Midnight Rose

Experience the richness of the community through the presentations of award-winning poets and authors. November 14th features Alan Abrams and Joseph Ross with an Open Mic Segment. 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.