Moira Bailis at 90: Still Full of Surprises, May Appear at Sunday’s Reading

The poetry reading and presentation "Moira Bailis at 90 - A Lifetime in Poetry" is Sunday at the . The event, sponsored by Sensations Magazine, Rhode Island publisher The Poet's Press and the Bailis family of Fort Lee represents the public launch of two recently published books by 90-year-old Fort Lee poet Moira Bailis, the subject of a recent Fort Lee Patch feature.

The Antidote to Prejudice and It Has To Do With Seeing, recently published by The Poet's Press collectively brings 98 percent of Bailis’s poetry together in print for the first time, said David Messineo, publisher of Sensations Magazine and the man responsible for finding and sequencing the 450 poems that now comprise the two volumes.

It could be Bailis’s final public poetry reading appearance given her age and diagnosis of late-stage dementia, said Messineo, but he also said that her presence at the event will depend on how she’s feeling that day.

The program will however feature a video montage of Bailis reading her work at different Sensations readings over the years as well as of her reading seven poems from the new books for her sons and a few private guests at her recent 90th birthday party, during which “she did a very good job,” according to Messineo.

“We have her on video tape reading 21 different poems,” Messineo said. “Video will be a significant part of the program.”

But he said that based on what he witnessed at her birthday party, “the odds of her attending are very good,” just “not 100 percent guaranteed.

“There may be a chance that Moira might be present to read one to three poems herself,” Messineo said. “Obviously that depends on her health condition that particular morning … I can say I saw her on her birthday on Saturday, and during that we video taped her reading some of the poems directly from the books. It shows her opening the books, etc. And she’s very cognizant of the of the books and what they are and reacted very favorably to them … People get a false impression by reading that term (‘dementia’] … Moira continually surprises.”

Messineo said he took on the project based of on his ongoing relationship with Bailis, having published her poems and one short story in Sensations over the years, “but also because of the quality of the work.”

“I felt very strongly that there were poets in the New Jersey poetry scene who were putting out books who in some cases I thought the quality of their work was not as good as the quality that Moira had done much over the course of her life,” Messineo said. “And I felt that this was a way to preserve her work and organize it so that it could be appreciated not just for her and family friends but future generations as well.”

He said it’s one of the first times that Sensations Magazine has done a program for a living poet that focuses solely on one poet’s work, having done over 800 programs over the past 24 years.

But he said the uniqueness of Bailis’s situation called for a special approach, calling her “one of the few living poets in America to write poetry in each of nine different decades.”

“In her new books, the first poem was written in 1939, the latest was written in 2010, and poems verified as written in each decade in between are included,” he said. “Poems written about Fort Lee are included among the 450 published poems.”

Messineo said Sunday’s event will include remarks by a few guests, including publisher Brett Rutherford of The Poet's Press, the video footage as well as he and Bailis’s sons—and perhaps Bailis herself—reading poems from the two volumes.

Messineo said a “very limited” number of copies of the books will be available at Sunday’s event and can purchased with cash or check only. But he encourages people to order online by going to the Poet’s Press website, clicking on the "catalog" button, and scrolling down for "Moira Bailis,” pointing out that “will receive royalties on each book sold”

He also encouraged people to visit Sensations Magazine’s website, noting that the he will be publishing more of Bailis’s work in 2011, including a previously unpublished short story, of which she’s known to have written 17 in addition to the 450 poems.

"Moira Bailis at 90 - A Lifetime in Poetry" is Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Fort Lee Public Library at 320 Main St. The event will be held in the downstairs Meeting Room, which is handicap-accessible.