New River Poets

New River Poets New River Poets has been a chapter of Florida State Poets Association since 2000. We write, share a We learn and mentor and we all improve our craft.

New River Poets has been a chapter of the Florida State Poets Association since 2000. We meet in Wesley Chapel, FL (central Pasco County) on a monthly basis. We welcome poets, whether new and willing-to-learn or skilled and published. For more information contact Janet Watson ([email protected]).

08/04/2022

It has been a couple years since our last post. New River Poets were Zooming during the pandemic but are now happy to be meeting in person again. We alternate meeting places monthly between the beautifully renovated New River Library in Wesley Chapel (back to where we started!) and the schoolhouse home of one of our members. We usually meet on the third Saturday of the month, between 1-4pm. On August 20th we'll be meeting at the schoolhouse.

07/09/2019

Our next New River Poets meeting will be on July 20th at the Old Richland Schoolhouse in Zephyrhills. Congratulations to our members--John Foster, Andrea McBride, Cheryl VanBeek, Janet Watson, and Beverly Joyce, who all won national awards for their poetry at the National Federation of State Poetry Societies 2019 Convention in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

03/19/2019

A change in dates for our April and May meetings, due to conflicting commitments. We will meet on April 27th and May 25th.

01/21/2019

Our new meeting place is at the Old Richland Schoolhouse home of one of our members. We will continue to meet 1-4pm on the 3rd Saturday of each month and will post if there are any changes. The address is 8637 Richland School Rd., Zephyrhills

01/12/2019

We have a change in plans. Our January 19 meeting will be held at the old Richland Schoolhouse and will not include a potluck lunch. We may be changing our meeting place permanently, so watch for an announcement.

12/05/2018

In November New River Poets hosted a wonderful poetry workshop for members and guest-poets. It was held at the Old Richland Schoolhouse and presented by FSPA President Al Rocheleau. On January 19 we will begin an exciting new year in poetry with a potluck lunch at our usual meeting place, Atonement Lutheran Church in Wesley Chapel. We will meet at 1pm and invite anyone who is interested in writing poetry and willing to work at their craft. Please come!

06/18/2018

We had a lively meeting on June 16th. Our next meeting will be held on July 21st. We are planning a day of workshops for all interested poets on November 17th. Watch this page in the future, for more information.

12/11/2017

New River poets will not be meeting in December. We will celebrate a new year in poetry at a private home in January. We invite anyone interested in joining our group to come to our February 17th meeting at Atonement Lutheran Church in Wesley Chapel, from 1-4:30pm.

09/07/2017

New River Poets has been holding regular meetings every 3rd Sat. of the month, sharing and critiquing our poetry. All those in the path of Hurricane Irma are in our thoughts and prayers, especially our friends in Florida State Poets. Keep safe!

04/26/2017

Last weekend (April 21-22) New River Poets co-hosted (with Sunshine Poets) the 2017 FSPA Young-as-Spring Fling at the Clarion Hotel and Conference Center in Tampa. Featured speakers were our 3 honorary chancellors-- Fla. Poet Laureate Peter Meinke, poet Lola Haskins, and keynote speaker Lee Bennett Hopkins, the first poet to be inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame.

We shared workshops and particularly enjoyed a panel with six talented students from the 12 Chairs Advanced Poetry Course and two educators-- Gianna Russo of Saint Leo University and Diane McKee of the Hillsborough County School District, who was Florida's 2016 Teacher-of-the-Year. The panelists assured us that poetry is flourishing among young people, and the future looks promising......We wish you could have been there!

The next meeting of New River Poets will be on May 27th, a week later than our usual third Saturday of the month. On May 20th many of our members will be attending the Sandhill Writers Retreat at Saint Leo University. So come on the 27th, at 1pm, to Atonement Lutheran Church in Wesley Chapel. New River Poets always welcome guests and lovers-of-poetry to our meetings..

11/20/2016

it has been a busy month! Five members attended the FSPA convention in October, on Daytona Beach. There wasn't a lot of time to walk on the sand-- we had a very full agenda. There was a chancellors dinner with our newly-crowned honorary chancellor, Lola Haskins, one of the top candidates for Florida Poet Laureate, many interesting workshops, and still time for fun with a game of Poets Jeopardy. During Janet Watson's presentation on "How to Approach Poetry Contests, our own John Foster took on the persona of "Judge Johnny", a poetry contest judge of an unusual kind, complete with a court wig made of paper (rejected poems). We were thankful that our members' poems did not find themselves tangled in there---NRP actually did very well in this year's FSPA contests,winning many awards.

We will not be having meetings in November or December but are celebrating a successful year in poetry with a holiday gathering at the Richland Schoolhouse home of Meg Roman. We look forward to 2017 and our first meeting of the year in January. We'll have much to talk about since NRP will be co-hosting (with Sunshine Poets) the FSPA Spring Fling in April, which will be held at the Clarion Hotel and Conference Center in Tampa.

We wish everyone a lovely holiday season.

10/15/2016

We have a meeting today at 1pm. Atonement Lutheran Church in Wesley Chapel.

Address

Atonement Lutheran Church
Wesley Chapel, FL

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