FANWOOD — Fanwood Mayor Colleen Mahr and Arts Council Directors Tom Plante and Adele Kenny invite the public to the Carriage House Poetry Series’ 25th anniversary celebration on Tuesday, September 26 at 7:30 p.m.
The event will feature a reading by Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Muldoon in the Kuran Arts Center, a historic nineteenth century carriage house, for which the series was named. The Center is located on Watson Road (off Martine Avenue).
Paul Muldoon was born in County Armagh, Ireland and now lives in New York. A former radio and television producer for the BBC in Belfast, he has taught at Princeton University for thirty-five years. The author of numbers collections, his awards include the 1972 Eric Gregory Award, the 1980 Sir Geoffrey Faber Memorial Award, the 1994 T.S. Eliot Prize, the 1997 Irish Times Poetry Prize, the 2003 Pulitzer Prize, the 2003 Griffin International Prize for Poetry, the 2004 American Ireland Fund Literary Award, the 2004 Shakespeare Prize, the 2006 European Prize for Poetry, the 2015 Pigott Poetry Prize, the 2017 Queens Gold Medal for Poetry, and the 2020 Michael Marks Award. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society for Literature and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
The CHPS was established by Fanwood resident Adele Kenny (Fanwood’s Poet Laureate) in December of 1998. Tom Plante, Fanwood poet and founder/publisher of Exit 13 Magazine, has served as co-director and publicist for the Arts Council and CHPS since 2005. The initiative began as a project funded in part by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, Department of State, through a grant administered by the Union County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs. The series has been funded by the Borough of Fanwood with additional grants from such organizations as the Union County Board of Chosen Freeholders (HEART Grants) and the Fanwood-Scotch Plains Service League.
The series has featured over 300 poets, including a range of distinguished local and regional poets, along with such nationally and internationally known poets as Mark Doty, Stephen Dunn, Martin Farawell, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Taylor Mali, Jamaal May, Alicia Ostriker, Patricia Smith, Gerald Stern, and Gretna Wilkinson.
This event is free and all are welcome. Parking and entrance on Watson Road, adjacent to Fanwood Borough Hall (75 North Martine Ave., Fanwood). Refreshments will be served. For additional information, visit: www.carriagehousepoetryseries. blogspot.com.
