Distinguished Poet Series: Nicole Cooley & Meghan O' Rourke by Ashley Ruiz

On March 1st at 1PM, the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College opened Women’s History Month with their Distinguished Poet Series. The event was held to celebrate Women’s History Month by featuring accomplished female poets, Nicole Cooley and Meghan O’Rourke. The event took place in the Hamilton Club Building and was open to the public, welcoming writers and creatives for an afternoon of connection through poetry, workshops, snacks and light refreshments. 

The Distinguished Poets Reading Series event included writing workshops for attendees. The writing workshops focus on writing narrative poetry. Writers involved in the workshops are able to share their poems during the open readings after the featured poets present their literary works. During the event, attendees had the chance to sit in and experience the poetic works by both Nicole Cooley and Meghan O’Rourke, two accomplished female poets. Both poets share themes of loss and grief in their literary works. Attendees were able to get a glimpse of each poet's life experiences through their readings.

About the Poets:

Nicole Cooley is an award-winning poet from New Orleans, Louisiana. She currently resides in New Jersey and teaches as a creative writing professor in New York. Nicole has written many books including Of Marriage, Girl After Girl After Girl, Breach and more. She has won awards for her poetry such as The Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets, a National Endowment for the Arts Grant, and the Emily Dickinson Award from the Poetry Society of America. During her readings, she presented works from her most recent collection of poems Mother Water Ash. The book follows Cooley’s feelings of loss and grief toward her mother’s sudden death in 2018. Nicole also presented poems from her book Trash, a project where she shares her fascination and research about trash management in the metropolitan area. 

Meghan O’Rourke is an award-winning poet from Brooklyn, New York. She resides in Connecticut where she earned her B.A. and teaches as a professor at Yale University. She has won awards for her poetry such as the May Sarton Poetry Prize, two Pushcart Prizes, as well as a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship and Lannan Literary Fellowship. Some of Meghan’s works include Sun in Days, Once, Halflife, and memoirs Invisible Kingdom and The Long Goodbye. Meghan presented readings from many of these works including Sun in Days and Once which express feelings of loss toward her deceased mother. She also reads poems that deal with her feelings toward her health. 

The distinguished poet series events are coordinated and led by Maria Mazziotti Gillan, an award-winning poet and founder/executive director of the Poetry Center at PCCC. In conversation with Maria, she expresses how important it is for her to bring together a community of poets and feature award winning and up and coming poets for her events. She wishes to bring poetry wealth to her community through these events and expresses her hopes for more audience members to participate during open readings. The Distinguished Poet Series events are held every month at the Poetry Center in the Hamilton Club Building and the poetry readings are open to the public.  

Click here to learn more about the Poetry Center at PCCC and their upcoming events!: https://www.poetrycenterpccc.com/