It’s Almost Poetic
On the second Monday of every month from 7-9 p.m. on the first floor of Eastern Monroe Public Library in Stroudsburg, about 20 people from around the Poconos, aged anywhere from 15 to 87, shuffle into the boardroom to talk about one thing: poetry.
No one pays them to be there. It isn’t an obligation or responsibility that demands their presence. It isn’t an assignment for a class or a project for work. Those 20 people meet every month simply because they all love poetry. They love writing it. They love talking about it, and they love reading it. It is these people, people that think poetry is important enough to be talked about every month, who make up the Poetry Workshop for Pocono Writers.
Open to the public with no fees for participating or joining the group, these meetings begin with the members handing out copies of a poem they have written. They read their poems aloud to the group and follow-up by workshopping each one.
During the workshops, members can go through anywhere up to 20 poems. The poems’ topics and form vary as much as the members’ ages and backgrounds. Listeners are as likely to hear haikus as they are slam poetry. Each meeting ends with members workshopping a famous poem, and Helen Vitoria, the director of the group, gives a voluntary writing prompt for the next meeting. The prompts aim to challenge members, if they wish, to try new ideas. An example of a prompt might be “what would your head say to your heart.”
“I try to [help members] see outside themselves,” says Vitorica. “I try to make everybody get out of their comfort zones.”
A recently registered non-profit, Poetry Workshop for Pocono Writers just celebrated their 15th anniversary. Despite frequent appearances and disappearances of groups and organizations in the Poconos, Vitoria expresses no surprise at this group lasting so long: “People come to it because they love poetry. They are committed to it…It is the love for their art.”
Originally a part of the Pocono Writer’s Guild, the late John Mieskalski created Poetry Workshop for Pocono Writers in 1995 for writers who wanted to focus more on poetry than other forms of writing, and he continued to run the group for years after. After becoming ill, Mieskalski handed the reins of the organization to Vitoria, who has now led the group for two and a half years. Mieskalski died in November of 2009, but the members of Poetry Workshop for Pocono Writer’s maintain his dedication to the art of poetry and remember him fondly.
Poetry Workshop for Writers wants to increase the role and exposure of poetry in the Poconos. In October 2009, it helped Dale’s Café and Grill in Bartonsville host a Poetry Festival, but Vitoria hopes to expand the organization’s involvement and activity in the community. In the future, she wants to bring famous poets to the area for poetry readings and take the members of Poetry Workshop for Pocono Writers to poetry festivals to read their own pieces as well as experience the works of other poets.
Consisting of both published and unpublished writers, this group welcomes everyone and anyone, whether they wish to share their poetry or not. All they ask for is an appreciation of poetry.
“It’s becoming a forgotten art,” says Vitoria. The workshop, she adds, “gives people who write poetry a real place to go with it. … It’s vital to a community. … To have a gathering that celebrates it every month is important.”
To contact Poetry Workshop for Pocono Writers, call Helen Vitoria at (484) 221-3592 or e-mail her at hvitoria@msn.com. Visitors and guests are always welcome to come to meetings, again on the second Monday of each month in the Eastern Monroe Public Library in Stroudsburg from 7-9 p.m.
Katelyn Cummings, a senior from East Stroudsburg University, studies English Writing with a minor in Chinese. Raised in Henryville, Pa., Katelyn is the Web Editor for The Stroud Courier and hopes to continue a profession in writing. She hopes to travel around for most of her young adult life. She loves crepes with strawberries, Beatles music, and hiking in the summer.
