"Love Songs to Light the Way"

April is Poetry Month and to celebrate, Bernardsville Public Library will host a poetry reading by award-winning poets Wanda Praisner and Edwin Romond on Tuesday April 10 at 7:00 pm. They call their reading "Love Songs to Light the Way," an amalgamation of the titles of their latest books, "To Illuminate the Way" by Praisner and "Alone with Love Songs" by Romond.

Both Praisner and Romond are teachers and poets who have been featured readers at the Dodge Poetry Festival, and have been recipients of the New Jersey Poets Prize. Praisner, a resident of Bedminster, taught for 20 years in the School of St. Elizabeth in Bernardsville. She is a poet in residence for the NJ State Council on the Arts and the author of "A Fine and Bitter Snow" (Palanquin Press, USCA, 2003), "On the Bittersweet Avenues of Pomona" (Winner, Spire Press Chapbook Contest, 2006), "Where the Dead Are" (CavanKerry Press, 2013), "Sometimes When Something Is Singing" (Antrim House, 2014), and "Natirar" (Kelsay Books, 2017). Her work has appeared in Atlanta Review, Lullwater Review, Prairie Schooner, Tiferet, and elsewhere. A recipient of fellowships from the NJ State Council on the Arts, the Dodge Foundation, The Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, and VCCA, she has won the Egan Award, Princemere Prize, Kudzu Contest, First Prize in Poetry at the College of NJ Writers’ Conference, and is a twelve-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize.

Edwin Romond is the author of three volumes of poetry and has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and from both the New Jersey and Pennsylvania State Councils on the Arts. His work has twice been featured by Garrison Keillor on NPR, and he is the recipient of the 2013 New Jersey Poetry Prize for his poem, “Champion.” Romond was a public school educator for 32 years in New Jersey and Wisconsin before retiring in 2003 and presently works for the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation leading poetry workshops for New Jersey teachers. A native of Woodbridge, NJ, Romond now lives in Wind Gap, PA.

There is no charge to attend the program; advance sign-up is requested, but not required. Register online at www.bernardsvillelibrary.org and follow the link from Adult Programs, or call the library at 908-766-0118 to sign up.