, the most recent of which are This American Autopsy, cited as “new and noteworthy” by The New York Times, and The Day’s Hard Edge. He’s also the author of the memoir House Built on Ashes, shortlisted for the PEN America Los Angeles Award and the Lambda Literary Award. His poems have been published widely, including in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, The Nation, The New Republic, The Missouri Review, and Paterson Literary Review. His work has been anthologized most recently in Latino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology, A Century of Poetry in The New Yorker: 1925-2025, How to Get Home in the Dark: Poems on Mental Health and Healing, and the fifteenth edition of The Norton Introduction to Literature. He holds degrees in Biology and Theatre Arts and a Ph.D. in English from Binghamton University. He is a gay Mexican immigrant and first-generation high school and college graduate who teaches writing and literary translation in the M.F.A. program at The University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley. Learn more at jarodriguez.org

The Poetry Center offers poetry writing workshops in-person and virtually in conjunction with the Distinguished Poets Reading Series. Over the years, distinguished poets have included poet laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners, Inaugural poets and others of national and international reputation, such as Allen Ginsberg, William Stafford, Amiri Baraka, Lucille Clifton, Stanley Kunitz, Billy Collins, Marge Piercy, Mark Doty, Marie Howe, Kim Addonizio, Billy Collins, Dorianne Laux, Jan Beatty, Robert Sward, Patricia Smith, Martín Espada, Toi Derricotte and Richard Blanco.

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Maria Mazziotti Gillan's newest poetry collection is When the Stars Were Still Visible (2021). Other recent publications are the poetry and photography collection, Paterson Light and Shadow, and the poetry collections What Blooms in Winter and The Girls in the Chartreuse Jackets, a pairing of her poems with her paintings.
Maria's artist website is MariaMazziottiGillan.com and her poetry website is MariaGillan.com.

April 25 Book Launch and Reading for the Laura Boss Narrative Poetry Award

April 25, 2026 Book Launch and Reading
for the Laura Boss Narrative Poetry Award

Join the Laura Boss Poetry Foundation and The Poetry Center in celebrating the publication launch of the winning book for the 2025 Laura Boss Narrative Poetry Award with a reading by the winning poet and some finalists. Maria Mazziotti Gillan is a board member of the Foundation.

The 2025 winner is Terry Rae Hall for her collection Neither Are Crows. The final judge was Joe Weil. Her collection is published by NYQ Books. This award includes a $5,000 prize, 25 author copies, and today’s featured reading. Terry is the author of the chapbook The Something We Make from Nothing (Seven Kitchens Press, 2024). Other recent publications include Cider Press Review, San Pedro River Review, Pine Row Press, and Litmosphere.

Also scheduled to read are two of the five finalists: Mary Paulson, reading from Telling, and Michael Montlack, reading from Cosmic Idiot.

Mary Paulson’s poetry has appeared in a range of publications, including Sparks of Calliope, The Pomegranate London, Vita Brevis’ Poetry Anthology IV, Hares Paw, VAINE Magazine, Cathexis Northwest Press, Fevers of the Mind, The Gyroscope Review, The Metaworker Literary Magazine, Slow Trains, Mainstreet Rag, Painted Bride Quarterly, Nerve Cowboy, Arkana, Thimble Lit Magazine, and Tipton Poetry Journal. Her debut chapbook, Paint the Window Open, was published by Kelsey Publishing in 2021. She lives in Naples, Florida.

Michael Montlack is editor of the Lambda Finalist essay anthology My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them (University of Wisconsin Press) and author of the poetry collections Cool Limbo (NYQ Books) and Daddy (NYQ Books) and three chapbooks. His poems have appeared in Poetry Daily, Prairie Schooner, North American Review, Barrelhouse, The Cincinnati Review, Poet Lore, and Phoebe. He lives in NYC and teaches at NYU and CUNY City College. His finalist manuscript, Cosmic idiot, is forthcoming from Saturnalia.

Finalists unable to attend the reading: Daniel Donaghy, Rowhome in Flickering Light;  Kelleen Zubick, Bird Mnemonic; Sarah Anne Stinnett, The Hard Problem.

Daniel Donaghy is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Somerset, co-winner of the 2019 Paterson Poetry Prize. His previous poetry collections are Start with the Trouble, winner of the University of Arkansas Poetry Prize, and Streetfighting. He earned a BA in English from Kutztown University, an MA in English/Creative Writing from Hollins College, an MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Cornell University, and a PhD in English from the University of Rochester. Donaghy has received the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award, the Auburn Witness Poetry Prize, the Theodore Christian Hoepfner Literary Award, and two Connecticut Office of the Arts Artist Fellowships. He is a Professor of English and the 2023 University Distinguished Professor at Eastern Connecticut State University, where he edits Here: a poetry journal with his students.

Kelleen Zubick's work appears in Kenyon Review, Mississippi Review, Agni Online, Barrow Street, december, Dogwood, Many Mountains Moving, The Seattle Review, The Massachusetts Review, The Antioch Review, and Willow Springs. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from Arizona State University and has been awarded artist residencies from the Anderson Center and from the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts. Kelleen lives in Denver and works for the national No Kid Hungry campaign.

Sarah Anne Stinnett is a Boston-based writer and educator. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University and an ALM in Dramatic Arts and ALB in Humanities from Harvard University. Her poetry appears in Plume, Booth, Palette Poetry, Mom Egg Review, On the Seawall, Chicago Quarterly Review, Tar River Poetry, and elsewhere.

All are invited for a luncheon at noon, with the readings to follow starting at 1 pm.

See laurabosspoetryfoundation.org for information on all the finalists, the Foundation’s work, and the manuscript award.

Information all all readings at The Poetry Center at PCCC 

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Maria Mazziotti Gillan's newest poetry collection is When the Stars Were Still Visible (2021). Other recent publications are the poetry and photography collection, Paterson Light and Shadow, and the poetry collections What Blooms in Winter and The Girls in the Chartreuse Jackets, a pairing of her poems with her paintings.
Maria's artist website is MariaMazziottiGillan.com and her poetry website is MariaGillan.com.

Celebrating Poetry Month in Clifton with Maria Gillan April 23

On Thursday, April 23, 2026, from 2-4 pm, the FRIENDS of the Clifton Library are pleased to celebrate National Poetry Month with a reading by local poets. The featured poets are Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Jim Gwyn, Fran Lombardi-Grahl, and Jacqueline Wooten-Rose.

An open reading follows the featured poets. All poems should be for a general audience, and poets will be limited to one poem, two pages maximum. Free admission. Poets and poetry-lovers, please join us at Clifton Main Memorial Library, 292 Piaget Avenue, Clifton, NJ 07011.

MARIA MAZZIOTTI GILLAN, whose most recent publications include When the Stars Were Still Visible (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2021) and the poetry and photography collaboration with Mark Hillringhouse, Paterson Light and Shadow (Serving House Books, 2017,) is the author of 24 books.  She received the 2008 American Book Award for All That Lies Between Us (Guernica Editions). Ms. Gillan is the Editor Emerita of The Paterson Literary Review and Executive Director Emerita of the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College in Paterson, New Jersey. She founded The Poetry Center in 1980. She is also Professor Emerita of English and Creative Writing at Binghamton University-SUNY. JIM GWYN has been published in numerous anthologies and magazines. Recent work is in The Paterson Literary Review, Lips, The Rutherford Red Wheelbarrow, and Seventh Quarry. He won first prize in the 2008 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards and he has eight Pushcart Prize nominations. Jim also is the Editor of poetry journal Lips . FRANCES LOMBARDI-GRAHL teaches English as a Second Language in Paterson, NJ. She is a first prize co-winner in the 2026 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards and has been published in The Paterson Literary Review, Lips, The Red Wheelbarrow, and other journals. In addition, her chapbook “My Mother’s Hands” was published in 2019 by Feral Press. JACQUELINE WOOTEN-ROSE is a retired social worker and teacher, a tireless advocate for children, families, the elderly, and the homeless. Since grammar school she has been a passionate author of poems and stories. Her poem "America's Treasures" has received national recognition by the Poetry and Literature Center of the National Library of Congress.