FANWOOD, NJ – The Carriage House Poetry Series will celebrate its 21st anniversary on Tuesday, November 19, at 8:00 p.m. with a free “Zen Night” poetry reading featuring Ray Cicetti. The event will take place in the Kuran Arts Center on Watson Road, off North Martine Avenue, on the grounds of Fanwood Borough Hall. (GPS use 75 N. Martine Avenue).
Ray Cicetti is a poet, Zen practitioner, and psychotherapist. His poems have been published in a variety of literary venues, including Tiferet Journal, Exit 13 Magazine, and the online journal The Metaworker. He is a Zen teacher and dharma successor in the lineage of Robert Kennedy, S.J., Roshi. Ray is the founder of the Empty Bowl Zen Community, where he has been a teacher for 15 years. He also has been a psychotherapist in private practice for more than 30 years in Morristown. Cicetti and his wife live in Mountain Lakes.
The Carriage House Poetry Series was established in 1998 by founding director Adele Kenny. The initiative began as a project funded in part by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts through a grant administered by the Union County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs. With the support of Fanwood’s Mayor and Council, and grants from organizations such as the Union County Freeholders (HEART Grants) and the Fanwood-Scotch Plains Service League, the series has been able to feature some of the finest contemporary poets each year.
The Nov. 19 free poetry event at the Patricia Kuran Arts Center (a 19th century carriage house for which the series was named) will include an open mic after the feature. Individuals are invited to share one poem of their choice with the audience.
Nationally recognized for quality and longevity, the Carriage House Poetry Series continues to bring poetry into the community through inclusive, culturally diverse, and nonjudgmental programs that are free and open to all. For directions and more information, visit: http://
