WWBA invites you on an international journey for Walt Whitman’s 202nd Birthday Celebration! Watch “Leaves of Grass” video readings and view Whitman-inspired artwork. Please see the links mentioned in this video below. Thank you to everyone that contributed to this celebration.

Event Video Link: https://youtu.be/57UK9ePkh-0

Virtual “meet the artists” reception for YAWP, WWBA’s group art exhibition on view in person through January 7, 2022.

An exhibition featuring local artists’ interpretations of Section 52 from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”. “The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering. I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world…” Each artist will be included in a temporary exhibit in our Gathering House that will be on view during tours of the Birthplace. Due to the need for social distancing, the in-person exhibit is currently postponed; however we are very excited to present all of the artwork that was submitted online in video format.

Event Video Link:  https://youtu.be/BnBKaOp6u84

Walking With Whitman featuring poets Rommi Smith and Deborah Hauser with musician Rori Kelly to continue our 11th year in this signature series.

Event Video Link: https://youtu.be/_uuTCrPbF4M

WWBA is delighted to present the 11th season of Walking With Whitman, hosted by Writer-in-Residence George Wallace.(All links mentioned in this video are below). The signature series continues to bring the most intriguing figures in contemporary literature on the national scene paired with local poets on WWBA’s Virtual Stage. May’s featured readers are British poet Rommi Smith and local poet Deborah Hauser. Live performance by Long Island Singer-Songwriter Rorie Kelly!

Rommi Smith is an award-winning poet, playwright, theatre-maker, performer and librettist. Winner of numerous prestigious residencies and commissions for institutions ranging from the British Council to the BBC, she is a three-time BBC writer-in-residence. She is the inaugural British Parliamentary Writer in Residence and inaugural Poet-in-Residence for Keats’ House, Hampstead. Her writing is published by Bloodaxe, New York University Press, Seren, Shoestring Press, Route, Oberon Modern Plays, and Peepal Tree Press, among others. In 2018, she founded her own production company and small press: 125th& Midnight. Rommi is finalising her practice-led PhD. A Visiting Scholar at City University New York (CUNY), she has presented her work at institutions including: The Segal Theater, The Schomburg Center for Research in Black culture and City College New York. Her academic writing was first published by New York University Press as part of the groundbreaking book Imagining Queer Methods (2019).

Deborah Hauser is the author of Ennui: From the Diagnostic and Statistical Field Guide of Feminine Disorders. Her poems and book reviews have appeared in Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Bellevue Literary Review, The Cortland Review, and SWWIM. She has taught at Stony Brook University and Suffolk County Community College. She leads a double life on Long Island where she works in the insurance industry.

Rorie Kelly makes ladybeast music. Her life’s mission is to create music that inspires others to love themselves fiercely and become their own heroes. Rorie’s empowerment anthem “If You Teach a Bird to Sing” led her to perform at the Obama White House and earned her a top 10 staff pick from WFUV’s John Platt. Rorie performs weekly on her livestream Monday Night Muses, and you can tune in every Monday night from 7pm-9pm ET on her Facebook, Youtube, or Twitch page. Her new album Shadow Work is a big, dark, witchy album about healing wounds and shining a light in the darkness. It can be found on all streaming platforms or purchased on her website – shop.roriekelly.com

Poetry reading and music with John L. Wright, MD and Linda Sussman. WWBA is delighted to present a live poetry reading with Physician and Poet John L. Wright with Singer-Songwriter Linda Sussman. The evening focused on poetry exploring humanity’s relationship and place among the fauna and flora of the natural world.

Event Video Link: https://youtu.be/pwlM1kpBA0s

John L. Wright, MD practiced internal medicine and endocrinology at the Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, Washington from 1964 to 1989, during this time he was also Associate Medical Director with responsibilities for, among other duties, the residency training programs and the continuing education conferences presented by the medical staff. From 1989 to 1994 he served as Vice President for Medical Staff Affairs. He is a Clinical Professor Emeritus in Medicine at the University of Washington, and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians. John L. Wright, MD is a retired physician who wrote his first poem as an assignment for a short story writing class; It was 1988, He was 59 years-old. For the next 30 plus years, the making and sharing of his poetry has enriched his life beyond measure. During this time he published five collections of poems, the last, The Loveliness of this World, was published in 2020 by Finishing Line Press. His poems have appeared in 13 anthologies. And In February of last year, his poem “What Poetry Taught me About Hope” was published by Passager Books. As a physician, his early poems arose from life experiences with patients and colleagues, Then, when he began experience his own illnesses, his poems became “songs of myself.” Over the last decade he has become more interested in nature, more specifically in man’s place amongst the fauna and flora. Working with a photographer, they have created a book entitled Our Connected Lives: Birds, Flowers, and Poetry. They are looking for a publisher.

Linda Sussman is a Long Island, NY-based recording artist whose music blurs the lines of contemporary folk and blues. Linda’s music has received international airplay–from New York stations WFUV and WUSB to other parts of the US, UK, Europe, Israel and elsewhere. Just 6 weeks after its February 2021 release, Linda’s latest album, titled These Walls, ranked #1 on the Roots Music Report’s “Top 50 Alternative Folk Album Chart” (wk 4/3/21). Pre-pandemic, Linda was touring the East Coast as a solo artist and at times performing with her studio musicians under the name the Linda Sussman Collective, including gigs at NYC’s iconic The Bitter End. Linda’s music is available on all streaming sites; much more on her website at lindasussman.com

Pioneers of Poetry and Paint: Virtual tours of Walt Whitman Birthplace House and the Pollock-Krasner studio with a poetry workshop.

Event Video Link:  https://youtu.be/nNNLcoTsvlc

This special live virtual event takes Zoom visitors on a tour through the homes of Long Island’s world famous creative pioneers, poet Walt Whitman and painters Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner. (See all links mentioned in this video below). Visit the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in East Hampton and the Walt Whitman Birthplace Museum in South Huntington. Tour guides discuss innovative approaches to creativity, such as tapping into one’s stream-of-consciousness for inspiration and exploring abstraction, physicality, rhythm, metaphor, and free verse. Following the virtual tours, participants were prompted to write Whitmanesque free verse poetry inspired by Pollock’s painting. The Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center tour guide is Education Coordinator, Joyce Raimondo. Leading the tour through Walt Whitman Birthplace is Docent Guide Supervisor Iris Jumper. The poetry workshop leader is Christina M. Rau, poet and professor.

Poetry reading and awards ceremony for 2021 Long Island Poet of the Year Cliff Bleidner.

Event Video Link: https://youtu.be/aX72R5spKGw

The Long Island Poet of the Year Award is an annual award given by WWBA to honor a notable and distinguished local poet who actively promotes poetry on Long Island. This year Cliff Bleidner was nominated and selected as WWBA LI Poet of the Year. (All links mentioned in this video are below) WWBA Trustee President Jack Coulehan, MD presented Board salutations, WWBA 2019 LI Poet of the Year J R Turek offered personal remarks, and Trustee Richard Bronson, MD, introduced Honoree Cliff Bleidner who will offered a live virtual poetry reading.

Cliff Bleidner writes haiku poetry and has received recognition among local writers as a distinguished poet and organizer in the Long island poetry community. He was a cofounder and coordinator of the Performance Poets Association (PPA), Long Island’s largest poetry organization. He also manages the annual PPA poetry contest, now in its 25th year. He has co-hosted PPA poetry events at more than a dozen different locations across Long Island. Due to his dedication for the PPA, it has been a successful outlet for the many Long Island poets. Cliff also assembles the PPA Literary Review manuscript from the judge’s decisions of submissions; the most recent publication in 2020, its 24th consecutive year. Cliff Bleidner has presented lectures on Dante and has held Haiku workshops, and formalist poet seminars. Cliff’s poems have been published in, 24 issues of the PPA Literary Review, The Haiku Calendar, Long Island Sounds, Paumanok I: Poems and Pictures of Long island, Paumanok II: Interwove and Writing Outside the Lines, among many others.

Poetry reading to celebrate the release of Corona: An Anthology of Poems edited by Gayl Teller, the Nassau County Poet Laureate for 2009-11 and the 2016 Walt Whitman Birthplace Poet of the Year.

Event Video Link:  https://youtu.be/tzDGcH_nHhI

A live poetry reading to celebrate the release of “Corona: An Anthology of Poems” edited by Gayl Teller, the Nassau County Poet Laureate for 2009-11 and the 2016 Walt Whitman Birthplace Poet of the Year. (All links mentioned in this video are below). This luminous collaboration of 98 poets, including many poets laureate from the US and abroad, evinces a kaleidoscope of perspectives and experiences during our historic and traumatic time of pandemic and racial strife. Celebrate Poetry Month with us on Zoom during a live reading with a diverse group of poets sharing their reflections on the quarantine, social distancing, masks, and other aspects of the global pandemic.

The reading and discussion series The Fire THIS Time, led by Indran Amirthanayagam, about race in America through the perspective of James Baldwin’s essays.

Sponsored by Humanities New York CARES Grant with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the federal CARES act. 

O Captain! My Captain! A discussion led by Dr. David S. Reynoldsand Dr. Barbara Bair about Abraham Lincoln and Walt Whitman.

WWBA is delighted to present “O Captain, My Captain!”, a discussion about Abraham Lincoln’s life and times, and Walt Whitman’s poetry & speeches following Lincoln’s untimely passing. On April 15th, 1865 President Abraham Lincoln succumbed to his injuries after being assassinated by well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth. Upon hearing a first-hand account of the assassination, Walt Whitman immediately sat down and penned a poetic elegy to the fallen leader. “O Captain! My Captain!” is now one of America’s most beloved poems.

Event Video Link:  https://youtu.be/Yv9RXMDmnpk

David S. Reynolds, Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, will discuss his book Abe: Abraham Lincoln in His Times, winner of the prestigious Lincoln Prize and selected as one of the Wall Street Journal’s Ten Best Books of the Year in 2020. The discussion will explore Lincoln in a culturally biographical context. David S. Reynolds: http://davidsreynolds.com

Barbara Bair, Curator of Literature, Culture, and Arts in the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress will present items from the Library of Congress’ collection that relate to the many public lectures Whitman gave while simultaneously mourning and celebrating Lincoln. She will show the “Death of Lincoln” tickets, printed programs, and the actual reading copy that Whitman used to give his lectures. Barbara Bair & Library of Congress: https://crowd.loc.gov/campaigns/walt-whitman