In 2006, the WCWPS worked with the Hispanic Heritage Organization to acknowledge WCW’s Spanish lineage on his mother’s side. The event featured Puerto Rican poet Urayoan Noel reading selections from Williams' Kora In Hell as well as his own works. Actors Ellen Lanese and Anthony Spaldo also performed dramatic readings from Yes, Mrs. Williams, WCW’s biography of his mother and Paterson in English and Spanish. The program details are below.
The Hispanic Heritage Organization and the William Carlos Williams Poetry Symposium celebrated William Carlos Williams’ Hispanic Heritage with a Poetry Reading on Sunday, November 12, 2006
2:00 pm – 4:00 pm at the Rutherford Public Library
The Performers
Urayoán Noel is a Puerto Rican poet, performer, and critic, as well as doctoral candidate in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at NYU. He has published two books of poetry, Las flores del mall (Alamala Eds., 2000) and Kool Logic/La lógica kool (Bilingual Press, 2005), as well as a poetry, rock, and performance DVD “Kool Logic Sessions: Poems, Pop Songs, Laugh Tracts” (Bilingual Press, 2005). Boringkén, a book of poems in Spanish with a spoken word CD, is forthcoming. His poems, creative essays, nonfiction, and translations have appeared in New York Quarterly, Terra Incognita, Pavement Saw, Rattapallax, Teachers & Writers, and several anthologies. Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Noel lives in the South Bronx where he fronts the rock band, objet petit a, and co-directs the arts organization ‘Spanic Attack. He has been a featured performer throughout the US & Puerto Rico, France, Peru, and the Dominican Republic, and will appear this year at the Modern Language Association conference in Philadelphia. His website is www.urayoannoel.com.
Ellen Lanase is a member of Actors’ Equity, the Screen Actors Guild, and AFTRA. Recent appearances include Barbara in Verbatim, and Roslyn in Gentrification in the Legacy Playwrights’ Festival. NY stage
appearances include The Women of Trachis, Harold Clurman Theatre; The Fool, South Street Theatre; Derek, Mitzi Newhouse Theatre; William’s Last Chance, Blue Heron Theatre; and Sacco and Vanzetti, New Stagecraft Company. Other New York and regional credits include Lina in Misalliance, Jennie in Chapter Two, title role in Hedda Gabler, Desiree in A Little Night Music, as well as All Over, Tartuffe, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Glass Menagerie, The Seagull, Twelfth Night, Our Town, The Little Foxes, Uncommon Women and Others, The Oresteia, The Rainmaker, and The Birthday Party. She is also a professor at Farleigh Dickinson University, where she directs the writing program.
Anthony Spaldo is a member of Actors’ Equity, the Screen Actors guide, and AFTRA. He recently appeared in a reading of Work Work Work at the Legacy Playwrights’ Festival with the Producers’ Club Theatre Company, of which he is a member. His professional stage roles include Telegin in Uncle Vanya, Mr. Gibbs in Arsenic and Old Lace, the Father of Rabbithead, Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, King Henry in Henry IV Part I, Vanzetti in Sacco and Vanzetti, Cromwell in A Man for All Seasons, Arvide in Guys and Dolls, Joe Boyd in Damn Yankees, and Peter in The Birthday Party. Recent film credits
include: “The Good Shepherd,” “The Hoax,” “The Producers,” “Catch Me If You Can,” “A Beautiful Mind.” TV appearances include: “Law and Order,” “The Sopranos,” and “The Chief Inspector” (Russian series).
The Program
Introductions — Martha Lozada, HHO President
HHO Arts Scholarship Award — Andrew Ospina, Rutherford High School student
Raquel Hélène Rose Hoheb, William Carlos Williams’ mother — Della Rowland, WCW Poetry
Symposium Chair
“Her Only Poem!” (William Carlos Williams) — Martha Lozada & Ida Borroto
“To Awaken An Old Lady” (William Carlos Williams) — Roberto Bustamante & Ida Borroto
Readings from Williams’ Yes, Mrs. Williams, and Paterson — Ellen Lanase & Anthony Spaldo
Performing his own works & reading from Williams’ Kora in Hell Urayoán Noel
The Hispanic Heritage Organization
The Rutherford Hispanic Heritage Organization (HHO) was formed in 2001 to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, under a proposal from former Councilwoman Martha Lozada and approved by former Rutherford Mayor Bernadette McPherson. September 19, 2001, was proclaimed Rutherford Hispanic Day by Mayor McPherson, Governor Jim McGreevey and President George Bush. Since then, the HHO has held annual festivals, sponsored by the Rutherford Civil Rights Commission and the Mayor and Council.
The purpose of HHO festivals is to acquaint the people of Rutherford and neighboring towns with the diversity of the Hispanic cultures in our communities. Promoting knowledge and awareness of the idiosyncrasy of the different cultures is achieved during these festivals with displays of ethnic food, music, dance, arts, and crafts.
The HHO’s latest FIESTA LATINA, held on May 6, 2006, offered an Arts Scholarship Award to a young talented Hispanic student. The recipient of the Award is Andrew Ospina, a junior at Rutherford High School, who drew a portrait of William Carlos Williams in recognition of the poet’s Hispanic roots and inspired by the William Carlos Williams Poetry Symposium held on September 17, 2005.
