Charles Dickens New York - A Dickensian's Garden of Verses

THE DICKENS FELLOWSHIP OF NEW YORK

MORTON JACOBER NOMINATED FOR NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION AWARD

April 16, 2011

Morton Jacober

Morton Jacober, Vice-President Emeritus and Poet Laureate of the Dickens Fellowship of New York has been nominated for a National Book Foundation Innovations in Reading Prize.

Each year the National Book Foundation awards a number of prizes to individuals and institutions that have developed innovative means of creating and sustaining a lifelong love of reading. In addition to promoting the best of American literature through the National Book Awards, the Foundation also seeks to expand the audience for literature in America. Through the Innovations in Reading Prizes, those individuals and institutions that use particularly innovative methods to generate excitement and a passionate engagement with books and literature will be rewarded for their creativity and leadership.

Mr. Jacober was nominated for his collection of poems entitled A Dickensian’s Garden of Verses. His amusing and clever rhymes were much anticipated at each month’s meeting of the New York Fellowship (much like Charles Dickens’ monthly serialized novels) and promoted an enthusiastic interest not only in the works of Charles Dickens but in Victorian literature and fine literature in general.

The initial release of A Dickensian’s Garden of Verses includes the rhymed summaries of all 57 chapters of The Pickwick Papers and is available to Dickens Fellowship chapters, schools, libraries and the general public. It is provided free of charge via email upon request from admin@dickensnewyork.com.

Morton Jacober is a graduate of the New York University School of Education (Bachelor and Masters Degrees) and spent 35 years as an English teacher and Assistant Principal at a Manhattan junior high school.

National Book Foundation Innovations in Reading prize winners will be announced in early May.

The Dickens Fellowship of New York and its members seek to keep the memory and study of Charles Dickens alive in New York City. The organization has aspects of a literary society or book club but includes much more as the name Fellowship implies. Our meetings include social events and group outings. Members are kept apprised of cultural programs in New York City and the tri-state area that relate to Dickens and his Victorian era. Although we meet all the year round, as befitting Charles Dickens and A Christmas Carol, the Christmas season finds the Fellowship in especially hearty spirits.