Playwrights Theatre Presents A Poetry Reading with Penny Harter

Playwrights Theatre’s will present a free reading at the Chase Room of the Madison Public Library, 39 Keep Street, Madison, NJ on May 15, 2014 beginning at 7:00pm. Penny Harter will be reading excerpts of her new poetry book THE RESONANCE AROUND US.

“This is a homecoming of sorts for Penny, as she taught at Madison High School for a number of years,” said John Pietrowski, Artistic Director of Playwrights Theatre. “This will be a great opportunity for friends and fans of good poetry to hear one of the best poets in New Jersey perform her work.” Pietrowski added, “This is another example of the partnership we have formed with the Madison Public Library to present evenings of spoken word to the greater Madison Community. We are very grateful for the library’s continued support.”

Publisher’s Comments:  The two sections of The Resonance Around Us offer some of Penny Harter’s most evocative and insightful poems. The lyrics first section, “The Resonance Around Us,” introduce themes picked up and responded to by the haibun in the second section, “The Great Blue.” Whether crafting her poems around memories, dreams, or daily rituals, Harter offers a poetic exploration of what it means to live in, and leave, this world. The book is designed by Jonathan Greene and features a photograph by artist, Dobree Adams, on the cover.

About the Poet: Penny Harter is published widely in journals and anthologies, and her literary autobiography appears as an extended essay in Contemporary Authors. Her recent books and chapbooks include The Resonance Around Us (2013); One Bowl (a prizewinning e-book of haibun, (2012); Recycling Starlight (2010); The Beastie Book (2009); and The Night Marsh (2008).

A featured reader at the 2010 Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, she has won three poetry fellowships from the NJSCA; the Mary Carolyn Davies Award from the Poetry Society of America; the first William O. Douglas Nature Writing Award for her work in the anthology American Nature Writing 2002; and a January 2011 fellowship from Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

She taught in Madison High School in the 1980s, and in 1991 moved with her late husband William J. [Bill] Higginson to Santa Fe for eleven years. They returned to North Jersey in 2003, and Harter moved to the South Jersey shore area after her husband's death in 2008. To learn more about Penny, visit her website www.2hweb.net/penhart