Local poets Ilene Millman and Maxine Susman read from their latest collections of poems in celebration of National Poetry Month. Book signing to follow.
About the Collections:
The poems in "Northern Swim" grieve a beloved sister’s death during other losses of the pandemic, framed against havoc in the human and more-than-human worlds. But among poems of American malaise and climate change you’ll also find Florence Griswold, godmother of American impressionists; the fashion designer Alexander McQueen; Eve’s secret daughter; Elgar’s chamber music and the Do Rights lead guitar. Though the poems are often elegiac they celebrate pleasures—“Snowshoeing at Seventy,” a newborn grandson, museum-going, desserts with family and friends, an exhilarating swim in an icy lake—what offers resilience and lures us ahead: “I won’t let the bear get all the berries.”
In "A Jar of Moths, Ilene Millman seizes the opportunity to explore the inside, the outside, and the upside down of living. The poems reflect Millman’s life as a Brooklyn girl, a wife, mother and grandmother, a speech/language therapist and a citizen. They find her immersed in activities from walking in a rose garden or shopping for shoes to conversing with God. Her insatiable curiosity carries us along whether she probes the history of lipstick, the meaning of motherhood, or art, politics and the challenges and absurdities of aging. Millman’s poems speak a life-long belief in the power of memory and the power of words to awaken us, with connection and compassion to ourselves and to our world as it is, both brutal and beautiful.
About the Poets:
Ilene Millman writes poems about memories, mud, music, making bread, modern times— the array of observation that captures her attention. Her first poetry book, "Adjust Speed to Weather", was published in 2018. Millman’s poems have been published or are forthcoming in print and online journals including Nell, Journal of New Jersey Poets, the New Verse News, Connecticut River Review, Potomac Review and Healing Muse, and included in anthologies such as "She Persists," and "Forgotten Women."
Before retiring, Millman worked for more than 35 years as a speech/language therapist teaching students who learn differently. She published two therapy games designed to improve language skills. Millman volunteers for Rock Steady Boxing, an exercise program for people with Parkinson’s and as assessor for her county Literacy Volunteers program.
Maxine Susman was born in Manhattan and grew up in Mt. Vernon, New York, eventually settling in Central New Jersey. As professor of English at Rutgers and Caldwell Universities and an exchange professor at DuksungWomen’s University in Seoul, Korea, she has taught students at all levels, from many backgrounds, and from all parts of the world. For the past 10 years she has taught poetry writing at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute of Rutgers University, receiving its Distinguished Teaching Award.
Her poems are published in several dozen journals and anthologies, among them Fourth River, Canary, Blueline, The Healing Muse, Presence, and Earth’s Daughters, winning nominations for the Pushcart Prize and awards from the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Contest and elsewhere. Many of her poems are set in the Catskill Mountains, Maine, and Outer Cape Cod, as well as closer to home. They often tell about individuals finding their personal place in history; "My Mother’s Medicine," her previous book, relives her mother’s story of graduating from medical school in the 1930’s, when few women became doctors. She writes about states of body and mind, art, people and other creatures in the more-than-human world. "Northern Swim" is her eighth book.
This program is part of National Library Week, an annual observance sponsored by the American Library Association during April that highlights the essential role of libraries and encourages communities to explore all that their local library has to offer.
Presented in partnership with Ragged Sky Press.