My Poem in Paterson Literary Review!

2025 Paterson Literary Review cover: Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Woman in Red Asian Shawl

Yesterday, I was thrilled to receive my contributor copy of the 2025 Paterson Literary Review. The link is to their site; the 2025 issue is not yet available to order but should be shortly.

For those of you who may not be familiar, the founding editor of the Paterson Literary Review is Maria Mazziotti Gillan, poet, editor, educator, artist, and Bartle Professor Emerita of English and creative writing at Binghamton University. I live in the Binghamton area and, while I never had the privilege of studying with her, many of the local poets that I have learned from through the Binghamton Poetry Project and through other local workshops were her students and often referred to her and used her books of prompts in our work together.

Having a poem in PLR is a dream come true for me. It’s an honor to be in the company of such distinguished poets. I’d start naming names but the post would go on too long and, with a 53 year history, I’d invariably leave out someone whom I should include.

My poem is “Giovanni” and is about my maternal grandfather. It’s part of my yet-to-be-published full-length collection, The Beyond Place, which centers on the North Adams, Massachusetts area, where I grew up and several generations of my family lived. The Hoosac Tunnel is part of the fabric of this poem.

Because of my health issues, I haven’t been able to do much poetry work, including submissions, for months. I submitted “Giovanni” last September and it was accepted in November, but, because the Paterson Literary Review is a huge undertaking to print – this edition has over 300 pages – it is just arriving now. It’s good for me to have a reminder that I am still acknowledged as a poet, even when I’m not able to do much work at the moment.

Thank you, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, for the honor of appearing in the Paterson Literary Review!