Seabrook Seniors are Literary Lions and Published Poets

Talented Tinton Falls seniors who share great works of poetry and workshop their own every week now take their polished literary gems to a world platform.

The Seabrook Village group of roughly 40 writers goes under the collective rubric Poets From The Gardens. Their newly-published collaboration is Voices In Bloom - An Anthology of Poems and Stories.

The Gardens is Seabrook's continuing care community, where regular Friday get-togethers focus on the writings of Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Walt Whitman and others, as well as the members' works in progress. Shelley Benaroya, director of the Writing Center for Creative Aging of New Jersey, edited the compilation and guided the group.

"It's a thrill watching someone who never cared much for poetry, or who lost touch with it, or felt intimated by it over the years, become inspired to share-through the alchemy of their own words and imagery-something of what they've learned along the way," she gushes. "It goes to show how joyful adding a little poetry to your life can be..how that creative spark lives inside us all."

It's only the latest rung on the ladder to fame for Poets From The Gardens, who last year was one of 14 from the region involved in in the Arts & Aging Core Training program by the National Center for Creative Aging.

Voices In Bloom lists for $4.75 at lulu.com.