Westfield Memorial Library presents My Favorite Poem on April 30

Westfield Memorial Library Celebrates National Poetry Month with My Favorite Poem Program

(April 11, 2011) – On Saturday, April 30 at 2:00 pm, the Westfield Memorial Library celebrates National Poetry month with a program entitled “My Favorite Poem.” Special guests, all of whom are local writers and performers, read some of their favorite poems, and audience members are invited to do the same.

Joy Lara, Westfield resident, poet and painter who had a reading of her own poetry at the library in October, leads the presentation. She explained that the Favorite Poem project is dedicated to celebrating, documenting and encouraging the role of poetry in the lives of Americans.

Robert Pinsky, the 39th Poet Laureate of the United States, founded the Favorite Poem Project shortly before the Library of Congress appointed him to the post in 1997. The project is founded upon Pinsky’s belief, that contrary to stereotype, ordinary Americans do read poetry and that many poems have profound personal meaning to them.

The guest readers for the program include Peter Horn, Tom Plante and Donna Baier-Stein.

Peter Horn is an English teacher and Director of Project 79 at Westfield High School. Every year he performs his one man show of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol” locally. He is a graduate of Princeton University and served as an instructor in the Princeton University Academic Enrichment Preparatory Program

Tom Plante is a poet and the editor and publisher of Exit 13 Magazine. While Tom was earning his B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley, he published a literary magazine, Berkeley Works, and worked in the wholesale book business. He continued his journalistic work with newspapers in New York and New Jersey and in 1996, he was awarded a first prize for editorial writing by the New Jersey Press Association. For more than 20 years Tom has edited EXIT 13, an annual journal of poetry. He is a co-director of the Fanwood Arts Council.

Donna Baier-Stein is a writer, editor and publisher whose poetry and prose have appeared in Virginia Quarterly Review, Kansas Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, Washingtonian, and many other journals and anthologies. Her story collection, “Great Drawing Board of the Sky” was a Finalist in the Iowa Fiction Award, and her novel “Fortune” received the PEN/New England Discovery Award. Donna was a founding editor of “Bellevue Literary Review,” and currently is the editor and publisher of “Tiferet: A Journal of Spiritual Literature.” Donna has been a freelance direct marketing copywriter since 1980, writing for clients that include Smithsonian, Time, The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, and many others.

The program is open to all MURAL and Westfield Memorial Library cardholders. (MURAL cardholders belong to libraries that are part of the Middlesex Union Reciprocal Agreement Libraries. Check our website at www.wmlnj.org to see if your library participates.) For more information about other library programs and services, visit the library’s website at www.wmlnj.org and click on the Online Calendar, or call 908.789.4090 X7951.

Founded in 1879, the library strives to provide the Westfield community an environment that promotes a love of reading and ensures free access to ideas and information. For more information, visit the library’s website at www.wmlnj.org, sign up on the website to receive the e-newsletter “Library Loop,” or stop by the library at 550 East Broad Street for a copy of the award winning, quarterly newsletter “Take Note.”