Poetry reading scheduled for April in South Orange

SOUTH ORANGE, NJ — Tina Kelley and Gretna Wilkinson will read their poetry at the Skate House in Meadowland Park in South Orange on April 16, from 3 to 4:30 p.m.
The South Orange Department of Recreation and Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the Meadowland Park Conservancy, is sponsoring the reading organized by Watershed Literary Events for National Poetry Month.
The event is part of a spoken word series by Watershed that features the work of both emerging and established writers with a connection to New Jersey. Past readers have included Roberto Carlos Garcia, Stewart Kestenbaum, Ann Marie Macari, Alicia Mountain, Brenda Shaughnessy, BJ Ward, and Jane Wong, among many others.
Tina Kelley is the author most recently of “Rise Wildly” from CavanKerry Press. Her previous poetry collections are “Abloom & Awry,” “Precise,” and “The Gospel of Galore,” a Washington State Book Award winner. Kelly reported for The New York Times for a decade and shared a staff Pulitzer Prize for 9/11 coverage. She has also written two nonfiction books focused on education and at-risk youth, “Breaking
Barriers” and “Almost Home.” Her poems have appeared in Cimmaron Review Southwest Review, Prairie Schooner, and The Best American Poetry 2009. She is currently senior education reporter for NJ.com and lives in Maplewood with her husband and two children.
Gretna Wilkinson began her career as a missionary teacher in the jungles of her native Guyana. She has authored five chapbooks and one full-length book, “Opening the Drawer” published by Cool Women Press.
A Geraldine R. Dodge poet, Gretna has performed on radio and television and is published in Saranac Review, The Literary Review, and the anthology “Poets of New Jersey: From Colonial to Contemporary.” She’s been featured in The New York Times, The Star Ledger, and Courier News.
After 17 years as a college professor, she ran the creative writing program at the Visual and Performing Arts Academy of Red Bank Regional High School.
Watershed was founded in 2019 and hosts four readings a year, all free and open to the public. For more information about the series, please contact Peter Travers at [email protected].