The group features two poets and includes an Open Mic. Hosted by Paul Nash & Denise LaNeve, representing the North Jersey Literary Community and the Poets of the Palisades. This event is free and all are welcome!

JOEL LEWIS is a poet, memorist and essayist living in Hoboken, NJ. His most recent collection of poetry is Well You Needn't, published this year by hanging Loose Press. Previous volumes include Surrender When Leaving Coach and Learning From New Jersey. He edited Bluestones and Salt Hay (Rutgers University Press), an anthology of NJ poets. He has written hundreds of articles ranging from liner notes to a Dave Brubeck anthology to an account of his visit to the Whiffle Ball factory in Connecticut. He received a BA and an MA from William Paterson University where he became well-acquainted with the gustary options along Hamburg Turnpike when cutting classes. He has long resided in Hoboken with his wife, the film scholar Sandy Flitterman-Lewis.

MARY MAKOFSKE’S latest books are No Angels (Kelsay, 2023); The Gambler’s Daughter (The Orchard Street Press, 2022); World Enough, and Time (Kelsay, 2017); and Traction (Ashland Poetry, 2011), winner of the Richard Snyder Prize. Her poems have appeared in 75 journals including Poetry, Poetry East, The MacGuffin, American Journal of Poetry, Southern Poetry Review, ONE ART, Main Street Rag, The Stillwater Review, and Valparaiso Poetry Review, and in 23 anthologies. She received the 2024 William Matthews Poetry Prize from Asheville Poetry Review, the Hudson-Fowler Poetry Prize from Slant, the Atlanta Review Poetry Prize, the New Millennium Writings Poetry Prize, and the Littoral Press Broadside Prize. www.marymakofske.com