Join contributors to the new issue of Paterson Literary Review as they read their poems.

Alicia Ostriker has published nineteen collections of poetry, been twice nominated for the National Book Award, and has twice received the National Jewish Book Award for Poetry, among other honors. Her most recent poetry collections are The Volcano Sequence and After: Selected and New Poems 2002-2019 and The Holy and Broken Bliss: Poems in Plague Time. She was New York State Poet Laureate 2018-2021, and a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets 2015-2019.  Her poems have been translated into numerous languages including Hebrew and Arabic.

Kevin Carey’s books include the poetry collections: The One Fifteen to Penn Station (2012), Jesus Was a Homeboy (2016) (an Honor book for the Paterson Poetry Prize), Set in Stone (2020) and two collaborations: Olympus Heights (2023) and Revere Beach Stories (2025). His latest novel, Junior Miles and the Junkman is from Fitzroy Books / Regal House Publishing and has been chosen as part of the Pen Faulkner Writers in the Schools Program in Washington, D.C. Kevin is also a crime novelist - Murder in the Marsh, Darkstroke Books 2020, a filmmaker and co-founder of Molecule: a tiny lit mag. Kevincareywriter.com

Sherwin Bitsui is the author of three collections of poetry, Dissolve, Flood Song, and Shapeshift. He is the recipient of a Whiting Award, an American Book Award, and the PEN Book Award. His poems have appeared in Narrative, Black Renaissance Noir, American Poet, The Iowa Review, LIT, and elsewhere. He is Diné of the Todí­ch’ii’nii (Bitter Water Clan), born for the Tlizí­laaní­ (Many Goats Clan), and has received fellowships from the Lannan Foundation and the Native Arts & Culture Foundation.

Taylor Mali is one of the most well-known poets to have emerged from the poetry slam movement and one of the original poets to appear on the HBO series “Def Poetry Jam.” A four-time National Poetry Slam champion, he is the author of five collections of poetry and a chapbook, The Whetting Stone, which won the 2017 Rattle Chapbook Prize. He is the author of the acclaimed nonfiction book, What Teachers Make: In Praise of the Greatest Job in the World. In April of 2012, Mali donated 12 inches of his hair to the American Cancer Society Mali after convincing 1,000 people to become teachers. He lives in Brooklyn where he curates the Page Meets Stage reading series at the Bowery Poetry Club.

Afaa M. Weaver ’s most recent collection of poetry is A Fire in the Hills. His plays include Berea. His awards include the Wallace Stevens, Kingsley Tufts, and St. Botolph’s 2019 Distinguished Artist, as well as medals from the Beijing Writers Association, and Taiwan’s Artists and Writers Association. Afaa is a Guggenheim fellow, a Chancellor at the Academy of American Poets, professor emeritus at Simmons University, and guest MFA faculty at Sarah Lawrence College. His papers are held in the Howard Gotlieb Center at Boston University. With his wife Kristen Skedgell, Afaa lives in the mid-Hudson Valley of New York.

Maria Giura’s newest book If We Still Lived Where I Was Born is the cowinner of the 2026 Paterson Book Prize. She’s also the author of What My Father Taught Me and Celibate: A Memoir. Giura has been featured on Grace Cavalieri’s The Poet and The Poem (Library of Congress) and has been published in New York Quarterly, Prime Number, Liguorian, I-70 Review, Presence, the Paterson Literary Review, (Voices in) Italian Americana An Academy of American Poets winner, Giura taught at Binghamton University where she received her PhD. She teaches memoir workshops for Casa Belvedere Cultural Foundation. www.mariagiura.com Instagram: @mariagiura.com

Gregory Djanikian was the Director of Creative Writing at the University of Pennsylvania for many years, until his retirement in 2018. He has published 7 collections of poetry with Carnegie Mellon, and his new and selected poems, Nostalgia for the Future, appeared from Green Writers Press in April, 2025 and was a co-winner of The Paterson Poetry Prize in 2026. His poems have been published in numerous journals, and in many anthologies including Good Poems, American Places (Viking), Killer Verse: Poems of Murder and Mayhem (Knopf), Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia & Beyond (Norton), 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day (Random House).

The winning poet is Kathryn Hunt for her manuscript When You Wake Near the Sea. This year’s final judge was Dante Di Stefano. Her collection will be published by NYQ Books and this reading represents the book’s official launch. Kathryn Hunt is a poet based in Port Townsend, Washington, on the coast of the Salish Sea. She is the author of two poetry collections, Long Way Through Ruin and Seed Wheel. She has recently completed a memoir, The Last Chance Motel, a mother-daughter tale. Her poems have appeared in Orion, Radar, Sun, Narrative, Missouri Review, and Carolina Quarterly Review. She has translated the work of Catalan poet Maria-Mercè Marçal. Earlier in her creative life, she directed films. Her film No Place Like Home premiered at the Venice Film Festival, and Take this Heart was awarded the Anna Quindlen Award for Broadcast Journalism. She is the founder and artistic curator of Poetry on the Salish Sea, a series that has hosted more than sixty poets since 2023.
The finalists and their manuscripts are: Katherine Gekker, Time Keeps Watch; Olga Maslova, Wolf Rondo in A Minor; Cindy Milwe, The Body Center; Cat Dixon, Waiting for the Call; Mary Makofske, Heart Lightning.
This event will begin with a catered lunch at 12 noon, followed by readings by Kathryn and the award finalists. Both the lunch and readings are free and open to the public.

NO WORKSHOPS ON THIS DATE

Terrance Hayes is the author of seven poetry collections: So to Speak; American Sonnets for My Past And Future Assassin, a finalist for the National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and TS Eliot Prize; How to Be Drawn; Lighthead, winner of the 2010 National Book Award for poetry; Muscular Music, recipient of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award; Hip Logic, winner of the 2001 National Poetry Series, and Wind in a Box. His prose collection, To Float In The Space Between: Drawings and Essays in Conversation with Etheridge Knight, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and winner of the Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism. His most recent book, Watch Your Language, is a collection of graphic reviews, illustrated prose, and visualized poetics addressing the last century of American poetry. Hayes has received fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation, and Whiting Foundation, and is a professor of English at New York University.

Dorianne Laux’s sixth collection, Only As the Day is Long: New and Selected Poems  was named a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Her fifth collection, The Book of Men, was awarded The Paterson Prize. Her fourth book of poems,  Facts About the Moon,  won The Oregon Book Award and was short-listed for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize.  Laux is also the author of Awake;  What We Carry, a finalist for the National Book Critic’s Circle Award;  Smoke; as well as a fine small press edition,  The Book of Women.  She is  the co-author of the celebrated text  The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry. Her latest collection of poetry is Life On Earth and was released in January of 2024. Finger Exercises for Poets, a book of concise craft essays and exercises for poets was released in July 2024.