Hastings Gallery Hosts New Poetry Series

Hastings' new "Spring Into Summer Poetry Series" featured readings by Ann van Buren, Paula Finn and Stephen Stepanchev on Saturday, The series will feature local writers as well as poets from outside the Rivertowns. 

Ann van Buren writes poetry, reviews and news features about the arts. Her work is published in Fiction International, The Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, Columbia Review and Library Journal. She works as an educator, activist and Spotlight on the Arts reporter for The Rivertowns Enterprise. 

Paula Finn is a poet, writer, editor and one of the lead collaborators on From the Fire, a new performance work about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory tragedy called the "blueprint for the modern American Oratorio" by 60 Minutes. 

Stephen Stepanchev, who served as the First Poet Laureate of Queens from 1997 to 2000, has been published extensively in the New Yorker and Poetry and is the author of American Poetry Since 1945: A Critical Survey. He taught at New York University and Queens College.

Among the guests was Hastings High School junior Hanna Pennington, whose artwork was on display in an exhibit she curated called "Personal Reflections on Gender." The other artists are Berenice Tompkins and Daria Bennett.  

The next installment of Spring into Summer, featuring R.A. Villanueva and Matthew Yeager (Best American Poetry 2010), will be Saturday, August 6, at 12:30 p.m. The gallery is at 3 Spring Street in Hastings. Admission is free.

For more information, email the at hastings.villageartscommission@gmail.com.