November 09, 2022

Paterson Poetry Prize Winning Books

The Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College annually gives the Paterson Poetry Prize for a book of poems, selected by the judges as the strongest collection of poems published in that year. It is a $2000 award for a book of poems, 48 pages or more in length, and the winning poet gives a reading at the Poetry Center in Paterson, NJ, or virtually.

Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Founder & Executive Director of the Poetry Center says this of the two winning books for 2022:

Catherine Doty, Wonderama (CavanKerry Press, Ltd., Fort Lee, NJ)

Doty captures with marvelous imagery and courage an unblinking vision of what it was like
to grow up in the world without money, without any of the protections that middle-class
people have against meanness and ugliness in the world. She’s both blunt and
hilariously funny. This is a humor rooted in sadness and pain, and she forces us
to look without blinders on a life that is so precarious and dangerous.


In this book, Teicher explores the joys and sorrows of domestic life, giving us a complete picture of growing into middle age in the suburbs and moving into maturity. This is
a brilliant book that leaves us wiser than when we began reading.


The Goodreads website lists some of the recent Paterson Poetry books.

 

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