It was Alicia Ostriker’s idea! To perform Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem “Recuerdo” at the Staten Island ferry terminal where the poem’s events took place. Then we added performances of Emma Lazarus’ poem “The New Colossus” at the Statue of Liberty tour dock. The only thing that went amiss was the weather, it rained all day. But our spirits were lifted by many encounters during the day. Most of the passengers glided by us with puzzled looks, but some engaged us, like the two students from a local college who wanted to ask us if we knew about “God, the Mother”…boy, did we! And the Staten Island ferry official who prevented us from handing out our poems (too intrusive for their ‘customers’) ended up helping us out by taking a photo of the part of the Millay poem we couldn’t get to because it was past the entry point. And we should point out that we hadn’t even known it was painted up there around the ceiling of the ferry terminal until after we were done reciting it! Only a few of us Cool Women joined the excitement: Lois, Sharon, Juditha and Gretna. Here are a few photos of the special day:
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- First there was lunch.
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- Alicia and Patricia Brody.
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- Patricia and Lois.
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- Gretna, Sharon, Lois, Juditha.
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- At the Statue of Liberty dockside.
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- In the Staten Island ferry terminal.
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- Millay’s poem discovered on the walls!
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- Alicia and Gretna
Congrats to Lois Marie Harrod, who read on Monday, November 12 with Tony Gruenwald as part of the Poets at the Library series in the Princeton Public Library. We hear it was a great success, standing room only!
As part of the Sourland Consevancy 2018 Train Station Series, Cool Women Poets will read on Thursday, November 1, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm. at the Hopewell Train Station, 2 Railroad Place, Hopewell, New Jersey. Suggested donation $5.00 at the door. The members of the nine-women poetry critique and performance group will read three rounds of poems, creating a jazz conversation with and about plants, animals and people in the Sourlands. For more information call 609-309-5155. 
a benefit for the Trenton Museum Society as the society celebrates its 40th anniversary and will celebrate the current Garden State Water Color Society exhibition. The theme for this reading is Lost and Found Edges which is a watercolor technique used to create and suggest movement. (Watercolor of Ellarslie by Thomas Malloy).
Last weekend on September 29, a plaque commemorating Lois Marie Harrod’s poem “The Spineless” was unveiled on the Scott and Hella McVay Poetry Trail at the D&R Greenway, in Princeton. A sizeable gathering hiked up to hear Lois read her poem, and refreshments were then served on the King Terrace, where congratulatory remarks were made by Princeton Mayor Liz Lempert. Two master artisans were also recognized, woodworker David Robinson, who produced eight benches for the trail, and sign maker George Zienowicz, who has done all fifty of the poetry plaques. “The Spineless” celebrates nature with a wink to our own humanity. This is the 50th poem on the Scott and Hella McVay Poetry Trail that now has equal representation by men and women spanning centuries of thought.
The Cool Women Poets 