Four New Jersey “Women Poets of Ethnicity” visited the College of Saint Elizabeth (CSE), for a poetry reading sponsored by the College’s Lectures and Concerts Series on Wednesday, November 5, 2008 in Annunciation Center’s Dolan Performance Hall. 

Deborah Gerrish, poet and teacher, who coordinated the event with CSE, welcomed the audience and said that ethnicity is connected to the family and passed on from generation to generation.  She asked the audience to listen to ethnic images in the poems at this celebration of a multi-cultural literary journey. She said, “American history of immigration has a common bond with many similarities across the cultures; there is a common thread.”

The four poets, Ms. Gerrish, Sondra Gash, Maria Gillan and Joan Handler, presented a master class for CSE students in the afternoon where they discussed the craft of poetry writing.  They talked about ethnic poems with the focal point of ethnic identity in individual styles displaying the voice and persona of the writer.

While the poets read about the lives of their respective families, including Jewish, Armenian, Irish and Italian, the same topics surfaced in all poems: families and family values, homes with their gathering places like dining rooms and round kitchen tables, foods and smells, marriages, language, poverty, work, children, education.

Many of their poems were about immigrants sharing the same struggles and joys.  Most of the poems revolved around family life with Ms. Gash in “Bold Heart” reading about her father, an immigrant from Poland, who worked for the rights of workers in America, his new country.  Ms. Gerrish, whose family is Armenian and came from Turkey, read her poem, “Paisley,” about when she was a young child at a family’s visit to her grandparents’ home where they enjoyed tea and apricots and Turkish figs.

In reading about her grandparents’ marriage, Ms. Handler told about her Irish Catholic grandmother marrying her Jewish grandfather. She spoke about the Depression and poverty.  Her grandfather went to medical school in Europe, and her grandmother remained in this country to support the family.

Ms. Gillan read about her family members who came to America from Italy.  She remembers them sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee, telling stories and giving support and comfort to each other.

This reading took place just days before CSE’s Week of Holocaust Remembrance, November 10-14.  This annual event on campus addresses issues concerning ethnicity such as diversity, prejudice and tolerance.

Story written by Valerie Martin for The Station newspaper.