LIVING OUR BLESSING Poetry Reading

Name: LIVING OUR BLESSING Poetry Reading
Start: 2026-04-12T14:00:00-04:00
Location: Elting Memorial Library

Schedule

Sun, 12 Apr, 2026 at 02:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

Elting Memorial Library | New Paltz, NY

Poets Linda McCauley Freeman, Don Reilly, and Richard Parisio will read poetry and prose they have contributed to the recently published anthology Living Our Blessings (Wising Up Press), in the Steinberg Room of the Elting Memorial Library in New Paltz on Sunday, April 12, from 2:00 to 3:30 PM.
Living Our Blessings features poems and prose on the themes of aging, mortality and gratitude in a variety of ways: wistful, elegiac, affirmative, or even celebratory. All of the writing engages bravely and honestly, sometimes humorously, with the essential issues we all face as human beings on this planet. There will be a break during which participants will have the opportunity to write their own thoughts about “living our blessings,” and share them in a Q&A session after the reading.
ABOUT THE WRITERS
Linda McCauley Freeman is the author of The Marriage Manual: Poems (Backroom Window Press, 2024) and The Family Plot, Poems (BWP, 2022). Nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Grand Prize winner of StoriArts’ Maya Angelou poetry contest, lines from her poems are displayed at the Civil Rights Museum in Montgomery, AL.
Don Reilly is a writer and gardener, a professor at Bergen Community College in New Jersey, and holds an MFA from the City College of NY. He has published stories in Apricity, Promethean, and Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, and literary criticism in Moments of Magical Realism.
Richard Parisio lives and writes in the Hudson Valley, where he has worked as a naturalist and educator for over four decades. His chapbook, The Owl Invites Your Silence, won the 2013 Slapering Hol Press Poetry Chapbook Award, and he holds an MFA from Cedar Crest College. His full poetry collection, Trailside Register, was published by Bushwack Books in 2025.
This reading is free and open to all mortals! Registration (call Elting Memorial Library at 845- 255-5030 ext 2, or visit eltinglibrary.libcal.com) is optional but encouraged. Registration holds your spot; all registrants will get an email reminder the day before the program.