Maria Mazziotti Gillan Announces Retirement from The Poetry Center at PCCC

It is 2026 and I have been running the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College since I founded it in 1979. I loved every minute of it! 

I feel that all of you have been on this journey with me for these 46 years. You have supported it and have been a part of it by attending readings and workshops, and by submitting work for our awards and to the Paterson Literary Review (PLR). I am saddened that I have had to come to the decision to retire from the Poetry Center directorship. I did not feel that I could leave without letting you all know how much you have meant to me, and how big a part of my life you have become. We have shared our mutual love of poetry. I hope that I have helped many of you write your own poems in spaces where it is safe to be part of a tremendous group of poetry lovers.

The last issue of the Paterson Literary Review that I edited will be published in the summer of 2026. Dr. Christine Redman-Waldeyer will be the new director of the Poetry Center. A Full Professor of English at Passaic County Community College, she is the author of five poetry collections, a writing textbook, and the editor of a published anthology, as well as being the founding Editor of the Adanna Literary Journal. She will be overseeing the Allen Ginsberg poetry contest, the book awards, and PLR, and organizing our Distinguished Poets series and other readings, as well as the workshops with well-known writers and other events. I hope you will help me to welcome her to the position and support her as you have supported me for all these years.

I am still planning to give poetry readings and run workshops. I hope you will join me at those, but I also want you to continue to support the work of the Poetry Center.

I should say that Lisa Coll Nicolaou has done a fantastic job as a consultant on the Theater and Poetry Project (TAPP). In addition to the programs that we have been doing for many years in Passaic County, she has expanded the program to Jersey City and South Orange. 

This moment is a bittersweet one for me. It is difficult for me to leave the Poetry Center, but I am leaving it in good hands.

Please help to continue what I have started and help the Center remain a place where all poets are welcome.

With love and gratitude,
Maria Mazziotti Gillan
Executive Director and founder of The Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College

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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.

March 7 Barbara Crooker and Adele Kenny Poetry Workshops and Readings

The Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College is presenting on Saturday, March 7, 2026, poetry workshops and readings by Barbara Crooker and Adele Kenny as part of their 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. 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.

 

Barbara Crooker is author of twelve chapbooks and ten full-length books of poetry, including Some Glad Morning (Pitt Poetry Series, University of Pittsburgh Poetry Press), longlisted for the Julie Suk award from Jacar Press, The Book of Kells, which won the Best Poetry Book of 2019 Award from Poetry by the Sea, and Slow Wreckage (Grayson Books, 2024). Her other awards include Grammy Spoken Word Finalist, the WB Yeats Society of New York Award, the Thomas Merton Poetry of the Sacred Award, and three Pennsylvania Council fellowships in literature. Her work appears in literary journals and anthologies, including The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Her website is barbaracrooker.com 

 Adele Kenny is the author of 26 books (poetry and nonfiction). Her poems, reviews, and articles have been published in journals throughout the US and abroad, and her poems have appeared in books and anthologies published by Crown, Tuttle, Shambhala, and McGraw-Hill. She is the recipient of various awards, including two poetry fellowships from the NJ State Arts Council, a first-place Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award, a Thomas Merton Poetry of the Sacred Award, and Kean University’s Distinguished Alumni Award. Her book, A Lightness… was a Paterson Poetry Prize finalist. A former creative writing professor (College of New Rochelle), she is the founding director of the Carriage House Poetry Series, poetry editor of Tiferet Journal, and has twice been a featured reader at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. her webiste is https://www.adelekenny.com/

Directions and parking information for the Poetry Center 

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.March 7, 2026 Barbara Crooker and Adele Kenny 

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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 Weekend March 2026

The next in-person Poetry Weekend Intensive with Maria Gillan and Kevin Carey will be held Friday evening, March 27, through Sunday, March 29, 2026, in Mendham, NJ. 

Held at a Retreat House situated on 93 acres of wooded land with pathways for exploring the property, this serene, beautiful setting is perfect for contemplating nature and nurturing the creative spirit. This is an opportunity to retreat from the noise and busyness of everyday life and invite the muse to inspire us.  In the workshops, we will capture our stories and memories on paper, and discover how poetry can, so often, save our lives. Participants will draft poems in the workshops and share their work from the workshops. They may also bring previously-written work for one-on-one critiquing sessions with Maria and Kevin, and to share at the group readings.

If you would like to register, please send the registration form with your check payable to Maria Gillan and sent to 40 Post Avenue, Hawthorne, NJ 07506. Payment must be submitted and attendance confirmed by March 15th.

Download the complete information and registration form

 

Maria Mazziotti Gillan is the winner of the 2014 George Garrett Award for Outstanding Community Service in Literature from AWP, 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. She has also received the Clara Lemlich Award for Social Activism (May 2022),

and a Lifetime Achievement in the Arts award from the Center for Creative and Performing Arts at Salem State University. She is the Founder/Executive Director of the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College, editor of the Paterson Literary Review, and Professor Emerita in creative writing at Binghamton University—SUNY. She has published 23 books, including her latest book, 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

Kevin Carey is the Coordinator of Creative Writing at Salem State University. He has published a chapbook of fiction from Red Bird Chapbooks, The Beach People (2014), and three books of poetry, The One Fifteen to Penn Station (2012), Jesus Was a Homeboy (2016) which was an Honor book for the Paterson Literary Prize, and Set in Stone (2020) all from CavanKerry Press. His poems have twice appeared on The Writers Almanac on National Public Radio and on The Academy of American Poets Poem a Day. Kevin is also a playwright and filmmaker. He has co-directed and co-produced two documentaries about poets, All That Lies Between Us and

Unburying Malcolm Miller, which premiered at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival in 2017. Kevin has also co-authored a screenplay, Peter’s Song which won Best Screenplay at the New Hampshire Film Festival in 2009. His latest stage play The Stand or Sal is Dead, a murder-mystery-comedy, premiered at the Actor’s Studio in Newburyport, MA in June, 2018. His first crime novel, Murder in the Marsh, from Darkstroke Books, was released in 2020, and a new middle-grade novel Junior Miles and the Junkman was published in 2023 from Fitzroy Books, an imprint of Regal House Publishing.  More about Kevin at  Kevincareywriter.com

Retreat House

Poetry Reading February 21 with Nicole Santalucia

On Saturday, February 21, 2026, poet Nicole Santalucia will conduct a virtual workshop followed by a reading as part of the Poetry Center at PCCC's Distinguished Poets Series.

Workshops via Zoom will run from 1 PM – 2:30 PM (EST) and be followed by the poet’s reading from 2:30 PM – 3 PM (ET). Poetry Center readings are always free and open to the public. Registration is required for all workshops with a fee of $20. ​You can check registration availability by emailing Cynthia Pagan at the Poetry Center.

Nicole Santalucia is the author of The Book of Dirt (NYQ Books), Spoiled Meat (Headmistress Press), and Because I Did Not Die (Bordighera Press). Her work has appeared in publications such as Colorado Review, Palette Poetry, The Best American Poetry, Los Angeles Review, North American Review, Sonora Review, Fourteen Hills, The Cincinnati Review, The Rumpus, The Normal School, Out Magazine and elsewhere. 

She is a Professor of English, the Director of First-Year Writing, co-chair of the LGBTQ+ Advisory Council, and serves on the steering committee of the Institute for Social Inclusion at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania. 

link for live and archived video https://youtube.com/live/CHwyRtrjmt8?feature=share

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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.