Walt Whitman Birthplace Association (WWBA) presents  Poetry in Performance: Walking With Whitman, hosted by Writer-in-Residence George Wallace. The signature series, now in its 12th season, continues to bring the most intriguing figures in contemporary literature on the national scene paired with local poets on the Walt Whitman Stage. Join us for this season’s last Walking With Whitman on Friday, November 4th. It will feature Judy Turek, author of 24 in 24, Midnight on the Eve of Never, B is for Betwixt and Between, A is for Almost Anything, Imagistics, and They Come And They Go.  The evening will also feature an open mic.  Join us for this exciting event!

As part of our Intersections: African American Voices of Democracy Series, WWBA reprises the successful Favorite Poem Project created by US Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky. Community members of all ages are invited to bring and read their favorite African American poetry. Additionally, WWBA Trustee Dr. Susan Fishbein coordinates with Dr. Nicolette James, the chair of Westbury High School’s English Department, to work with students who will read and offer comments about African American poetry. Lorraine Currelley emcees the afternoon.

Submit your favorite African American poem:  Poems will be randomly selected at the event and you may have the opportunity to read your poem. 15 poems will be selected, you must be here in person to do a reading.

Submit your poem:  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1J6w2GUSgk5IUHFl1SAG_Md-I6nOc7bYHrHWfJLb1YYY/edit

Lorraine Currelley, poet, spoken word artist, Bronx Beat Poet Laureate 2020-2022 State of New York, multi-genre writer, Pearls of Wisdom storyteller, educator, art/literary curator and visual artist. Widely anthologized in numerous publications. The executive director for Poets Network & Exchange a multi-award winning literary organization, where she curates and produces featured poetry, spoken word readings, writing workshops, panel discussions, an open mic, a blog and a scholar lecture series. In 2017 she made herstory becoming the first female executive director for the Bronx Book Fair, the premiere and largest literary event in the Bronx.  She has curated exhibits for Mom Egg Review (VOX), Studio Theater in Exile and Hudson Valley MOCA among others. She is a board member at Pen to Mind Books & Child Development, Concepts Inc. and Blind Beggar Press Inc. and adviser for Writing for Peace. She has an MS in Mental Health Counseling, a graduate certificate in Thanatology (grief & bereavement). A former chaplain, she writes and works to change the present negative societal image and narrative on aging and mental health to a healthy paradigm on mental health, age and ageing. She resides in New York City. https://www.pw.org/directory/writers/lorraine_currelley

Register for the event: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1n7wV5F-wQdsNfbhPRwNaX57xrX8C8iBzWU0_Ms-FDoU/edit

Zoom link to view event: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83726065951

This event has a $5 suggested donation:
https://www.paypal.com/us/fundraiser/charity/2197152

Sponsored by HNY SHARP Action Grant

Six consecutive Thursday evenings starting  October 13th, 6:30 – 8:30PM EST

WWBA is delighted to present our Fall Humanities Book Series, “Land, Liberty, and Loss” focusing on the land and liberties lost by Native Americans in the early years of America’s expansion. Participants will together read, “Why You Can’t Teach United States History Without American Indians,” a volume of nineteen essays written by leading scholars which offers a new perspective on historical events. The facilitator, Mandy Jackson, is a member of the Montaukett Indian Nation and facilitator/discussion leader of the Montaukett Indian Nation Book Club.

Educator Mandy Jackson is a member of the Montaukett Indian Nation and facilitator/discussion leader of the Montaukett Indian Nation Book Club. She is a member of the Montaukett Womens Circle, served as a member of the Suffolk County Native American Advisory Board, and is an advocate for the Montaukett people. Additional outreach includes participation in the virtual presentation “Exploring the Spring Sky: A Northeastern Native American Perspective” in collaboration with the Hamptons Observatory and Amagansett Library. As facilitator/moderator of discussion related to an Indigenous film documentary, including book and panelist discussion Bayshore- Brightwaters Library, New York “Communication, interaction, discussion…”(Newsday, “The Pages of History, February 27, 2023, pg.E3).

Thirteen copies of the book, “Why You Can’t Teach United States History Without American Indians,” are on loan from Humanities New York for for a $5.00 deposit which will be refunded when the book is returned at the close of the book discussion. They are available for pick up at Walt Whitman Birthplace Association, 246 Old Walt Whitman Road, Huntington Station, NY 11746. Please email events@waltwhitman.org to schedule a time for pick up.

Week 1:  Thursday, October 13, 2022 6:30 – 8:30 PM Zoom – U.S. History to 1877 – Essays 1 – 4

1. Borders and Borderlands by Juliana Barr
2. Encounter and Trade in the Early Atlantic World by Susan Sleeper- Smith
3. Rethinking the “American Paradox”: Bacon’s Rebellion, Indians, and the U.S. History Survey by James D. Rice
4. Recentering Indian Women in the American Revolution by Sarah M. S. Pearsall

Week 2:  Thursday, October 20, 2022 6:30 – 8:30 PM Zoom – U.S. History to 1877 (cont.) – Essays 5 – 8

1. The Empty Continent: Cartography, Pedagogy, and Native American History by Adam Jortner
2. The Doctrine of Discovery, Manifest Destiny and the American Indians by Robert J. Miller
3. Indians and the California Gold Rush by Jean M. O’Brien
4. Why You Can’t Teach the History of U.S. Slavery without American Indians by Paul T. Conrad

Week 3:  Thursday, October 27, 2022 6:30 – 8:30 PM Zoom – Civil War, U.S. History Since 1877 – Essays 9 – 12

1. American Indians and the Civil War by Scott Manning Stevens
2. Indian Warfare in the West, 1861-1890 by Jeffrey Ostler
3. America’s Indigenous Reading Revolution by Phillip H. Round
4. “Working” from the Margins: Documenting American Indian Participation in the New Deal Era by     Mindy J. Morgan

Week 4:  Thursday, November 3, 2022 6:30 – 8:30 PM Zoom – U.S. History Since 1877 (cont.) – Essays 13 – 15

1. Positioning the American Indian Self-Determination Movement in the Era of Civil Rights by John J. Laukaitis
2. American Indians Moving to Cities by David R.M. Beck and Rosalyn R. Lapier
3. Beyond the Judeo-Christian Tradition? Restoring American Indian Religion to 20th Century U.S. History by Jacob Betz

Week 5:  Thursday, November 10, 2022 6:30 – 8:30 PM Zoom – Reconceptualizing the Narrative – Essays 16 – 18

1. Powering Modern America: Indian Energy and Postwar Consumption by Andrew Neeham
2. Teaching American History as Settler Colonialism by Mikal Brotnov Eckstrom and Margaret D. Jacobs
3. Federalism: Native, Federal and State Sovereignty by K. Tsianina Lomawaima

Week 6:  Thursday, November 17, 2022 6:30 – 8:30 PM Zoom – Essay 19 and Wrap-Up / Roundtable

1. Global Indigeneity, Global Imperialism, and It’s Relationship to Twentieth-Century U.S. History by Chris Andersen

There is a $10 registration fee that covers 6 meetings.
To pay, click here: https://www.paypal.com/us/fundraiser/charity/2197152

To Register, click here: https://forms.gle/TvZHzHnZoo4kDZja9

This Series is Sponsored by a Humanities New York Reading and Discussion Grant

Signature Series “Poetry in Performance: Walking With Whitman”  – Live Poetry Readings

Walt Whitman Birthplace Association (WWBA) presents  Poetry in Performance: Walking With Whitman, hosted by Writer-in-Residence George Wallace. The signature series, now in its 12th 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, October 7th Walking With Whitman will feature Robert Gibbons author of Close to the Tree (Three Rooms Press, 2012) and Flight (Poets Wear Prada, 2019) and Doreen (Dd.) Spungin author of  Tomorrow Smells Invisible (Words With Wings Press, 2020). Join us for this exciting event!

Robert Anthony Gibbons, a native Floridian, came to New York City in 2007 in search of his muse Langston Hughes and found a vibrant contemporary poetry community at the Cornelia Street Cafe, the Green Pavilion, Nomad’s Choir, Brownstone Poets, Hydrogen JukeBox, Saturn Series, and Phoenix among other venues. His first book, Close to the Tree, was published by the New York-based Three Rooms Press in 2012. He is an Obsidian Fellow (2019). He is a Cave Canem Fellow (2019-2021) and has received residencies from the Norman Mailer Foundation (2017) and the DISQUIET International Literary Program (2018). In 2018 he completed his MFA at City College. Robert has been published in over thirty literary magazines and in several notable anthologies. Recent publication credits include Expound, Promethean, Turtle Island Quarterly, Killer Whale, and Suisun Valley Review, and the Bronx Memoir Project: Vol. 2 published by the Bronx Council of the Arts. Robert’s first collection, Close to the Tree, was published by Three Rooms Press (2012). His chapbook, Flight, was published by Poets Wear Prada (2019) and his collaboration with Brooklyn based visual artist, Amy Williams, Some Little Words was published 440 Gallery, Brooklyn (2021)

Brooklyn  native, Dd. Spungin, author of the collection, Tomorrow Smells Invisible (Words With Wings Press, 2020) hosts events for Poets In Nassau and Performance Poets Association on Long Island. Her poetry can be found in anthologies and in print and on-line journals, most recently: L I Quarterly; Corona, An Anthology of Poems; Maintenant 16; First Literary Review East; Poets To Come; The Avocet; Paumonok, Transition; Nassau County Poet Laureate Society Review, and PPA Literary Review. Several of her poems have been set to music by NY composer, Julie Mandel.

No registration is required, there is a $10 entry fee for this event that will be collected at the door. 

Refreshments will be served.

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 the Statewide Community Regrant Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and is administered by The Huntington Arts Council, Inc., Poets and Writers, and New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

Walt Whitman Birthplace Association (WWBA) presents  Poetry in Performance: Walking With Whitman, hosted by Writer-in-Residence George Wallace. The signature series 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 2nd, Walking With Whitman will feature Nicholas Samaras, the author of “Hands of the Saddlemaker” (Yale University Press, 1992) and Bruce Johnson  author of “Borderlands and Dreams.”

Nicholas Samaras is the author of “Hands of the Saddlemaker” (Yale University Press, 1992) and “American Psalm, World Psalm” (Ashland Poetry Press, 2014). Having lived in ten countries, he writes on exile and issues of belonging.

Bruce Johnson is a Northport, LI resident, a lifelong lover of poetry, and a co-founder of poetry in performance scenes in Huntington such as the Paris Cafe and the Huntington Poetry Barn. He recently published a collection of poems, ‘Borderlands and Dreams,” mostly narrative poems written over three decades exploring the power of memory and dreams in our experiences as contemporary Americans and including a section describing experiences working in a homeless shelter as well as with child protective and adult protective services.

No registration is required, there is a $10 entry fee for this event that will be collected at the door. 

Refreshments will be served. 

This program is made possible with funds from the Statewide Community Regrant Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and is administered by The Huntington Arts Council, Inc. 

Walt Whitman Birthplace Association will be burying a Time Capsule on Friday, August 5, 2022, at 1PM at the Walt Whitman Birthplace State Historic Site. The ceremony will also commemorate William T. Walter, Ph.D. (1931-2020) for his long-time leadership and lasting contributions to WWBA as Trustee, Officer, and Member (1981-2020). The Time Capsule will contain Whitman memorabilia, related artifacts, written historic texts and books. We will include newspaper articles of the current times reflecting a significant economic, political, or social news event.

A boulder will be placed at the site with a commemorative plaque inscribed: “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.” W.W., Song of Myself, Section 52. This project was initiated during the bicentenary year of Walt’s birth, 2019. The time capsule will be opened during Walt’s 250th birthday celebration in 2069.

The ceremony will take place under a tent with refreshments served. No registration is required, all are welcome.

Make a Meaningful Gift to Support Walt Whitman Birthplace:  https://www.paypal.com/us/fundraiser/charity/2197152

Join us in person on July 27, 2022 at 7PM for a poetry reading with Nancy Keating and Deborah Hauser, and open mic night. 

Open Mic – Registration at the door, first come, first serve basis.

A fellow poet has written: “Nancy has worked tirelessly to promote poetry in Babylon Village.  Her poetry reflects her life, her surroundings on Long Island and many life lessons as seen through the her eyes. Like Walt Whitman, Nancy’s poems are accessible to any listener.”

Nancy Keating is a longtime advocate for poetry on Long Island. She was co-host of “Poetry in the Village” reading series under auspices of the Babylon Village Arts Council (2009-2012 and 2014 to date). She is the founding business manager of Milkweed Editions (formerly Milkweed Chronicle), 1981. Nancy’s books include, Always Looking Back (Pangaea Press, 2010), White Chick (Elixir Press, 2021) won the Antivenom Prize, chapbook, The Patron Saints of Knitting, (Finishing Line Press, 2022).  Her poems have appeared in a multitude of publications, including Poetry Daily (online), New Letters, Gettysburg Review, Carolina Quarterly, Southampton Review, American Life in Poetry (online), and elsewhere, as well as several anthologies. As a Featured Reader, Nancy appeared in “Walking with Whitman” reading series; the Green’s Café series, Cornucopia Noshery, Amityville, New York; Caffe Portofino, Northport, NY; Colgate Writers Conference, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York, along with numerous group readings events.  A graduate of Bucknell University and the University of Minnesota, she has an MFA from Stony Brook University and teaches at Farmingdale State College. She is married to fellow poet Tom Stock.

Deborah Hauser is the author of Ennui: From the Diagnostic and Statistical Field Guide of Feminine Disorders (Finishing Line Press, 2011). Her poetry has appeared in journals such as The Found Poetry Review, Long Island Quarterly, Poetrybay and The Long Islander. She received third prize in the Farmingdale Poetry and Suffolk County Community College Literary Journal contests and received honorable mentions or was a finalist in the following contests: Nassau County Poet Laureate Society, Goodreads, Great Neck Plaza, Crab Creek Review, and Science Fiction Poetry Association.  Deborah graduated from Stony Brook University with a Masters in English Literature and has taught at Stony Brook University and Suffolk County Community College.

The Gwenn A. Nusbaum / WWBA Poets To Come Scholarship Committee has selected Hua Xi (they/she) as the 2022 Scholarship recipient. Walt Whitman Birthplace Association (WWBA) founded the Gwenn A. Nusbaum / WWBA “Poets To Come” Scholarship Award. This $1500 scholarship is offered in the spirit of Walt Whitman’s poem, “Poets to Come: POETS to come! / Not to-day is to justify me and answer what I am for,/ But you, a new brood…/Leaving it to you to prove and define it,/Expecting the main things from you.”

During the scholarship year, Hua plans to publish a first chapbook of poetry and finish a first poetry book manuscript.  Hua is interested in the mind and its internal languages, and writes about ways “we internally process the pain of the world.  The interior world can be as vast as the actual one, a place where things happen both forwards and backwards, simultaneously and years apart, where everything is true but nothing is real.”

This event has a $5 suggested donation:  https://www.paypal.com/us/fundraiser/charity/2197152

YouTube Video Link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3YqbyyANSM&ab_channel=WaltWhitman

WWBA collaborates with community members to interpret Jupiter Hammon’s poetry in historical contexts. Hammon (1711-ca. 1806) is known as a founder of African-American literature. Born into slavery, Hammon published his first poem, “An Evening Thought. Salvation by Christ with Penitential Cries,” at 50 years of age. He gained wide circulation and used his Christian biblical foundation to criticize the institution of slavery. Robert Hughes, Huntington Town Historian, discusses his book “Slavery in Huntington and its Abolition.”  Lauren Brincat, Curator of Preservation Long Island (PLI), discusses their major initiative to interpret Hammon’s life while enslaved at the Joseph Lloyd Manor house in Lloyd Harbor. Poet David Mills discusses Jupiter Hammon, the man and the poet, and reads his own poetry.

This event has a $5 suggested donation:  https://www.paypal.com/us/fundraiser/charity/2197152

YouTube Video Link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqqIsi9kwZY&ab_channel=WaltWhitman