POETRY +

Publications

Until now, I have pursued publication in only a few short spurts of activity. I am presently immersed in the study of journals and of the poets who are published in them. I hope to keep extending my list of publications across the months and years ahead.

Forthcoming:

“Fathers” and “Second Son”: Chiron Review (Spring 2026)

“1970” and “Route 280”: Paterson Literary Review (Spring 2026)

“Yellow”: Pine Hills Review (July 2026)

“Wail”: ONE ART/ IN A NUTSHELL: An Anthology of Micro-poems (Spring 2026)

“The Tadpole Pond”: Tar River Poetry (TBD: Spring or Fall 2026)

“In Place”: Sheila-Na-Gig (March 2026)

Published:

“The Reader Engages with the Text”: Amethyst Review, January 2026

“Just Moments Married”: Lips, Spring 2023

“Earth”: North Dakota Quarterly, Fall/ Winter 2021

“Out of Context”: Killing the Angel, 2013

“Writing Process”: New Jersey English Journal, 2013

“Imagining the Man in the Station” and “When the Dinner Guest Comes”: Journal of New Jersey Poets, Autumn 1994

“Maintenance”: English Journal, February 1994

Background/ Training

I consider myself an “emerging poet” even though I have been poetry-connected across most decades of my life, particularly as a high school teacher of English and creative writing. I have always written, including with my students, but I am only now dedicating the time and effort to my writing that I had always intended to dedicate. 

I recently completed a full-length poetry manuscript, which I hope to publish at some point soon. I am also actively sending out poems for publication–poems from that manuscript as well as others.

I am not the product of an MFA program, but I have taken undergraduate and graduate classes with many wonderful poets and scholars, including Deborah Pope and Reynolds Price (Duke University), Molly Peacock and Harold Bloom (New York University) and Brad Gooch (William Paterson University). 

Thanks to government funding, I was able to participate in two National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Seminars: with Paul Mariani (studying Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams at University of Massachusetts, Amherst) and with Carl Hovde (studying Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman at Columbia University). 

At the Fine Arts Work Center (Provincetown, Mass.) and with two scholarships from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation (Morristown, NJ), I have been lucky to take week-long poetry writing workshops with Jim Moore (2005), Cleopatra Mathis (2006), and Porsha Olayiwola (2025). I also did a week-long writing workshop with Mark Doty at nearby Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill in 2004.

I did extended online study with Jim Moore through University of Minnesota. Thanks to Jim, I was able to have a private visit with Stanley Kunitz in his Provincetown home the summer he turned 100. Oh, and Marie Howe drove me there.

Most recently, I have been able to work with Betsy Sholl through the magical Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance (MWPA). In March 2025 when Betsy’s former student Terrance Hayes came to Portland to speak at the University of Southern Maine, I was able to mention to him that I was working with Betsy. He told me to listen to what Betsy says because she knows what she is talking about. And I do listen to her.

I am forever thankful to the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation for all the poetry-related experiences they offered to me and others, including through the annual poetry festivals (where I sat numerous times in the presence of dozens of the world’s top poets, including but not limited to Gwendolyn Brooks, Stanley Kunitz, Eavon Boland, Lucille Clifton, Sharon Olds, Galway Kinnell, Marie Howe, Mark Doty, Yusef Komunyakaa); the mini festivals I was able to hold at my high school (where we hosted Aracelis Girmay and Patrick Rosal, among others); the teacher reading and writing groups they facilitated (where I was able to work with Madeline Tiger, Joe Weil, Robert Carnevale, and Renee Ashley); and also the scholarships to the Fine Arts Works Center.

I am also thankful for the The Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College (Paterson, NJ) and the monumental work of Maria Mazziotti Gillan. Through Maria and the center, I have also been able to meet and to work closely with many more contemporary poets. 

I can’t ignore other opportunities I have had in New Jersey, including through the William Paterson University writing festival (workshop with Kimiko Hahn) and the Seton Hall University reading series.

My colleague Gary J. Whitehead and I were able to bring many poets to our high school, to deepen experiences for our students who were able to take up to four full years of creative writing. Guest writers include some poets I have already named as well as Thomas Sayers Ellis, Patricia Smith, Taylor Mali, Cat Doty, BJ Ward, Jack Wiler, Margie Barnes, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Madeline Tiger, Mark Hillringhouse, Peter Murphy, and others. Some visits were partially funded by grants from the New Jersey writers in the schools program.

We can’t leave out Princeton University, where we were able to bring our students to one of our most memorable field trips, to a poetry festival that included Gary as one of the featured poets and a stop at a New Jersey Turnpike rest area on the way back, where our students found all sorts of opportunities to exercise their spending powers. Paul Muldoon created other experiences at Princeton that I have been able to enjoy.

The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) is also a constant source of fresh experiences. I have been thrilled to sit in the audience of recent talks/readings by Tracy K. Smith and Ada Limon, among others.