The Poets of New Jersey (Jersey Shore Publications) celebrates the extraodinary poets who have lived and worked in New Jersey, from Colonial times to the present.
Many of the poets included in this anthology are among America's finest. Stephen Dunn, the Pulitzer Prize poet, originally from Port Republic, writes the Foreward; X.J. Kennedy, the renowned poet, originally from Dover (whose comprehensive text Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry and Drama, has taught generations of college students), writes the introduction.
The three editors, Emanual di Pasquale, Frank Finale, and Sander Zulauf, all poets themselves, had one simple criterion in compiling the works: they "wanted to hear the pure, clear words of the poets who have called this place home." They were interested in the sum of poetic greatness distilled from the life in this state--the poetry New Jersey poets have written, whether New Jersey oriented or not.
The result is a beautiful book of poetry for the ages. As X.J. Kennedy writes in his introduction, "Without New Jersey, the world today would be darker and quieter; and contemporary American poerty, inconceivable."