Paula Curci, the Nassau County Poet Laureate, will host an open mic on Monday Nov 13 at 6:30pm at the Hicksville Public Library. “The night at the Hicksville Library will be an evening to celebrate the opening of the holiday season, with gratitude, together,” says Nassau County Poet Laureate Paula Curci, who is spearheading the event. “With all the sadness in the word, we have to find ways to be grateful for the things we have. This reading is a manifestation of that, where all in attendance can share their poems, songs and spoken word in an encouraging environment.”
The open mic will feature Paula Curci reading from The Gift of Thanksgiving, which is a petite pocket size book that shares holiday poems. “It’s a great stocking stuffer”, Curci Says. The first fifteen attendees will receive a free signed copy of the holiday collection. Celebrating the event with Curci will also be Lorene Bossong, a Hicksville resident. Bossong is the editor of the Nassau County Poet Laureate Society Poetry Review, an anthology of poetry. She will be on hand to share more about the anthology and the NCPLS’s current poetry contest.
For Curci, this is the latest in a series of inspiring events that service the Island’s literary community. In October, Curci was awarded a citation from Bruce Blackman, the County Executive of Nassau County, for the successful Word Festival: A Festival of the Spoken and Written Word: Celebrating all Voices. The event occurred in October and was funded by grant awarded to Curci from the New York State Council on the Arts.
For nearly two decades, Curci has hosted and produced Calliope’s Corner – The Place Where Poets and Songwriters Meet, on 88.7FM Radio Hofstra University. She also co-hosts “Poetry! It’s a Shore Thing”, the enormously popular monthly open mics at the Long Beach Public Library. Curci is also a poet correspondent for The Scene, a Long Island zine. She has authored the chapbooks One Woman’s Cathartic Release in Poetry, Done That: Poetry and Posics™, and The Gift of Thanksgiving. She has also produced three spoken word audio albums with Acoustic Poets Network ™. Curci has been featured in a multitude of anthologies, including LunaSea Press’ Hysteria and the online poetry magazine Poetrybay and more recently the Long Island Quarterly and Long Island Sounds.
“I am so happy to be invited to the Hicksville Library”, Curci enthuses. “ This is an intergenerational open mic. So, I am calling out all the middle and high school students from the surrounding communities to join us as well. This is a great opportunity for any youth, or adult for that matter, who wants to express themselves with their words or lyrics. Our Nassau libraries are safe place to do that!”
The Hicksville Public Library, at 169 Jerusalem Avenue, is proud to bring the art of spokenword and poetry to their community on Monday Nov. 13 at 6:30 PM. This project is part of Paula Curci’s Acoustic Poets Network ™ visitation project. It is supported by the Hicksville Library and endorsed by the Nassau County Poet Laureate Society. For more information or to arrange an interview, contact Paula Curci at pmcthepoet2@gmail.com or Jeannine Dillion at the Hicksville Library at: jdillon@longbeachlibrary.org
–Submitted by the Hicksville Public Library
