Upcoming Events

Event Calendar

Upcoming events

Art in the Barn: Experience the world of Alma Thomas Paintings

Art in the Barn: Storytime and hands-on art project for Pre-schoolers  is a new drop-in workshop for preschoolers at Walt Whitman Birthplace. Taught by Lena Massari Sawyer, former Museum Educator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Come and join us every week awe read various stories including the award-winning Caldecott books.  Learn about artists of the past and create your own artwork.

March 23, 2024
Experience the world of Alma Thomas Paintings
Shapes, color and movement in art will be discussed.  “I Spy Shapes” in Art by Lucy Micklethwait will be explored.

Members: $13  Non Members: $15
(Per workshop, tickets can be purchased at the door)

See Winter Calendar below.

Picture Books are a crucial tool for developing a child’s literacy and language skills in their early years.  They help build self-confidence as the child learns to read through visual thinking. The children will read a book, then tell their own story through collage and other multimedia materials. They will look at the different elements of art such as changing perspective, scale, as well as multiple points of view through drawing and using collage materials. In addition, each child will be given a small plastic magnifying glass to explore a tinker box filled with objects from nature such as seashells, rocks, etc.

Lena Massari Sawyer has been an educator for over 25 years. She taught Art History and Studio Art to children for over two decades at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  While at the Met, she specialized in early childhood education, creating and teaching numerous art history and children’s literature classes.   Lena has been a long-time resident of Long Island. She teaches art history, painting and other multimedia classes both at the Birthplace at the Little Studio in Northport Village.  Lena holds a bachelor’s degree in art history and performed her graduate studies in Museum Education at New York University.

 


 

Art in the Barn Winter Calendar

February 3rdBlack History Month
A look at Royal Art of Benin from Metropolitan Museum of Art, with a reading of the 2011 Caldecott winner: “Dave the Potter Artist, Poet, Slave” by Laban C. Hill and Bryan Collier.  Project: drawing and clay.

February 10th –  Celebrate the Chinese New Year with Us!
Learn about Chinese scroll painting, paint will calligraphy brushes and read about your own personal Chinese zodiac in “The Legend of the Chinese Dragon” by M. Sellier, C. Louis, W. Fei.

February 17th –  Come and explore Romare Bearden’s groundbreaking collage celebrating African American Urban life in “The Block”
A multimedia art project will follow and Barney Saltzberg fun book “Beautiful OOPS” will be enjoyed.

February 24th – Travel with us to Africa and learn about African Masks!
Class will end with the book “Me… Jane” by Patrick McDonnell about Jane Goodall, the English Anthropologist and “Can you Spot the Leopard” by C Stelzig.  Bring your favorite stuff animal to class!

March 2nd – Women’s History Month
Learn how to paint large flowers like Georgia O’ Keefe did.   “My Name is Georgia: A Portrait” by Jeanette Winter will be read.

March 9th – Explore the work of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama
We will be painting and reading “From Here to Infinity” by S. Suzuki and E. Weinstein.

March 16th – Come celebrate the color GREEN with us for Saint Patrick’s Day!
We will be reading the book “Green” by Laura V. Seeger and exploring Henri Rousseau’s very green Jungle paintings.  A magical surprise will follow.

March 23rd – Experience the world of Alma Thomas Paintings
Shapes, color and movement in art will be discussed.  “I Spy Shapes” in Art by Lucy Micklethwait will be explored.

March 30th – No class

Date: Saturday, March 23, 2024
Start Time: 11:00 am EST
Members: $13  Non Members: $15

Gwenn A. Nusbaum-WWBA Scholarship

The Gwenn A. Nusbaum-WWBA Scholarship application is open January 1 – April 1, 2024.

Walt Whitman Birthplace Association (WWBA) invites applications for the Gwenn A. Nusbaum-WWBA Scholarship.  The $1800 scholarship is offered in the spirit of Walt Whitman’s poem, “O Me! O Life!” He writes: “That you are here – that life exists and identity, / That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.”

Applications are sought from those poets at the early stages of their careers, ages 25-35 years.  This scholarship, awarded every year, aims to encourage and assist an emerging poet in their creative poetry writing endeavors.

For guidelines and submission form visit https://www.waltwhitman.org/nusbaumscholarship/

Date: Monday, April 1, 2024

Walking With Whitman: Poetry in Performance – Gerd Stern, Kat Georges, Peter Carlaftes, Josie Bello

Walt Whitman Birthplace Association (WWBA) presents  Walking With Whitman: Poetry in Performance, hosted by Writer-in-Residence George Wallace. The signature series, now in its 14th season, continues to bring the most intriguing figures in contemporary literature on the national scene paired with local poets on the Walt Whitman Stage.

Friday, April 5th, Walking With Whitman will feature poets Gerd Stern, Kat Georges and Peter Carlaftes. The evening will also feature live music by Singer-Songwriter Josie Bello.  Join us for this exciting event!

Refreshments will be served starting at 6:30, music and readings start at 7:00.
There is a $10 entry fee for this event that will be collected at the door. (No registration is required)

 


Gerd Stern is a poet, painter, sculptor, and media artist. His oral history, From Beat Scene Poet to Psychedelic Multimedia Artist: 1948–1978, was published by The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. He is a founder of, one of the first arts/technology cooperatives, active since the early 1960s, Based in Rockland County. Author of six collections of poetry, Gerd was born in Saarland on the German/French border in 1928, emigrated to the United States with his family as the Nazis rose to power, and eventually settled in Washington Heights in New York City. A lifetime of wide travels and accomplishments brought him in contact with the Allen Ginsberg, Carl Solomon, Charlie Parker and James Baldwin in NYC, a brief stint with the Black Mountain School, The SF Beat Scene (including Maya Angelou), and helped build the Living Theater on 14th St in NYC.

 


 

Kat Georges is a  author, poet, playwright, and graphic designer. Author of Awe and Other Words Like Wow, Our Lady of the Hunger and Three Somebodies: Plays about Notorious Dissidents. She is co-editor of the annual contemporary dada journal, Maintenant. Her poems have recently appeared in NYC from the Inside, Arriving at a Shoreline, and Mas Tequila. She lives in New York City, where she is co-director of Three Rooms Press, a literary publisher driven by diversty, dada, punk, and passion.

 


 

Peter Carlaftes is author of five books including the poetry collections Life in the Past Lane, Drunkyard Dog and I Fold With the Hand I Was Dealt and two collections of plays: Teatrophy and Triumph for Rent. He is co-editor of the annual contemporary dada journal, Maintenant and editor of The Faking Of The President: Nineteen Stories of White House Noir. His poetry has recently appeared in NYC from the Inside, Love, Love, Chorus: A Literary Mixtape and many more. Co-director of Three Rooms Press, he lives in New York City.

 


 

Josie Bello is a Singer-Songwriter from Huntington.  Her songs tell stories that are relatable, and explore issues that are both timely and timeless. Her newest release “Have Purpose Live Long” (2020) and her debut album “Can’t Go Home” (2018) have both had extensive U.S. & International radio play with the albums and individual tracks appearing on an impressive number of radio charts.  Josie performs solo and with her band, “The Kit House Band”.  Her music is available everywhere including Spotify, Bandcamp, iTunes and Amazon. For more information about Josie, you can visit her website at josiebello.com.

 


 

Make a meaningful gift to support our poetry programs:  https://www.paypal.com/us/fundraiser/charity/2197152

 

This program is made possible with funds from Poets and Writers, The Claire Friedlander Family Foundation, NY State Parks, Suffolk County, Town of Huntington, and NYS Council on the Arts through Huntington Arts Council.

 

 

 

 

Date: Friday, April 5, 2024
Start Time: 7:00 pm EST
$10 entry fee collected at the door

Art in the Barn: Celebrate National Poetry Month!

Art in the Barn: Storytime and hands-on art project for Pre-schoolers  is a new workshop for pre-schoolers at Walt Whitman Birthplace. Taught by Lena Massari Sawyer, former Museum Educator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Come and join us every week awe read various stories including the award-winning Caldecott books.  Learn about artists of the past and create your own artwork.

April 6, 2024
Come and celebrate National Poetry Month at Walt Whitman Birthplace!
Explore the work of British Textile designer, poet and artist William Morris. We will be reading “Beautiful Useful Things: What William Morris Made” by Beth Kephart and end the session making your own print designs.

Register NOW for the full series and SAVE! (Space is limited)
Members: $13  Non Members: $15
(Per workshop, tickets can be purchased at the door)
Click here to register >>

See Spring Calendar below.

Picture Books are a crucial tool for developing a child’s literacy and language skills in their early years.  They help build self-confidence as the child learns to read through visual thinking. The children will read a book, then tell their own story through collage and other multimedia materials. They will look at the different elements of art such as changing perspective, scale, as well as multiple points of view through drawing and using collage materials. In addition, each child will be given a small plastic magnifying glass to explore a tinker box filled with objects from nature such as seashells, rocks, etc.

Lena Massari Sawyer has been an educator for over 25 years. She taught Art History and Studio Art to children for over two decades at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  While at the Met, she specialized in early childhood education, creating and teaching numerous art history and children’s literature classes.   Lena has been a long-time resident of Long Island. She teaches art history, painting and other multimedia classes both at the Birthplace at the Little Studio in Northport Village.  Lena holds a bachelor’s degree in art history and performed her graduate studies in Museum Education at New York University.

 


 

Art in the Barn Spring Calendar

April 6th – Come and celebrate National Poetry Month at Walt Whitman Birthplace!
Explore the work of British Textile designer, poet and artist William Morris. We will be reading “Beautiful Useful Things: What William Morris Made” by Beth Kephart and end the session making your own print designs.

April 13th – Spring has arrived! Celebrate National Garden Month with us at the Birthplace.
We will walk through Walt’s Garden and find some Whitman Lilacs blooming. Back in the Art Barn, we will explore the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany. The session will end with a stained glass inspired project and “In the Garden” by Carin Berger.

April 20th – Come and explore the work of Architect Frank Loyd Wright!
In the Art Barn, we will be building with wood and reading “My first Shapes with Frank Lloyd Wright” by Mudpuppy and L. Ortiz.

April 27th – “The Wave” by Hokusai!
Let’s explore how the world of Japanese prints affected Nineteenth Century artists. We will be painting and reading “Hokusai: He saw the world in a Wave” by S Hodge and K. Ekdahl.

May 4th – The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh
Get ready, get set, we will be looking at The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh and reading Vincent’s “Colors” by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Bring your smock and lets paint!

May 11th – No Class

May 18th – Cezanne’s Apples!
Put on your smocks and grab a paint brush. We will be painting in The Art Barn and reading “Orange Pear Apple Bear” by Emily Gravett.

May 25th- Let’s travel to Monet’s Garden!
We will be planting our own herbs in the Art Barn and reading Lena Anderson and Christina Björk’s book “Linneas’s Windowsill Garden”.

June 1st – Summer has arrived!
Let’s go sailing with the artist Edward Hopper and look for Lighthouses. We will be painting and reading “Edward Hopper Summer at the Seashore” by Deborah Lyons.  Makeup class for May 11th.

Date: Saturday, April 6, 2024
Start Time: 11:00 am EST

POETS BUILDING BRIDGES Series 3, April 13, 2024 – Live Mag NYC, Kerrville TX, Portuguese Poets

George Wallace and Walt Whitman Birthplace proudly present season three of POETS BUILDING BRIDGES: A TRIANGULATION PROJECT, inaugurated in March 2022 with the purpose of enhancing dialogue between communities of writers across the US and internationally. Based on a shared small-group experience, these Saturday zoom sessions engage three distinct and well defined communities of poets with each other to share work and foster further interaction. In Season Three, POETS BUILDING BRIDGES will build on that experience, triangulating national and international groups based not only on location but additionally offering key small press publications an opportunity to form a participating group.

THIS IS A ZOOM ONLY EVENT. 

Find Zoom Information Below.

Live on zoom. archived on Youtube. For Season 2 visit our YouTube Channel >>

 


 

Live Mag NYC:  Jeff Wright  |  Richard Martin  |  Wang Ping  |  Steven Luttrell

Jeffrey Cyphers Wright  received his MFA after studying with Allen Ginsberg. A self-described New Romantic poet, he is also a publisher, art and literary critic, eco-activist, impresario, filmmaker, and artist. He is author of 19 books of verse, including Blue Lyre and Party Everywhere. Recent work appears in the anthologies Best American Poetry; NYC Insiders; and Contemporary Surrealist and Magical Realist Poetry. His latest work, a book of sonnets and artwork called Doppelgängster, Self Portraits in a Funhouse Mirror is from MadHat Press. Wright publishes Live Mag!  He received a Kathy Acker Award for publishing and writing. You can see his puppet shows on Youtube.


Richard Martin’s recent books from Spuyten Duyvil are Leakage & Smoke (2023), Chapter & Verse (2021), Ceremony of the Unknown (2020), Goosebumps of Antimatter (2018) and Techniques in the Neighborhood of Sleep (2016). He is a past recipient of a NEA Fellowship for Poetry and the founder of the Big Horror Poetry Series in Binghamton, New York (1983-1996). A retired Boston Public Schools principal, Martin lives in Boston with his family.


Dr. Ping Wang came from Shanghai, earned her BA in Beijing University, PhD at NYU, published 15 books of poetry and prose: My Name Is Immigrant, Life of Miracles along the Yangtze and Mississippi, among othersShe’s recipient of NEA, Bush, Lannan and McKnight Fellowships, director of Kinship of Rivers project. She’s also a dancer, photographer and installation artist. Her multi-media installations were shown at colleges, galleries, museums, river confluences and mountains around the world. She’s the Emerita Professor of Poetry, Macalester College.


Steve Luttrell is an internationally recognized Poet and Publisher. He is the founding editor of The Café Review, an award-winning art and poetry journal, published in Portland, Maine since 1989. He is a past Poet Laureate for the city of Portland, Maine and is the author of five published collections of poetry including his latest, Plumb Line, published by North Atlantic Books (Berkeley, Ca.) in 2015.

 


 

Kerrville TX:  Kathleen Hudson  |  Etain Scott  |  Lisha Adela Garcia  |  Jean Hackett

Kathleen Hudson is author of three oral histories in Texas music, founder of Texas Heritage Music Foundation (1987-2017), English teacher 1968-present, poet and lover of all animals. Lives in the Texas Hill Country.

 


Etain Scott is a multidisciplinary artist from Ireland currently living on the Guadalupe River in Kerrville, Texas. Traveling, cooking, dancing, and her writing groups are part of her source of creativity. Often a guest writer in the English classes at Schreiner University, she is currently illustrating some of her poems with mixed media collage.


Lisha Adela García has an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and currently resides in Texas with her beloved four-legged children. Her books, A Rope of Luna and Blood Rivers, were published by Blue Light Press of San Francisco. Lisha has been nominated for a Pushcart and was a recipient of the San Antonio Tri-Centennial Poetry Prize. She has served as a judge for various poetry prizes. Most recently, she served as judge for the Chicago Poetry Prize. Lisha leads the Wyrdd Writers, a writing group based in San Antonio.


Jean Hackett lives and writes in San Antonio and the Texas Hill Country.  Her most recent work has appeared in journal Voices de la Luna, the ‘zine Words for Birds, the collection of vulture poetry Purifying Wind, the collections of coronavirus poetry No Season for SilenceTejascovido, and The Langdon Review as well as Arts Alive San Antonio.

 


 

Portuguese Poets: Maria do Rosario Loures  |  Alvaro Maio  |  Isilda Nunes  |  Irene Marques

Maria Do Rosario Loures is a trilingual writer (writing in Portuguese, German and English). Her first appearance in the world of poetry was in 1996 at the art magazine “sign 7” by Gillitzer & Müller, Nuremberg. She has produced many anthologies in Portugal including three editions of “Poetas na Diápora”, Oxalá Editora, and “IV Antologia Poetas Lusófonos da Diáspora”, Oxalá Editora. In 2021, she coordinated the “First Anthology of Poetry Hera the Light of Women”, and n 2021 became International Ambassador of Peace and Human Rights for the World Literary Forum for Peace and Human Rights – WLPH. She is also Ambassador for the Asih Sasimi Indonesia Global Writers Foundation. A contributor to Glitterati Quillwithspark, a quarterly magazine to promote and publish poetry, artwork, short stories, reviews, and articles, she also publishes her poems and short stories in the social networks.


Álvaro Maio was born in Portugal 1960 and is a journalist in several radio stations and national newspapers. He received the 1st Literary Prize with the short story “My 1st trip to the sun” in Mozambique November 69. He is editor of ”Fragmentos” ( poetry) 2013 / ”Mais de mim…” ( poetry) 2016 / ”Peregrino de mim…” (poetry) 2019 / “Ala Ala Arriba!” ( epic operetta )2020 / “ PURGATÓRIO “ ( poetry) 2022, coauthor of several poetry anthologies in Portuguese, and five other languages, and produced CD with 12 original songs entitled “Poeta da Vida“. He has won numeorus literary prizes, including the Poetas da Ria Literary Prize (poetry), the Dr Luís Raínha  Correntes D’Escritas National Literary Award, the World Award for Artistic Excellence Carlos Vallejo, and the Àguila de Oro award for literary excellence. Co-author of several poetic anthologies in Portuguese, Spanish, English, Russian, Urdu and Mandarin, and was translated and published in dozens of countries.


Isilda Nunes is a Portuguese artist, writer and poet, Doctor Honoris Causa in Philosophy, Letters, Arts and Humanities in Barcelona. She is winner of international literary prizes and she is published in many national and international magazines and newspapers. She is co-author of many anthologies and author of books of poetry and prose. She is among other functions Founder and Vice-President of UMEA (World Union of Writers and Artists); Chairperson of the Language, Literature and Oratory Art Committee of Modern Pythian Games; Advisor to the Presidency of CIESART (International Chamber of Writers and Artists) and President of CIESART-Portugal; National Director of IFLAC World- Portugal; Vice-President MEL (Mulheres Empreendedoras da Lusofonia); Ambassador of the Women’s Federation for Word Peace International; RRM3 Advisor for GPLT-UK- UN & EU, Ambassador for Peace and Humanity IFCH Morocco; Member of the Board of Directors of Editorial Atunis, etc.


Irene Marques is a bilingual writer (writing in English and Portuguese) and Lecturer at Toronto Metropolitan University in the Department of English, where she teaches literature and creative writing. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature, Masters in French Literature and Comparative Literature and a BA (Hon.) in French Language and Literature from the University of Toronto, as well as a Bachelor of Social Work from Ryerson University. Her creative writing publications include the poetry collections Wearing Glasses of Water (Mawenzi House, 2007), The Perfect Unravelling of the Spirit (Mawenzi House, 2012) and The Circular Incantation: An Exercise in Loss and Findings (Guernica Editions, 2013), and the novels My House is a Mansion (Leaping Lion Books, 2015), Uma Casa no Mundo (Imprensa Nacional, 2021) and Daria (Inanna Publications, 2021). Uma casa no mundo won the Imprensa Nacional/Ferreira de Castro Prize (Portugal).

 


 

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81011000969

Meeting ID: 810 1100 0969

One tap mobile:
+16469313860,,81011000969# US
+16465588656,,81011000969# US (New York)

Dial by your location:
• +1 646 931 3860 US
• +1 646 558 8656 US (New York)
• +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
• +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
• +1 305 224 1968 US
• +1 309 205 3325 US
• +1 360 209 5623 US
• +1 386 347 5053 US
• +1 507 473 4847 US
• +1 564 217 2000 US
• +1 669 444 9171 US
• +1 669 900 9128 US (San Jose)
• +1 689 278 1000 US
• +1 719 359 4580 US
• +1 253 205 0468 US
• +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
• +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)

Meeting ID: 810 1100 0969

Find your local number:
https://us02web.zoom.us/u/ktTb84ZCP

 


 

Support Our Literacy Programs >>

POETS BUILDING BRIDGES is produced by Poetrybay Productions for the Walt Whitman Birthplace.

Date: Saturday, April 13, 2024
Start Time: 12:00 pm EST

Art in the Barn: Celebrate National Garden Month

Art in the Barn: Storytime and hands-on art project for Pre-schoolers  is a new workshop for pre-schoolers at Walt Whitman Birthplace. Taught by Lena Massari Sawyer, former Museum Educator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Come and join us every week awe read various stories including the award-winning Caldecott books.  Learn about artists of the past and create your own artwork.

April 13th
Spring has arrived! Celebrate National Garden Month with us at the Birthplace.
We will walk through Walt’s Garden and find some Whitman Lilacs blooming. Back in the Art Barn, we will explore the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany. The session will end with a stained glass inspired project and “In the Garden” by Carin Berger.

Register NOW for the full series and SAVE! (Space is limited)
Members: $13  Non Members: $15
(Per workshop, tickets can be purchased at the door)
Click here to register >>

See Spring Calendar below.

Picture Books are a crucial tool for developing a child’s literacy and language skills in their early years.  They help build self-confidence as the child learns to read through visual thinking. The children will read a book, then tell their own story through collage and other multimedia materials. They will look at the different elements of art such as changing perspective, scale, as well as multiple points of view through drawing and using collage materials. In addition, each child will be given a small plastic magnifying glass to explore a tinker box filled with objects from nature such as seashells, rocks, etc.

Lena Massari Sawyer has been an educator for over 25 years. She taught Art History and Studio Art to children for over two decades at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  While at the Met, she specialized in early childhood education, creating and teaching numerous art history and children’s literature classes.   Lena has been a long-time resident of Long Island. She teaches art history, painting and other multimedia classes both at the Birthplace at the Little Studio in Northport Village.  Lena holds a bachelor’s degree in art history and performed her graduate studies in Museum Education at New York University.

 


 

Art in the Barn Spring Calendar

April 6th – Come and celebrate National Poetry Month at Walt Whitman Birthplace!
Explore the work of British Textile designer, poet and artist William Morris. We will be reading “Beautiful Useful Things: What William Morris Made” by Beth Kephart and end the session making your own print designs.

April 13th – Spring has arrived! Celebrate National Garden Month with us at the Birthplace.
We will walk through Walt’s Garden and find some Whitman Lilacs blooming. Back in the Art Barn, we will explore the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany. The session will end with a stained glass inspired project and “In the Garden” by Carin Berger.

April 20th – Come and explore the work of Architect Frank Loyd Wright!
In the Art Barn, we will be building with wood and reading “My first Shapes with Frank Lloyd Wright” by Mudpuppy and L. Ortiz.

April 27th – “The Wave” by Hokusai!
Let’s explore how the world of Japanese prints affected Nineteenth Century artists. We will be painting and reading “Hokusai: He saw the world in a Wave” by S Hodge and K. Ekdahl.

May 4th – The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh
Get ready, get set, we will be looking at The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh and reading Vincent’s “Colors” by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Bring your smock and lets paint!

May 11th – No Class

May 18th – Cezanne’s Apples!
Put on your smocks and grab a paint brush. We will be painting in The Art Barn and reading “Orange Pear Apple Bear” by Emily Gravett.

May 25th- Let’s travel to Monet’s Garden!
We will be planting our own herbs in the Art Barn and reading Lena Anderson and Christina Björk’s book “Linneas’s Windowsill Garden”.

June 1st – Summer has arrived!
Let’s go sailing with the artist Edward Hopper and look for Lighthouses. We will be painting and reading “Edward Hopper Summer at the Seashore” by Deborah Lyons.  Makeup class for May 11th.

Date: Saturday, April 13, 2024
Start Time: 11:00 am EST
Members: $13  Non Members: $15

WWBA 2024 Program Series – Whitman’s Long Island: Then & Now – The Pine Barrens

WWBA is proud to announce our 2024 Series – Whitman’s Long Island: Then & Now

Our 2024 Series compares Whitman’s literary celebrations of his native Long Island environment circa 1824 with current conservational commentaries two hundred years later in 2024. Sessions open with a poem or essay by ecopoet Walt Whitman followed by a community conversation led by notable Long Island environmentalists. Programs focus on Environmental Justice issues for Long Island communities which include access to clean water, pollution free environment, and a financially accessible food supply.  Walt Whitman heralded the beauty of Long Island and its topological characteristics of the fields, forests, creeks, wetlands, bays, sound and ocean from Brooklyn to Montauk Point. His writings are infused with this environment. Our Series illuminates the agrarian and aquatic-based society in which he was born and which he heralded in his writings, such as “Leaves of Grass” and other publications.

Our goals are to celebrate Long Island’s beautiful environment, then and now, while using multiple program activities to facilitate critical thinking about the current challenges to our environment and to provide outreach activities with organizations such as the Peconic Land Trust, the Pine Barrens Society, Operation SPLASH (Stop Polluting, Littering, and Save Harbors), and The Nature Conservancy.

Program 1 – The Pine Barrens – Who’s Guarding our Long Island Treasure
Thursday, April 18, 7 -8:30PM

Speaker Tom Casey speaks about the importance of the Pine Barrens. Tom is on the board for both the Pine Barrens Society, an environmental advocacy group, and Quogue Wildlife Refuge in southeast Suffolk County. He’s been hiking in the Pine Barrens for more than 40 years. WWBA Trustee and ecopoet Mark Nuccio reads Whitman’s ecopoetry and essays and Singer-Songwriter Linda Sussman performs a musical interlude with environmental lyrics.

This event is FREE and held in person.

 


 

Retired English teacher Tom Casey has hiked on Long Island for over forty years and considers Quogue Wildlife Refuge to be one of the crown jewels of Long Island’s protected open spaces. He has been a board member, newsletter editor, and a hike leader for the Long Island Greenbelt Trail Conference for over thirty years. He also serves on the board of the Long Island Pine Barrens Society, is Secretary for the New York State Trails Council, chairs the Central Pine Barrens Commission’s Protected Lands Council, and is a member of the Pine Barrens Advisory Committee and the Long Island Environmental Voters Forum.

 


 

Mark Nuccio, WWBA Trustee, Artist, Poet, and Community Activist: Primary Team Leader. Nuccio studied painting and history with post-grad studies in Product Design and Engineering. He is the founder of Design Edge Group which develops and markets toys and games. Three of his woodcut prints, including “Walt Whitman,” reside at the Library of Congress. Nuccio has written over 25 published articles on the environmental challenges of Long Island and its surrounding waters. He is the author of four chapbooks of poetry, and recently published Mary E and all that Jazz. Mark is a musician who is knowledgeable about traditional folk music, jazz, and blues, and is fluent in guitar, banjo, and harmonica. He taught art classes in the Taylor Street projects in Brooklyn, NY to inner city senior adults, made wood cuts supporting Caesar Chavez and MLK, and created paintings devoted to the culture of the Montaukette Indians and former slaves from the east end of Long Island. He is active in fishing and boating organizations. 

 


 

This program is made possible with funds from Humanities New York, NY State Parks, Suffolk County, and Town of Huntington.

 

Support Our Literacy Programs >>

Date: Thursday, April 18, 2024
Start Time: 7:00 pm EST

2024 Long Island Poet of the Year Award Reception & Reading

Announcing the 2024 Long Island Poet of the Year –  Nancy Keating

2024 Long Island Poet of the Year Award Reception & Reading will be held on April 21, 2024, 2PM – 3:00PM, in-person at Walt Whitman Birthplace Association.

The Long Island Poet of the Year Award is an annual award given by Walt Whitman Birthplace Association (WWBA) to honor a notable and distinguished local poet who actively promotes poetry on Long Island.  Each year, the board of trustees selects a notable poet as the WWBA poet of the year. They are a nationally known and well-respected poet who champions poetry through their writing, teaching, and support of the Long Island community of poets and their events.

For more information visit https://www.waltwhitman.org/li-poet-of-the-year/.

Date: Sunday, April 21, 2024
Start Time: 2:00 pm EST

Walking With Whitman: Poetry in Performance – Lucilla Trapazzo, Maria Lisella, Linda Sussman

Walt Whitman Birthplace Association (WWBA) presents  Walking With Whitman: Poetry in Performance, hosted by Writer-in-Residence George Wallace. The signature series, now in its 14th season, continues to bring the most intriguing figures in contemporary literature on the national scene paired with local poets on the Walt Whitman Stage.

Friday, May 3rd, Walking With Whitman will feature poet Lucilla Trapazzo, accompanied by sound artist Alessandro Olla, and poet Maria Lisella. The evening will also feature live music by Singer-Songwriter Linda Sussman.  Join us for this exciting event!

Refreshments will be served starting at 6:30, music and readings start at 7:00.
There is a $10 entry fee for this event that will be collected at the door. (No registration is required)

 


 

Lucilla Trapazzo (Switzerland/Italy) is an award-winning poet, translator, artist and performer. After years spent abroad, studying and working (DDR, Brussels, Washington DC and New York City), she now lives in Zurich, Switzerland. Her poems, translated in 18 languages, have won numerous prestigious awards (among which laureate poet of Naji Naaman Literary Awards, Lebanon 2021 and of Korca Poetry Nights, Albania 2023), and have been published on important International magazines and anthologies. She is regular guest of International poetry festivals, among which Struga Poetry Evening 2021 (N. Macedonia), Princeton Festival, 2021,2024 (USA), Babylon Festival of Arts 2022, 2024 (Iraq), Rockport Poetry festival, 2023 (USA). Convinced supporter of human rights and the planet, her social and feminine point of view is reflected in many of her writings.


 

Maria Lisella is a travel writer by trade and often use outtakes of her official assignments to tell other people’s stories. Her collections include: Thieves in the Family (NYQ Books), Amore on Hope Street (Finishing Line Press) and Two Naked Feet (Poets Wear Prada). Recently featured on The Poet and the Poem at the Library of Congress, she is the sixth Queens Poet Laureate and an Academy of American Poets Fellow. Her new collection, The Man with a Plan is pending publication. Lisella is the poetry editor for VIA – Voices in Italian Americana, she leads poetry workshops for the Queens Public Library’s and for the Writer Guild Initiative with The Body Politic; she is a Board member and a curator for the 33-year old Italian-American Writing Association (IAWA) literary series in NY and is a charter member of the online poetry circle, Brevitas. Recent work won Honorable Mention for the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award and has been published several times on New Verse News among other publications.


 

Linda Sussman (LindaSussman.com) is an award-winning singer-songwriter whose versatile vocals and guitar style cross boundaries of alternative-folk and blues. Her music, which has ranked #1 on the Roots Music Report’s weekly Alternative Folk Album Chart, spans universal topics from heartache and triumphs to calls for social justice and can be heard on radio programs in both the US and abroad. The many stages she has played range from the iconic New York City venue The Bitter End to Radio Bean in Burlington, VT. Over the past five years, Linda has released four full-length albums and several singles, all of which are available on Spotify, iTunes, Amazon, YouTube, etc.


 

Make a meaningful gift to support our poetry programs:  https://www.paypal.com/us/fundraiser/charity/2197152

 

This program is made possible with funds from Poets and Writers, The Claire Friedlander Family Foundation, NY State Parks, Suffolk County, Town of Huntington, and NYS Council on the Arts through Huntington Arts Council.

 

Date: Friday, May 3, 2024
Start Time: 7:00 pm EST
$10 entry fee collected at the door

POETS BUILDING BRIDGES – May 11, 2024 – GWFM Press, Beat/Not Beat, Middle East Poets

George Wallace and Walt Whitman Birthplace proudly present season three of POETS BUILDING BRIDGES: A TRIANGULATION PROJECT, inaugurated in March 2022 with the purpose of enhancing dialogue between communities of writers across the US and internationally. Based on a shared small-group experience, these Saturday zoom sessions engage three distinct and well defined communities of poets with each other to share work and foster further interaction. In Season Three, POETS BUILDING BRIDGES will build on that experience, triangulating national and international groups based not only on location but additionally offering key small press publications an opportunity to form a participating group.

THIS IS A ZOOM ONLY EVENT. 

Find Zoom Information Below.

Live on zoom. archived on Youtube. For Season 2 visit our YouTube Channel >>

 


GWFM Press: Jane Ormerod  |  David Lawton  |  Thomas Fucaloro

Jane Ormerod is an artist and the author of the full-length poetry collections Welcome to the Museum of Cattle and Recreational Vehicles on Fire (both from Three Rooms Press). In addition, her work has appeared in anthologies and journals including From the Inside: NYC through the Eyes of the Poets Who Live Here (Blue Light Press, 2022) and From Somewhere to Nowhere: The End of the American Dream, A founding editor of great weather for MEDIA, Jane is the recipient of a 2020 NYC Acker Award in publishing for her contribution to the avant-garde community.


David Lawton is the author of Sharp Blue Stream (Three Rooms Press) and the chapbook Inspiritive (Moonstone Arts), and has had his work published in numerous journals and anthologies. David is a graduate of the theatre program at Boston University, where he was also a Guest Artist in the graduate play writing classes taught by Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott. For ten years he was a background vocalist in the New York underground band Leisure Class. At the band’s de facto headquarters in the Chelsea Hotel, he befriended Beat godfather Herbert Huncke and San Francisco poet Marty Matz, and was inspired by their embodiment of the written word. David also collaborates with poet Aimee Herman in the poemusic collective Hydrogen Junkbox on their album Pixie Dust.


Thomas Fucaloro is a poet. He is the winner of numerous grants from the Staten Island Council of the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, NYC Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes, and the NYC Commission of Human Rights to name a few.

 


Beat/Not Beat: Rich Ferguson  |  Alexis Rhone Fancher  |  Conney Williams  |  Kathleen Florence  |  Cassandra Dallett

L.A. poet/spoken-word performer Rich Ferguson has shared the stage with Patti Smith, Wanda Coleman, Moby, and other esteemed poets and musicians.  He is a featured performer in the film, What About Me? featuring Michael Stipe, Michael Franti, k.d. lang, and others. His poetry and award-winning spoken-word music videos have appeared in numerous anthologies and festivals. Ferguson is the lead editor of an anthology of CA poets entitled Beat Not Beat (Moon Tide Press). He has been selected by the National Beat Poetry Foundation, Inc. (NBPF), to serve as U.S. Beat Poet Laureate (Sep 23 to Sep 24).


Alexis Rhone Fancher is published in Best American Poetry, Rattle, Verse Daily, The American Journal of Poetry, Plume, Diode, and elsewhere. She’s authored ten poetry collections, most recently EROTIC: New & Selected (NYQ Books), and DUETS (Small Harbor Press) an ekphrastic chapbook written with Virginia poet,  Cynthia Atkins. BRAZEN , an erotic, full-length collection, the follow up to EROTIC, published in 2023, again from NYQ. A coffee table book of Alexis’ photographs of Southern California poets will be published by Moon Tide Press in 2024. She lives in the Mojave Desert with her husband, Fancher.


Kathleen Florence writes, directs and performs for film and stage. Her poetry and visual art has been featured in Maintenant 10 – 17, Arteidolia, AIR Gallery and The Poetry Collection at the University of Buffalo. More:  https://kathleenflorence.blogspot.com

 


Conney D. Williams is a Los Angeles based poet, actor and performance artist originally from Shreveport, Louisiana where he worked as a radio personality. His latest poetry collection entitled “The Distance of Observation” was released on World Stage Press in August 2021. He is also the co-founder of World Stage Press. He released two critically acclaimed cds (2015) of his poetry accompanied by music: “Unsettled Water” and “River&Moan.” A community activist, he has worked with youth for over 35 years and was an ordained minister and Youth Pastor in the Church of God in Christ.


Cassandra Dallett has been published in over a hundred online and print magazines, was named a writer to watch in 7×7 magazine 2016. Cassandra hosts the monthly writing workshop OnTwoSix, and co-hosts the quarterly reading series Moon Drop Productions. Her first full-length book of poetry Wet Reckless (Manic D Press) was released in 2014. In 2015, she authored five chapbooks one of them, On Sunday, A Finch (Nomadic Press) was nominated for a California Book Award, 2018 brought the release of another full-length collection, Collapse, also on Nomadic Press, most recently A Pretty Little Wilderness on Be About it Press 2020.

 


Middle East Poets: Shurouk Hammoud  |  Nour Nasra

Shurouk Hammoud, born in 1982, a Syrian poetess, editor and literary translator, BA of arts graduate and a master degree graduate of text translation, Damascus University. She has four published poetry collections in Arabic language and two published poetry collection in English; excerpts of her poetry that have been published in many poetry anthologies in France, Poland, Nepal, Serbia, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Netherlands, Mexico and India. A member of Palestinian writers and journalists’ union, the Swedish writers’ union and an honorary member at NAJI Naaman international library of honorary culture. Among her awards are Charles Baudelaire first prize for poetry creativity, Sylvia Plath medal. Nazik al Malieka literary prize for writing poetry, Alexandria public library prize, and the Naji Namman international literary prize for poetry.


Nour Nasra is a poet, writer and translator who studied translation at Literature College, Tishreen University. She is based in Dubai and works as the Literary Programs Manager at Kutubna Cultural Center in Dubai.  Winner of the first prize for poetry creativity at New Delmoun Publishing House in Damascus in 2017, she is third-place winner of a short story competition at the culture center in Tartous, Syria. Author of two poetry books and seven translated books, many of her poems have been translated into Spanish, Romanian, and English languages, and published in international magazines in many European countries.

 


 

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83113464674

Meeting ID:
831 1346 4674

One tap mobile:
+16465588656,,83113464674# US (New York)
+16469313860,,83113464674# US

Dial by your location:
• +1 646 558 8656 US (New York)
• +1 646 931 3860 US
• +1 309 205 3325 US
• +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
• +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
• +1 305 224 1968 US
• +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
• +1 360 209 5623 US
• +1 386 347 5053 US
• +1 507 473 4847 US
• +1 564 217 2000 US
• +1 669 444 9171 US
• +1 669 900 9128 US (San Jose)
• +1 689 278 1000 US
• +1 719 359 4580 US
• +1 253 205 0468 US
• +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)

Meeting ID:
831 1346 4674

Find your local number:
https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kbuZO5RmhF

 


 

Support Our Literacy Programs >>

POETS BUILDING BRIDGES is produced by Poetrybay Productions for the Walt Whitman Birthplace.

Date: Saturday, May 11, 2024
Start Time: 12:00 pm EST

POETS BUILDING BRIDGES – June 8, 2024 – Long Island Poets, Maltese Diaspora, Romanian Diaspora

George Wallace and Walt Whitman Birthplace proudly present season three of POETS BUILDING BRIDGES: A TRIANGULATION PROJECT, inaugurated in March 2022 with the purpose of enhancing dialogue between communities of writers across the US and internationally. Based on a shared small-group experience, these Saturday zoom sessions engage three distinct and well defined communities of poets with each other to share work and foster further interaction. In Season Three, POETS BUILDING BRIDGES will build on that experience, triangulating national and international groups based not only on location but additionally offering key small press publications an opportunity to form a participating group.

THIS IS A ZOOM ONLY EVENT. 

Find Zoom Information Below.

Live on zoom. archived on Youtube. For Season 2 visit our YouTube Channel >>

 


Long Island Poets: Judy Turek  |  Deborah Hauser  |  Madeline Artenberg  |  Tony Policano

J R (Judy) Turek, LI Fair Superintendent of Poetry, 2020 Hometown Hero, 2019 LI Poet of the Year, Bards Laureate 2013-2015editor, mentor, workshop leader, author of seven poetry books. Recipient of two Pushcart Prize nominations and the Conklin Prize For Poetry; translated into Korean, Romanian, Italian, and French.  ‘The Purple Poet’ has written a poem a day for 19 years; she lives on Long Island with her soul-mate husband, Paul, her dogs, and her extraordinarily extensive shoe collection. msjevus@optonline.net


Deborah Hauser, Poet Laureate of Suffolk County, NY is the author of Ennui: From the Diagnostic and Statistical Field Guide of Feminine Disorders. Her poems and book reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in Ms. MagazineWomen’s Review of BooksThe Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Bellevue Literary Review, and Calyx. deborahhauser.com


Madeline Artenberg was photojournalist and street-theatre performer before falling for poetry.  Her work appears in such publications as Rattle.  She was a finalist in Mudfish 2020 contest.  A poem was nominated as Best of the Net 2020 by Poets Wear Prada.  Her poetry book, Naming a Hurricane, from Pink Trees Press, is available on Amazon Books.


Tony Policano is an Italian American poet and photographer, born in Brooklyn, raised in Queens and Long Island. He is a board member of the Long Island Poetry Collective and managing editor of Xanadu a national anthology of poems. He currently moderates a weekly Zoom workshop for poets of all levels which he started during the pandemic to support writers displaced from “in-person” workshops.

 


Maltese Diaspora: Marianne J. Sciberras  |  Nadia Mifsud Mutschler  |  John Peter Portelli  |  Imelda Serracino Inglott

Marianne J Sciberras is a native New Yorker of Maltese descent. She discovered her talent for writing at age 12, when she won a song writing contest for the Girl’s Club of New York. She knew she could sing when chosen as the lead singer in her grammar school production of The Music Man. When life got tougher, writing helped her cope. She began reading her poems and singing at open mics at age 54, after getting divorced and feeling free. A recently retired and well-seasoned Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist of 35 years, she now focuses on entertainment through poetry and singing, with or without her guitar which she taught herself to play.


Born in Malta in 1976, Nadia Mifsud Mutschler moved to France in 1998. She currently lives in Lyon, where she writes, teaches and sometimes translates. To date, she has published three books of poetry, one chapbook, one novel and a collection of short stories. As a member of the Maltese cultural organization Inizjamed, she has been involved in the organization of the Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival since 2011, which takes place every summer towards the end of August.


John Peter Portelli is professor emeritus at OISE, University of Toronto. Besides 11 academic books, he has published eight collections of poetry two collections of short stories, and a novel. Originally from Malta, he now lives between Toronto and Malta, and beyond.


Imelda Serracino Inglott was born in Haz-Zebbug, Malta on Jan 4 1946. She studied at the University of Malta and two years at Cincinnati University, worked as a pharmacist and has since retired. A member of the Latese Poets Society and International Society of Poets, her work may be found in anthologies of Maltese poets and in her book Metamorfosi.

 


Romanian Diaspora:  Claudia Serea  |  Adina Dabija  |  Ioana Ieronim  |  Mihaela Moscaliuc 

Claudia Serea is a Romanian-American poet with poems published in Consequence, Field, New Letters, Prairie Schooner, The Puritan, Oxford Poetry, among others. Her poems have been translated in Russian, French, Italian, Arabic, and Farsi, and have been featured on The Writer’s Almanac. She is the author of seven poetry collections, most recently In Those Years, No One Slept (Broadstone Books, 2023). Serea won a Pushcart Prize, the Joanne Scott Kennedy Memorial Prize from the Poetry Society of Virginia, and the New Letters Readers Award. She is a founding editor of National Translation Month, serves on the board of The Red Wheelbarrow Poets, and co-hosts their monthly readings.


Adina Dabija was born in Aiud, Romania. She worked as a journalist in Bucharest before she pursued her studies in journalism in Quebec, Canada. She now lives in New York, where she practices acupuncture and hypnosis. Her first book, poezia-papusa, was awarded the Bucharest Writers’ Association Guild Prize in 1998. She published Stare nediferentiata in 2010 for which she was awarded Tomis prize in Constanta, Romania. In 2011 she published Beautybeast (North Shore Press), her first collection of poetry in English, and in 2012 her first novel, Saman (Polirom Publishing). Some of her recent writings and interviews can be found at www.sol.center.


Ioana Ieronim is a Romanian poet, essayist, and translator. She is the author of narrative poetry in Triumph of the Water Witch (multiple editions, including in the U.K. and Germany) and Lavinia and Her DaughtersA Carpathian Elegy (U. S.), as well as the online Omnivorous SyllablesWhen Big Is Not Beautiful. (Ceaușescu’s) House of the People. Her poetry and essays were published in translation in more than 10 countries. She wrote studies on the Balkan and Israeli theater and translated poetry and drama from Shakespeare to Tony Kushner. Ieronim won the Poetry Prize of the Romanian Academy. She is a member of the PEN Center and of the Writers’ Union in Romania.


Mihaela Moscaliuc  is the author of the poetry collections Cemetery InkImmigrant Model, and Father Dirt, translator of Liliana Ursu’s Clay and Star and Carmelia Leonte’s The Hiss of the Viper, as well as editor of Insane Devotion: On the Writing of Gerald Stern and co-editor of Border Lines: Poems of Migration. She is associate professor of English at Monmouth University, NJ, and translation editor at Plume.

 

 


 

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81025522188

Meeting ID:
810 2552 2188

One tap mobile:
+16465588656,,81025522188# US (New York)
+16469313860,,81025522188# US

Dial by your location:
• +1 646 558 8656 US (New York)
• +1 646 931 3860 US
• +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
• +1 305 224 1968 US
• +1 309 205 3325 US
• +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
• +1 507 473 4847 US
• +1 564 217 2000 US
• +1 669 444 9171 US
• +1 669 900 9128 US (San Jose)
• +1 689 278 1000 US
• +1 719 359 4580 US
• +1 253 205 0468 US
• +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
• +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
• +1 360 209 5623 US
• +1 386 347 5053 US

Meeting ID:
810 2552 2188

Find your local number:
https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kgNBP5ST7

 


 

Support Our Literacy Programs >>

POETS BUILDING BRIDGES is produced by Poetrybay Productions for the Walt Whitman Birthplace.

Date: Saturday, June 8, 2024
Start Time: 12:00 pm EST

Walking With Whitman: Poetry in Performance – Moe Seager, Danny Shot, Josie Bello

Walt Whitman Birthplace Association (WWBA) presents  Walking With Whitman: Poetry in Performance, hosted by Writer-in-Residence George Wallace. The signature series, now in its 14th season, continues to bring the most intriguing figures in contemporary literature on the national scene paired with local poets on the Walt Whitman Stage.

Friday, September 6th, Walking With Whitman will feature poets Moe Seager and Danny Shot. The evening will also feature live music by Singer-Songwriter Josie Bello.  Join us for this exciting event!

Refreshments will be served starting at 6:30, music and readings start at 7:00.
There is a $10 entry fee for this event that will be collected at the door. (No registration is required)

 


 

Moe Seager lives in Paris and is declared Paris Jazz Poet Laureate 2024. He’s published 8 poetry collections and two jazz poetry studio albums. Active in Paris, NYC and elsewhere he recites spoken word and leads jazz poetry concerts with his ensemble Blue Note Metaphor. He hosts Angora Poets World Café in-bar and on Zoom. He’s translated in French, Italian, Arabic and Russian. Among recognitions he’s won the international poets prize for 100 Thousand Poets for Change hosted in Agadir, Morocco 2013 and the Best of Improvised Slam competition sponsored by Le Chat Noir Serries 2023. In 1992 and 1993 he featured twice for the Walt Whitman Cultural Arts Center Camden, New Jersey.


 

Danny Shot’s WORKS was published in 2018 by CavanKerry Press. His new collection The Jersey Slide is forthcoming from CavanKerry Press. Recent endeavors include being an Associate Editor of A Gathering of the Tribes online (2020-2023) and Poetry Editor of Red Fez (2018-2021). You can hear him talk about his family on the recent podcast: LBI Presents, Ghosts of Your Family Past from the Leo Baeck Institute. Danny lives in Hoboken, NJ (home of Frank Sinatra and baseball) where he is poet-in-residence of the Hoboken Historical Museum. Danny Shot was longtime publisher and editor of Long Shot arts and literary magazine, which he founded along with Eliot Katz in 1982 in New Brunswick, NJ. Check out his website: dannyshot.com


 

Josie Bello is a Singer-Songwriter from Huntington.  Her songs tell stories that are relatable, and explore issues that are both timely and timeless. Her newest release “Have Purpose Live Long” (2020) and her debut album “Can’t Go Home” (2018) have both had extensive U.S. & International radio play with the albums and individual tracks appearing on an impressive number of radio charts.  Josie performs solo and with her band, “The Kit House Band”.  Her music is available everywhere including Spotify, Bandcamp, iTunes and Amazon. For more information about Josie, you can visit her website at josiebello.com.


 

 

Make a meaningful gift to support our poetry programs:  https://www.paypal.com/us/fundraiser/charity/2197152

 

This program is made possible with funds from Poets and Writers, The Claire Friedlander Family Foundation, NY State Parks, Suffolk County, Town of Huntington, and NYS Council on the Arts through Huntington Arts Council.

Date: Friday, September 6, 2024
Start Time: 7:00 pm EST

POETS BUILDING BRIDGES – September 21, 2024 – Red Wheelbarrow Poets, Southern New Mexico, Indian Poets

George Wallace and Walt Whitman Birthplace proudly present season three of POETS BUILDING BRIDGES: A TRIANGULATION PROJECT, inaugurated in March 2022 with the purpose of enhancing dialogue between communities of writers across the US and internationally. Based on a shared small-group experience, these Saturday zoom sessions engage three distinct and well defined communities of poets with each other to share work and foster further interaction. In Season Three, POETS BUILDING BRIDGES will build on that experience, triangulating national and international groups based not only on location but additionally offering key small press publications an opportunity to form a participating group.

THIS IS A ZOOM ONLY EVENT. 

Find Zoom Information Below.

Live on zoom. archived on Youtube. For Season 2 visit our YouTube Channel >>

 


Red Wheelbarrow Poets: Anton Yakovlev  |  Claudia Serea  |  Moira O’Brien

Anton Yakovlev’s most recent poetry chapbook Chronos Dines Alone (SurVision Books, 2018) won the James Tate Prize. He is also the author of Ordinary Impalers (Kelsay Books, 2017) and two prior chapbooks. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry Daily, upstreet, The Hopkins Review, Plume, and elsewhere. The Last Poet of the Village: Selected Poems by Sergei Yesenin translated by Anton Yakovlev was published by Sensitive Skin Books in 2019. Anton co-hosts the Carmine Street Metrics reading series in Manhattan and the Rutherford Red Wheelbarrow reading series in Rutherford, New Jersey. He is a former education director at Bowery Poetry Club.


Moira O’Brien writes poetry on themes of physical and social loss with the occasional respite into nature. She is a member of the Red Wheelbarrow poetry group and has been published in several editions of the Red Wheelbarrow anthology.


Claudia Serea is a Romanian-American poet with poems published in Consequence, Field, New Letters, Prairie Schooner, The Puritan, Oxford Poetry, among others. Her poems have been translated in Russian, French, Italian, Arabic, and Farsi, and have been featured on The Writer’s Almanac. She is the author of seven poetry collections, most recently In Those Years, No One Slept (Broadstone Books, 2023). Serea won a Pushcart Prize, the Joanne Scott Kennedy Memorial Prize from the Poetry Society of Virginia, and the New Letters Readers Award for her poems. She is a founding editor of National Translation Month, serves on the board of The Red Wheelbarrow Poets, and co-hosts their monthly readings.


Southern New Mexico: John Roche  |  Tim Staley, Elise Stuart  |  Bruce Holsapple  |  Michelle Otero

John Roche lives in Placitas, NM where he helps Jules Nyquist run Jules’ Poetry Playhouse and edit Poetry Playhouse Publications. He is the author of five full-length collections, including Joe Rides Again (FootHills Publishing 2020).


A former Albuquerque Poet Laureate, Michelle Otero’s recent verse-and-prose memoir, Vessels: A Memoir of Borders (FlowerSong Press, 2023), deals with her childhood and young adulthood in and near Deming, New Mexico.


Tim Staley lives in Las Cruces, NM. He is the author of Lost On My Own Street, The Most Honest Syllable is Shhh, and The Pieces You Have Left.  He is faculty at Organ Mountain High School and founder/editor of Grandma Moses Press.


Elise Stuart resides in Silver City, NM and was Poet Laureate of Grant County, NM from 2014-2017. She is the author of a collection of poems, Another Door Calls, and a memoir, My Mother and I, We Talk Cat.


Bruce Holsapple lives in Magdalena, NM and has published seven books of poetry, including Wayward Shadow (La Alameda Press, 2013). His study of William Carlos Williams’ poetry, The Birth of the Imagination, was published by the University of New Mexico in 2016. He is currently at work on two new manuscripts, Sun, Wind, Rain and Strange Minstrelsy.


Indian Poets:  Sriramgokul Chinnasamy  |  G Vasanthakumaran  |  Sowrabha Karinje  |  Nitin Kulkarni, Dr Sonali Pattnaik

Sriramgokul Chinnasamy lives in Chennai, India and has M.A. in Creative Writing from Teesside University, UK. He is the author of  The Selfie Boy short story collection and A Teesside Girl poetry collection. His poems have appeared in magazines and anthologies in the UK, Ireland, Singapore, Canada and India. He also organizes ‘The Bharathi Open-Mic’ online poetry event.


G Vasanthakumaran has his six poetry collections published in Tamil, first one in 1986 and the latest in 2020. English translations of his poems have appeared in Indian Literature, India’s oldest journal. Madras Christian College, Chennai has made his collection Manidan Enbadhu Punai Peyar as a part of their curriculum for Tamil studies. His interviews with many Tamil poets have appeared as a series in the Tamil weekly, Kumudam.


Sowrabha Karinje is a writer of fiction, nonfiction and poetry in Kannada and English. Her stories, poems and articles have appeared in anthologies, magazines and blogs. She has done extensive translation work in the English-Kannada language pair. A techie by profession, she is curious about everything under the sun. When she isn’t busy writing, she is either cooking, traveling or playing badminton.


Nitin Kulkarni is from Pune, Maharashtra. His Marathi poems are published in various literary magazines. He is the author two poetry collections Everything Looks So Safe, Isn’t It?, 2001 and A Collage Of Noises, 2014. He also writes lyrics for musical albums and Hindi songs.


Dr Sonali Pattnaik (Phd) is a poet, academic, educator and visual artist from India. She was formerly Lecturer in English at Kirori Mal College, Delhi University and currently Visiting Professor of English at St. Xavier’s College, Ahmedabad. Her debut book of poetry ‘when the flowers begin to speak’ is published by Writers Workshop.


 

 

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86562679496

Meeting ID:
865 6267 9496

One tap mobile:
+16465588656,,86562679496# US (New York)
+16469313860,,86562679496# US

Dial by your location:
• +1 646 558 8656 US (New York)
• +1 646 931 3860 US
• +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
• +1 305 224 1968 US
• +1 309 205 3325 US
• +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
• +1 386 347 5053 US
• +1 507 473 4847 US
• +1 564 217 2000 US
• +1 669 444 9171 US
• +1 669 900 9128 US (San Jose)
• +1 689 278 1000 US
• +1 719 359 4580 US
• +1 253 205 0468 US
• +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
• +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
• +1 360 209 5623 US

Meeting ID:
865 6267 9496

Find your local number:
https://us02web.zoom.us/u/keCiNLFGys

 

 


 

Support Our Literacy Programs >>

POETS BUILDING BRIDGES is produced by Poetrybay Productions for the Walt Whitman Birthplace.

Date: Saturday, September 21, 2024
Start Time: 12:00 pm EST

Walking With Whitman: Poetry in Performance – Lorraine Currelley, Kate Kelly, Linda Sussman

Walt Whitman Birthplace Association (WWBA) presents  Walking With Whitman: Poetry in Performance, hosted by Writer-in-Residence George Wallace. The signature series, now in its 14th season, continues to bring the most intriguing figures in contemporary literature on the national scene paired with local poets on the Walt Whitman Stage.

Friday, September 27th, Walking With Whitman will feature poets Lorraine Currelley and Kate Kelly. The evening will also feature live music by Singer-Songwriter Linda Sussman.  Join us for this exciting event!

Refreshments will be served starting at 6:30, music and readings start at 7:00.
There is a $10 entry fee for this event that will be collected at the door. (No registration is required)

 


 

Lorraine Currelley, daughter, NY, USA 2023-Lifetime Beat Poet Laureate,  Bronx Beat Poet Laureate State of New York 2020-2022, poet, spoken word performance artist, multi-genre writer, Pearls of Wisdom storyteller, childrens’ author and multidisciplinary visual artist.  Appointed USA President Mil Mentes’ Por Mexico Association International in 2023. She’s a widely anthologized author and awards recipient. She has produced, created and curated for galleries, literary organizations and theater. Her curation credits include but are not limited to Mom Egg Review (VOX), Studio Theater in Exile, Hudson Valley MOCA, Poets Network & Exchange, Bronx Book Fair, Saint Phillips Performance & Fine Arts Center, Growing Theater, Poets Cafe, Museum of Natural History, NYC with Gap Tooth Girlfriends: The Third Act. She’s the president and executive director for  both Poets Network & Exchange, Inc and the Bronx Book Fair, Inc. She holds a Masters in Mental Health Counseling and a Masters Certificate in Thanatology (grief & bereavement). She resides in New York City.


 

Kate Kelly is a published poet and visual artist.


 

Linda Sussman (LindaSussman.com) is an award-winning singer-songwriter whose versatile vocals and guitar style cross boundaries of alternative-folk and blues. Her music, which has ranked #1 on the Roots Music Report’s weekly Alternative Folk Album Chart, spans universal topics from heartache and triumphs to calls for social justice and can be heard on radio programs in both the US and abroad. The many stages she has played range from the iconic New York City venue The Bitter End to Radio Bean in Burlington, VT. Over the past five years, Linda has released four full-length albums and several singles, all of which are available on Spotify, iTunes, Amazon, YouTube, etc.


 

Make a meaningful gift to support our poetry programs:  https://www.paypal.com/us/fundraiser/charity/2197152

 

This program is made possible with funds from Poets and Writers, The Claire Friedlander Family Foundation, NY State Parks, Suffolk County, Town of Huntington, and NYS Council on the Arts through Huntington Arts Council.

Date: Friday, September 27, 2024
Start Time: 7:00 pm EST
$10 entry fee collected at the door

POETS BUILDING BRIDGES – October 19, 2024 – NBPF Poets, Three Rooms Press, Armenian Diaspora

George Wallace and Walt Whitman Birthplace proudly present season three of POETS BUILDING BRIDGES: A TRIANGULATION PROJECT, inaugurated in March 2022 with the purpose of enhancing dialogue between communities of writers across the US and internationally. Based on a shared small-group experience, these Saturday zoom sessions engage three distinct and well defined communities of poets with each other to share work and foster further interaction. In Season Three, POETS BUILDING BRIDGES will build on that experience, triangulating national and international groups based not only on location but additionally offering key small press publications an opportunity to form a participating group.

THIS IS A ZOOM ONLY EVENT. 

Find Zoom Information Below.

Live on zoom. archived on Youtube. For Season 2 visit our YouTube Channel >>

 


NBPF Poets:  Deb Kilday  |  Paul Richmond  |  Linda Wlodyka  |  Belinda Subraman

Debbie Tosun Kilday is a Beat Poet, writer, award winning author, nature photographer, artist and owner/CEO of the National Beat Poetry Foundation, Inc., it’s Festivals, and New Generation Beat Publications. She is the author of several books, short stories and poetry. She has appeared on tv and radio. Debbie is a Connecticut native and resident. http://nationalbeatpoetryfoundation.org


Belinda Subraman has been writing poetry for decades. She had a ten year run editing and publishing Gypsy Literary Magazine (1984-94). Six of those ten years were from Germany where she published Bukowski and Burroughs. She currently is editor of GAS: Poetry, Art and Music which is an online zine, a video show and a group on Facebook. She is currently editing a book called Border Beats which will offer a balanced look of life on the border of the U.S. and Mexico.


Linda Bratcher Wlodyka retired as an educator from Mt. Greylock Regional School District in Williamstown in 2020. She has 3 chapbooks previously self-published, Her Spirited Cameo, Voices from the Blue Room and Tick Tock  If Brambles Were Bookends is Linda’s first full length poetry collection. A member of the Florence Poet’s Society, she has held the position as a docent at The Mount, Edith Wharton’s summer home in Lenox, MA.


Paul Richmond‘s poetry is described as political, deadpan and wryly humorous delivered in his own style. He has been called, “Assassin of Apathy” – “power of words / humor – on the unthinkable, the unsolvable, to analyze, to digest, to give birth, to creativity and hope.”  He has performed nationally and internationally. He created the project “Do It Now” He is also a publisher of over 50 writers and has 7 books himself.


Three Rooms Press: Kat Georges  |  Maw Shein Win  |  SA Griffin  |  Peter Carlaftes

Kat Georges is a poet, playwright, editor, publisher, and graphic designer, specializing in digital, interactive, and book design. Her books include two poetry collections (Awe and Other Words Like Wow and Our Lady of the Hunger), a collection of plays Three Somebodies: Plays about Notorious Dissidents, and several chapbooks including Punk Rock Journal and Maiden Claiming. With Peter Carlaftes, she co-edited the Have a NYC mystery/noir short story series. She is co-editor of the annual journal MAINTENANT: A Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art. She is co-director for Three Rooms Press, a New York-based independent publisher inspired by diversity, dada, punk, and passion. She lives in New York City.


Maw Shein Win’s most recent poetry collection is Storage Unit for the Spirit House (Omnidawn), nominated for the Northern California Book Award in Poetry, longlisted for the PEN America Open Book Award, and shortlisted for CALIBA’s Golden Poppy Award for Poetry. Previous collections include Invisible Gifts and two chapbooks Ruins of a glittering palace and Score and Bone. Win’s Process Note Series features poets and their process. She is the inaugural poet laureate of El Cerrito, CA and teaches poetry in the MFA Program at the University of San Francisco. Win often collaborates with visual artists, musicians, and other writers and was recently selected as a 2023 YBCA 100 Honoree. Along with Dawn Angelicca Barcelona and Mary Volmer, she is a co-founder of Maker, Mentor, Muse, a new literary community.


S.A. Griffin lives, loves and works in Los Angeles. Publishing on his own Rose of Sharon imprint since 1988, he is the editor of The Official Language of Yes! (Perceval Press) by Scott Wannberg, co-editor of The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (Thunder’s Mouth Press) for which he received the Firecracker Award, and Beat Not Beat (Moon Tide Press). Published widely, he is most recently the author of Pandemic Soul Music (Punk Hostage Press). Carma Bum, father, husband, cat lover and Vietnam era veteran of the USAF.


Peter Carlaftes is a publisher, poet, author, and actor. His books include three poetry collections (Life in the Past Lane, I Fold with the Hand I Was Dealt, and Drunkyard Dog), two collections of plays (Triumph for Rent and Teatrophy) and the humorous multimedia book A Year on Facebook. He is co-editor of the annual Dada writing and art journal, MAINTENANT. With Kat Georges, he co-edited the Have a NYC mystery/noir short story series. He also edited The Faking Of The President: 19 Stories Of White House Noir. He is co-director for Three Rooms Press, a New York-based independent publisher inspired by diversity, dada, punk, and passion. He lives in New York City.


 

Armenian Diaspora: Lola Koundakjian  |  Lory Bedikian  |   Shahé Mankerian  |  Nora Baroudjian

Lola Koundakjian (www.lolakoundakjian.com) is an Armenian poet, editor and translator living in New York City since 1979. She runs the Dead Armenian Poetry Society and curates and produces poems and audio for the online Armenian Poetry Project. Lola’s translations from Western Armenian to English are published widely. Since 2010, Lola has read her work at six international poetry festivals. In 2021 her third book — The Moon in the Cusp on my Hand — won the Minas and Kohar Tololyan Prize in Contemporary Literature. Lola serves on the board of the International Armenian Poetry Association.


Lory Bedikian earned an MFA from the University of Oregon and her collection The Book of Lamenting was awarded the Philip Levine Prize for Poetry. Several of her poems received the First Prize Award in the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry as part of the 2022 Nimrod Literary Awards. A manuscript-in-progress received a 2021 grant from the Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fund.


Poet Shahé Mankerian is the principal of St. Gregory Hovsepian School. He is on the board of International Armenian Literary Alliance (IALA). His inaugural poetry collection, History of Forgetfulness, was published by the Fly on the Wall Press in October of 2021.


Born in Lebanon and a graduate of Yerevan state university’s philology department, Nora Baroudjian started her career in journalism, joining editorial boards at Zartonk (Lebanon) and Nor Haratch ( Paris) with additional collaborations with Diasporan newspapers. She settled in France in 1986, where she teaches Armenian language and history in a school near Paris. In 2020 she formed the Swallow ԾԻԾԵՌՆԱԿ www.dzidzernag.wordpress.com blog for Armenian youth.


 

 

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81231086723

Meeting ID:
812 3108 6723

One tap mobile:
+16469313860,,81231086723# US
+16465588656,,81231086723# US (New York)

Dial by your location:
• +1 646 931 3860 US
• +1 646 558 8656 US (New York)
• +1 305 224 1968 US
• +1 309 205 3325 US
• +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
• +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
• +1 507 473 4847 US
• +1 564 217 2000 US
• +1 669 444 9171 US
• +1 669 900 9128 US (San Jose)
• +1 689 278 1000 US
• +1 719 359 4580 US
• +1 253 205 0468 US
• +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
• +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
• +1 360 209 5623 US
• +1 386 347 5053 US

Meeting ID:
812 3108 6723

Find your local number:
https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kbJjgCY6G6

 

 


 

Support Our Literacy Programs >>

POETS BUILDING BRIDGES is produced by Poetrybay Productions for the Walt Whitman Birthplace.

Date: Saturday, October 19, 2024
Start Time: 12:00 pm EST

Walking With Whitman: Poetry in Performance – Kelly Powell, Josie Bello & Open Mic

Walt Whitman Birthplace Association (WWBA) presents  Walking With Whitman: Poetry in Performance, hosted by Writer-in-Residence George Wallace. The signature series, now in its 14th season, continues to bring the most intriguing figures in contemporary literature on the national scene paired with local poets on the Walt Whitman Stage.

Friday, November 1st, Walking With Whitman will feature poet Kelly Powell and it’s Open Mic night. The evening will also feature live music by Singer-Songwriter Josie Bello.  Join us for this exciting event!

Refreshments will be served starting at 6:30, music and readings start at 7:00.
There is a $10 entry fee for this event that will be collected at the door. (No registration is required)

 


 

Kelly J. Powell is a poet native to Long Island and a graduate of SUNY Binghamton’s Creative Writing Program in 1988.  She has performed widely on Long Island and NYC. She has a new book of poems called Posthumously Yours from local gems press available on Amazon.


 

Josie Bello is a Singer-Songwriter from Huntington.  Her songs tell stories that are relatable, and explore issues that are both timely and timeless. Her newest release “Have Purpose Live Long” (2020) and her debut album “Can’t Go Home” (2018) have both had extensive U.S. & International radio play with the albums and individual tracks appearing on an impressive number of radio charts.  Josie performs solo and with her band, “The Kit House Band”.  Her music is available everywhere including Spotify, Bandcamp, iTunes and Amazon. For more information about Josie, you can visit her website atjosiebello.com.


 

Make a meaningful gift to support our poetry programs:  https://www.paypal.com/us/fundraiser/charity/2197152

 

This program is made possible with funds from Poets and Writers, The Claire Friedlander Family Foundation, NY State Parks, Suffolk County, Town of Huntington, and NYS Council on the Arts through Huntington Arts Council.

Date: Friday, November 1, 2024
Start Time: 7:00 pm EST
$10 entry fee collected at the door

POETS BUILDING BRIDGES – November 9, 2024 – Flash Boulevard Writers, Northport NY Poets, South Asian Diaspora

George Wallace and Walt Whitman Birthplace proudly present season three of POETS BUILDING BRIDGES: A TRIANGULATION PROJECT, inaugurated in March 2022 with the purpose of enhancing dialogue between communities of writers across the US and internationally. Based on a shared small-group experience, these Saturday zoom sessions engage three distinct and well defined communities of poets with each other to share work and foster further interaction. In Season Three, POETS BUILDING BRIDGES will build on that experience, triangulating national and international groups based not only on location but additionally offering key small press publications an opportunity to form a participating group.

THIS IS A ZOOM ONLY EVENT. 

Find Zoom Information Below.

Live on zoom. archived on Youtube. For Season 2 visit our YouTube Channel >>

 


 

Flash Boulevard Writers: Francine Witte  |  Gary Fincke  |  Myna Chang  |  Chelsea Stickle

Francine Witte is the author of 11 books of poetry and flash fiction. She is also a playwright. Her stories and poems have appeared in many anthologies including, Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction, Flash Fiction America, New Micro, NYC from the Inside as well as national journals. She is the flash fiction editor of FLASH BOULEVARD and South Florida Poetry Journal. Visit her website at francinewitte.com.


Gary Fincke, co-editor of the annual anthology Best Microfiction, published a collection of flash fiction in 2022 with Pelekinesis Press. His long-form collections of short stories have won the Flannery O’Connor Prize and the Elixir Press Fiction prize. His most recent book is The Mayan Syndrome: Essays, published in 2023 by Madhat Press. Its lead essay “After the Three-Moon Era” was reprinted in Best American essays 2020.


Myna Chang (she/her) is the author of The Potential of Radio and Rain. Her writing has been selected for Flash Fiction America (W. W. Norton) and Best Small Fictions. Awards include the Lascaux Prize in Creative Nonfiction, the New Millennium Award in Flash Fiction, the CutBank Books Chapbook Award, and the CRAFT Creative NonFiction Editor’s Choice Award. She hosts the Electric Sheep speculative fiction reading series. See more at MynaChang.com or @MynaChang.


Chelsea Stickle is the author of the flash fiction chapbooks Everything’s Changing (Thirty West Publishing, 2023) and Breaking Points (Black Lawrence Press, 2021). Her stories appear in The Citron ReviewPeatsmoke Journal, 100 Word Story, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and others. Her micros have been selected for Best Microfiction 2021, the Wigleaf Top 50 in 2022 and the Wigleaf Longlist in 2023. She lives in Annapolis, MD with her black rabbit George and a forest of houseplants. Read more at chelseastickle.com.


 

Northport NY Poets: Bruce Johnson  |  Emily-Sue Sloan  |  Phil Asaph  |  Linda Trott Dickman  |  Bill Graeser

Bruce Johnson is a lifelong resident of Long Island and has lived in Northport, NY for 25 years. He started writing poetry in 1990 and has been published in several journals, most notably the Long Island Quarterly. Bruce has published a full length book of poetry, Borderlands and Dreams, and is working on a second volume. With George Wallace he co-founded the Huntington Poets Café, a monthly poetry venue.


Bill Graeser currently lives in Iowa but is native to Long Island and formerly lived in Northport, NY. He has been published in the North American Review, TelePoem Both, Lyrical Iowa, and Long Island Quarterly. He is the winner of Iowa Poetry Association’s 2012 Norman Thomas Memorial Award and is author of two books of poetry: Fire in a Nutshell and Rushing is a Waste of Time, available at Lulu Press.


Phil Asaph was born and grew up in Huntington, NY. He is a transplant to the Ithaca, NY area where he continues to write prolifically and where he is a meditation teacher. Phil is happy to teach his meditation method to anyone who wants to learn—if you don’t have the money, he’ll teach you for free. Phil has published poems in Long Island Quarterly, Tampa Review and Poetry.


Linda Trott Dickman has been writing poetry since her first sleep-away camp experience when she was ten years old in the High Sierras in California. She is a recently retired school librarian and is poetry coordinator for the Northport Arts Coalition where she runs a monthly poetry reading. She serves on the education committee of the Northport Historical Society and leads a poetry workshop at Samantha’s Li’l Bit O’ Heaven coffee house in East Northport. Linda teaches poetry workshops at the Walt Whitman Birthplace in Huntington and the Vanderbilt Museum in Centerport. She is the author of the following books: Robes, The Art of Being Covered, The Air That I Breathe, Road Trip, Road Trip 2: On the Road Again, and Catching the Light.


Emily-Sue Sloane is an award-winning poet from Huntington Station, NY. After retiring from a career in business-technology publishing, she happily resumed a long-dormant poetry practice. She is the author of a full-length poetry collection, We Are Beach Glass (2022), and her poetry has won first-place awards in contests held by Calling All Writers, the Long Island Fair, Nassau County Poet Laureate Society, Performance Poets Association and Princess Ronkonkoma Productions. Her poems have appeared in many online and print journals and anthologies, including Corona; Evening Street Review; Front Porch Review; Long Island Quarterly; Long Island Sounds Anthology; Mobius Magazine; Mocking Heart Review; Nassau County Poet Laureate Society Review; The Ravens Perch; and Rumors, Secrets & Lies Anthology. She lives with her wife, singer-songwriter Linda Sussman.


South Asian Diaspora: Pramila Venkateswaran  |  Zilka Joseph  |  Megha Sood  |  Kalpa Singh-Chitnis

Pramila Venkateswaran, poet laureate of Suffolk County, Long Island (2013-15) and co-director of Matwaala: South Asian Diaspora Poetry Festival, is the author of Thirtha (Yuganta Press, 2002) Behind Dark Waters (Plain View Press, 2008), Draw Me Inmost (Stockport Flats, 2009), Trace (Finishing Line Press, 2011), Thirteen Days to Let Go (Aldrich Press, 2015), Slow Ripening (Local Gems, 2016), The Singer of Alleppey (Shanti Arts, 2018), and more recently, We are Not a Museum (Finishing Line Press, 2022). She has performed internationally, including at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival and the Festival Internacional De Poesia De Granada. An award winning poet, she teaches English and Women’s Studies at Nassau Community College, New York. Author of numerous essays on poetics as well as creative non-fiction, she is also the 2011 Walt Whitman Birthplace Association Long Island Poet of the Year. Her critical essays on Dalit poetry appear in recent issues of International Women’s Studies Journal, Journal of Contemporary Poetics, and Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics. She leads writing workshops for breast cancer patients in their healing journey. She is a founding member of Women Included, a transnational feminist association and the current President of NOW Suffolk, Long Island.


Zilka Joseph has authored five collections of poetry. Her books were nominated for PEN, ABA, and Pushcart awards. She has been widely published in international journals and anthologies. Her work is influenced by her Indian and Bene Israel roots, and Western cultures. She is the recipient of a Zell Fellowship, the Michael Gutterman award, and the Elsie Choy Lee Scholarship from the University of Michigan. Her recent chapbook Sparrows and Dust won a Notable Best Indie Book award and was a Notable Asian American Poetry Book, and her new book, In Our Beautiful Bones, is a Foreword INDIES finalist. Born and brought up in India, she now lives in Michigan, USA. She is a creative writing coach, a manuscript advisor and freelance editor.


Megha Sood is an Award-winning Asian American Poet, Editor, and Literary Activist from New Jersey, USA. She is a Literary Partner with “Life in Quarantine”, at Stanford University. Member of National League of American Pen Women (NLAPW), Women’s National Book Association, and United Nations Association-US Chapter. She is the recipient of the 2021 Poet Fellowship from MVICW (Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creating Writing), a 2022 mini-grant for Kundiman, a 2020 National Level Winner for the Poetry Matters Project, and a Four-Time State Level Winner for NAMI NJ Dara Axelrod Poetry Award. Her works have been nominated for Pushcart and Best of Net. She is an Associate Editor for the literary journals Mookychick(UK) and Brownstone Poets (USA). Author of Chapbook ( “My Body is Not an Apology”, Finishing Line Press, 2021) and Full Length (“My Body Lives Like a Threat”, FlowerSongPress,2022). Her widely anthologized poems, essays, and other works talk about her experience as a first-generation immigrant and woman of color. Her co-edited anthology and a few selected poems The Medusa Project has been selected as a digital payload to be sent to the moon in 2024 as part of the historical LunarCodex Project in collaboration with NASA/SpaceX


Kalpna Singh-Chitnis is an Indian-American poet, writer, filmmaker, and author of six poetry collections, including “Love Letters to Ukraine from Uyava” (River Paw Press), a finalist at the 2023 International Book Awards, and “Trespassing My Ancestral Lands,” forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. Her works have appeared in notable journals and anthologies worldwide. Notably, “Sunflowers: Ukrainian Poetry on War, Resistance, Hope, and Peace,” an anthology curated and edited by her, was shortlisted for the 2023 National Indie Excellence® Awards. Her poetry has been translated into eighteen languages. In addition to being a nominee for a Pushcart Prize, she is a recipient of the “Bihar Rajbhasha Award,” “Rajiv Gandhi Global Excellence Award,” and “Bihar Shri.” Poems from her award-winning book “Bare Soul” and her poetry film “River of Songs” have been selected to go to the moon with NASA’s missions in 2023. A former lecturer of Political Science, she is also an Advocacy Member at the United Nations Association of the USA.


 

 

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85919435823

Meeting ID:
859 1943 5823

One tap mobile:
+16469313860,,85919435823# US
+16465588656,,85919435823# US (New York)

Dial by your location:
• +1 646 931 3860 US
• +1 646 558 8656 US (New York)
• +1 305 224 1968 US
• +1 309 205 3325 US
• +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
• +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
• +1 719 359 4580 US
• +1 253 205 0468 US
• +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
• +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
• +1 360 209 5623 US
• +1 386 347 5053 US
• +1 507 473 4847 US
• +1 564 217 2000 US
• +1 669 444 9171 US
• +1 669 900 9128 US (San Jose)
• +1 689 278 1000 US

Meeting ID:
859 1943 5823

Find your local number:
https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kl0GMNAqF

 


 

Support Our Literacy Programs >>

POETS BUILDING BRIDGES is produced by Poetrybay Productions for the Walt Whitman Birthplace.

Date: Saturday, November 9, 2024
Start Time: 12:00 pm EST

POETS BUILDING BRIDGES – December 14, 2024 – Flower Litter Poets, Bolton UK, Cleveland Poets

George Wallace and Walt Whitman Birthplace proudly present season three of POETS BUILDING BRIDGES: A TRIANGULATION PROJECT, inaugurated in March 2022 with the purpose of enhancing dialogue between communities of writers across the US and internationally. Based on a shared small-group experience, these Saturday zoom sessions engage three distinct and well defined communities of poets with each other to share work and foster further interaction. In Season Three, POETS BUILDING BRIDGES will build on that experience, triangulating national and international groups based not only on location but additionally offering key small press publications an opportunity to form a participating group.

THIS IS A ZOOM ONLY EVENT. 

Find Zoom Information Below.

Live on zoom. archived on Youtube. For Season 2 visit our YouTube Channel >>

 


 

Flower Litter Poets: Mimi German  |  Karlostheunhappy  |  Pankhuri Sinha

Mimi German is an American poet who resides in the Steens Mountain wilderness of Oregon listening to the songs of Coyote coming down from the hills. She is Oregon’s first Beat Poet Laureate and the author of Beneath the Gravel Weight of Stars, Where Grasses Bend, and Flowers of the Litter.  


Pankhuri Sinha Bilingual poet, story writer and translator from India. Two poetry collections published in English, two story collections published in Hindi, six poetry collections published in Hindi, and many more are lined up. Has been published in many journals, anthologies, home and abroad. Has won many prestigious, national-international awards, like the Girija Kumar Mathur Award, Chitra Kumar Shailesh Matiyani Award, Seemapuri Times Rajeev Gandhi Excellence Award, First prize for poetry by Rajasthan Patrika, awards in Chekhov festival in Yalta and in Premio Besio Poetry competition in Italy, Sahitto award in Bangladesh, and Premio Galateo in Italy for poetry in mother tongue. Has been translated in over twenty seven languages.


Karlostheunhappy hails from the dark Forest of Dean, England. His work has featured in International Times, Beatdom and numerous anthologies. His first collection was published by Gloomy for Pleasure in 2021, entitled OBLIVION: 200 Seasons (of pain and magic) and collects 30 years of writing. His second collection is called FLUX: the turning leaves.


Bolton UK: Dave Morgan  |  Linda Downs  |  David Wigmore  |   Laura Taylor

Dave Morgan is a writer and specialist in community learning. He has recently produced a series of radio plays for Bolton FM inspired by the work of local community groups. He is addicted to organising things and is responsible for open mic nights, jazz events, cultural cabarets, workshops and anthologies as part of his executive role with Bolton voluntary organisation Live from Worktown. He is currently editing his second poetry collection for Flapjack Press.


Linda Downs is a housing officer from Manchester who supports the homeless. Linda found her voice after leaving a relationship in lockdown. She has been sharing her work ever since at open mics and is a regular contributor to North West publications and anthologies. A champion of the under-dog, her writing explores love, trauma and a woman’s place in society.


Dave Wigmore uses imagined tales of washed-up minor celebrities, half-heard stories passed down through his family, and brief encounters with strangers, to create a surreal and peculiar world, attempting to examine who we are behind our facade of pride and affectation. We live small, mundane lives that are richly dressed with subtle acts of kindness, humour and humanity. Dave is from Bolton, northern England. He wants his poems to inspire a sense of laughter and fun, warmth and love, and just a tiny amount of menace.


Obsessed with words and language since her early childhood, Laura Taylor believes in the power of poetry as a means by which silent voices speak and hidden ears listen. She is a regular performer at festivals, gigs and fundraisers. Now in her prime, she understands fully the potency of kindness in a world intent on creating division. Her drabble pamphlet, Dear Audrey (and other drabbles) was published in February 2022. Her third poetry collection was published by Flapjack Press in August 2021. ‘Speaking in Tongues’ is a rallying call for action and challenges inequality, oppression and division with passion, objectivity, empathy and humour. It explores the slippery and inconclusive condition of language, the power of ideology, and the process of myth-making.


Cleveland Poets: John Burroughs  |  Judith Mansour  |  Dianne Borsenik

John Burroughs of Cleveland is the 2022-2023 U.S. National Beat Poet Laureate. He previously served as the 2019-2021 Ohio Beat Poet Laureate. He is a dynamic performer who has wowed audiences from Oakland to New York City and myriad points in between. His dozen plus books include, most recently, The Wrest of the Worthwhile (2023, Far Queue Press) and Rattle and Numb: Selected and New Poems, 1992-2019 (2019, Venetian Spider Press). He currently maintains the Cleveland Poetics blog and Northeast Ohio literary calendar and has served since 2008 as the founding editor for Crisis Chronicles Press, publishing over one hundred books by esteemed writers from around the world. Find him at www.crisischronicles.com.


Judith Mansour taught English at Cleveland State University, worked as editor and associate publisher for Northern Ohio Live Magazine, senior editor for Angle Magazine, and publisher for Fresh Water Cleveland. During her tenure as executive director at The LIT: Cleveland’s Literary Center, which sadly closed in 2011, she conceived of MUSE magazine which spotlighted the interplay of words and images, with art director Tim Lachina. She has worked in the academic, nonprofit, and arts community for too long to acknowledge. Her life is ruled by love of her family, words, food, and a pack of unruly cats who barely tolerate her, her husband, and daughter living in their home. She currently works as Chief Advancement Officer at Beaumont School in Cleveland Heights. Kan Zaman, published by Crisis Chronicles Press, is her first full collection of poetry and prose.


Dianne Borsenik is active in the northern and mid-Ohio poetry communities. Recent work has appeared in I Thought I Heard a Cardinal Sing: Ohio’s Appalachian Voices (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2022), Songs of Wild Ohio (Last Exit Press, 2023), and Poem for Cleveland (Red Giant Books, 2023). Raga for What Comes Next, a full-length collection of Borsenik’s poems, was featured in the 2023 Modern and Contemporary American Poetry course at Muskingum University. A new collection, Flight of Honey, was published earlier this year by Luchador Press. Speak of the Devil, an award-winning cocktail bar in Lorain, Ohio, named a cocktail after her (“Borsenik’s Law”), and Lit Youngstown printed her poem “Disco” on their tee shirts, both of which make her feel like a rock star. Find her on Facebook and at www.dianneborsenik.com.


 

 

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84155056747

Meeting ID:
841 5505 6747

One tap mobile:
+16469313860,,84155056747# US
+16465588656,,84155056747# US (New York)

Dial by your location:
• +1 646 931 3860 US
• +1 646 558 8656 US (New York)
• +1 305 224 1968 US
• +1 309 205 3325 US
• +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
• +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
• +1 669 900 9128 US (San Jose)
• +1 689 278 1000 US
• +1 719 359 4580 US
• +1 253 205 0468 US
• +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
• +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
• +1 360 209 5623 US
• +1 386 347 5053 US
• +1 507 473 4847 US
• +1 564 217 2000 US
• +1 669 444 9171 US

Meeting ID:
841 5505 6747

Find your local number:
https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kxwD5Nmhz

 

 


 

Support Our Literacy Programs >>

POETS BUILDING BRIDGES is produced by Poetrybay Productions for the Walt Whitman Birthplace.

Date: Saturday, December 14, 2024
Start Time: 12:00 pm EST