Poet Gloria Mindock will visit the COA’s Holland Street Center, Jan. 25 at 10 a.m.

Just because your age advances doesn’t mean your excitement for learning new skills and information stops suddenly. If anything, it seems to grow for many participants in Somerville Council on Aging programs. This curiosity has led to a number of new initiatives, including educational lectures and outings to Berklee College of Music to hear outstanding student and faculty concerts. Now, beginning in January, the Council on Aging and the Somerville Arts Council are partnering to offer a series of poetry workshops to Somerville’s seniors.

First, on Monday, January 25 at 10 a.m., local poet and nationally and internationally recognized publisher Gloria Mindock will visit the COA’s Holland Street Center to talk about “The Power of Poetry.” She will provide her perspectives and insights on writing, reading, editing, and publishing poetry. Mindock’s  presentation is the sixth in the COA’s ongoing, monthly “Foundations of Knowledge” series. The low-cost series gives older adults the opportunity to listen to highly respected experts from different fields share their knowledge for a very low cost of $5 per lecture or $20 for 5 lectures.

On Tuesday, Feb. 16, from 10 to 11 a.m., older adults can enroll in a free series of three workshops featuring Somerville’s own Poet Laureate Nicole Terez Dutton. Open to all writers and readers of poetry, the first workshop offers an opportunity for participants to share and discuss poems that are particularly resonant to them. A second workshop on Tuesday, Feb. 23, from 10 a.m. to noon, focuses on generating and refining new poems The third and final workshop, on Tuesday, March 8,from 10 a.m. to noon, serves as a celebration for participants and their friends, and will include a chance to share new work created during the workshop. All are welcome and encouraged to attend any of these gatherings. Both workshops with Terez Dutton will be held at the Cross St. Center, 165 Broadway.

Gloria Mindock is the founding editor of Cervena Barva Press, editor of X-Peri, and one of the USA editors for Levure Litteraire (France). She is the author of La Porţile Raiului (Ars Longa Press, 2010, Romania) translated into the Romanian by Flavia Cosma, Nothing Divine Here (U Soku Stampa, 2010, Montenegro), and Blood Soaked Dresses (Ibbetson, 2007). She is widely published in the USA and abroad, and her poetry has been translated and published into the Romanian, Serbian, Spanish, Estonian, and French. In December 2014, Gloria was awarded the Ibbetson Street Press Lifetime Achievement Award.

Nicole Terez Dutton’s work has appeared in prestigious poetry publications including Callaloo, Ploughshares, 32 Poems, Indiana Review, and Salt Hill Journal. She earned an MFA from Brown University and has received fellowships from the Frost Place, the Fine Arts Work Center, Bread Load Writers’ Conference, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her collection of poems, If One of Us Should Fall, was selected as the winner of the 2011 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. Nicole lives in Somerville, and she teaches at Grub Street and in the Solstice Low-Residency MFA Program.

For more information on these, and other arts and cultural programming, please call Janine Lotti at (617)625-6600, ext. 2300 for more information.

Individuals with disabilities who need auxiliary aids and services for effective communication, written materials in alternative formats, or reasonable modifications in policies and procedures, in order to access the programs and activities of the City of Somerville or to attend meetings, should contact the City’s ADA Coordinator, Betsy Allen, at 617-625-6600 x2323 or BAllen@somervillema.gov.