Midnightrose: A Reading Series of Poetry and Prose – SEASON 3

About this event

Esther Productions Inc. continues its 3rd Season of MidnightRose: A Reading Series of Poetry and Prose featuring two of the Washington Metropolitan Region's most accomplished writers--ALAN ABRAMS and JOSEPH ROSS.

The program on November 14 will also include an Open Mic segment for any poet or fiction writer to share their original writings. 30.

This event is free and open to the general public.

MORE ABOUT THE FEATURED AUTHORS:

ALAN ABRAMS took up writing after a long career in building and building design. His stories and poems, including a Pushcart nomination, have been widely published in literary journals and anthologies; most recently in The Garden of Neuro Institute Publishing’s Bread: What We Break Together , Casa Urraca Press’s A Year of New Mexico Poetry , and Maryland Writers Association Pen in Hand . In 2024, Abrams founded Sligo Creek Publishing.

JOSEPH ROSS, often described as a “poet of witness,” is the author of five books of poetry. Most recently, Crushed & Crowned (2023), Raising King (2020), and Ache (2017). His poems appear in many publications including The New York Times Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, Poet Lore, Fledgling Rag, The Langston Hughes Review, and the 2022 anthology, WHERE WE STAND: Poems of Black Resilience. He won the 2012 Pratt Library / Little Patuxent Review Prize for his poem “If Mamie Till Was the Mother of God.” He currently serves on the editorial team of The Skinny Poetry Journal and on the Poetry Advisory Committee at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. He teaches English to high school students and writes regularly at www.JosephRoss.net .

CHECK OUT OUR OPEN MIC PRESENTERS:

Jennifer Polhemus’ poetry has appeared in numerous literary magazines and anthologies; she was twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She says she grew up in a place where all the important roads led to the Potomac River. It was a place where bridges blocked or began journeys. It was a place filled with changelings drifting over or refusing to cross state and district lines into stranger cultures. Some left by boat or bus or brain. Others stayed, like ghosts forever haunting Hills, Forts, cemeteries, galleries, and parks. Jennifer left twenty-six years ago only to discover that all the important roads lead to a river, to a choice between crossing…or not. Her Believing Heart , her collection of poetry published by Sligo Creek Publishing, is a story of crossing over, from darkness into light, told in poems that are like leaps of faith hoping to land on the distant shores of wellness.

Craig Edward Flaherty writes poems invested with 55 years of playing pipe; fugues, sonatas, sketches, and pastorals find expression in his work. He served in the US Military as organist at the Pentagon, and was Director of Music at Eden Seminary, Church Organist for the United Church of Christ and pianist founder of Toujour Trio Vert and other music and poetry projects in the area, including reading at the Banner Brahms' Lieder Project. (BSBU).

Ellen Woodbridge is a longtime member of the Baltimore-Washington writing community. She studied at Antioch College with Grace Cavalieri--now Poet Laureate of Maryland. Ellen also attended the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars. Her poetry collection, The Meaning of Life, was published this year by Uncollected Press.

MidnightRose is a monthly boutique literary series that showcases multigenerational and multiracial award-winning writers from the Washington Metro area. It is presented by Esther Productions Inc. in partnership with the Tenley-Friendship Public Library, The Black Student Fund and Creativists in Dialogue. Funding is provided by The Luger Charitable Trust, KSP LLC and David Nicholson/Blackbird Books in Memory of Tish Webster.