“What Matters,” - Fanwood Poet Adele Kenny Book Launch

Fanwood Mayor Colleen Mahr and Welcome Rain Publishers invite you to attend a book launch and reception for Fanwood poet Adele Kenny’s new book, “What Matters,”.  This event will take place on Sunday, November 20, 2011 from 3:00pm - 5:00pm in the Kuran Arts Center, 75 N. Martine Avenue, Fanwood.  At the book launch and receptio, Ms. Kenny will read selections from her book at 4:00pm and books will be available for purchase.

“What Matters” contains 47 poems that begin in childhood and move through a life-threatening illness toward healing.  Intensely lyrical and sometimes edgy, these poems are about the human spirit.  According to Welcome Rain Publishers, “Intimate rather than private, the poems in What Matters are characterized by startling imagery, rich metaphor, and a compelling sense of immediacy.  This book is a collection that offers a unique kind of meaning and hope.”   “We’re all survivors of one thing or another (fear, grief, illness, the loss of loved ones),” says Ms. Kenny.  “The individual experiences may be different, but we’re all survivors, and these poems tell us that we’re not alone.”  

A former creative writing professor in the College of New Rochelle’s Graduate School, Ms. Kenny also taught English in the Rahway Public Schools and report writing at Union County’s John H. Stamler Police Academy in Scotch Plains. The author of 23 books (poetry & nonfiction), her poems, reviews, and articles have been published in journals throughout the U.S. and abroad, as well as in books and anthologies published by Crown, Tuttle, Shambhala, and McGraw-Hill.   Adele Kenny is the recipient of various awards, including two poetry fellowships from the New Jersey State Arts Council and a Thomas Merton Poetry of the Sacred Award.  In March, she was honored with a Women of Excellence Award in the Arts and Humanities from the Union County Commission on the Status of Women.  She is currently poetry editor of Tiferet: a Journal of Spiritual Literature, and she directs the Carriage House Poetry Series (which she founded in 1998 at the Kuran Arts Center in Fanwood).   “In Adele Kenny's finely wrought meditations on grief and loss, she never forgets that she's a maker of poems,” writes Stephen Dunn, winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.  Former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky also praised the book, writing, “These poems are eloquent, candid, straightforward and genuine.”   At the book launch and reception on Nov. 20, Ms. Kenny will read selections from her book at 4:00 p.m. and books will be available for purchase.