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

Walking With Whitman Poetry in Performance series featuring Afric McGlinchey and Richard Bronson with music by Josie Bello.

Event Video Link: https://youtu.be/b0dPRQr9NNg

Walt Whitman Birthplace Association (WWBA) is pleased to present the 11th season of Poetry in Performance: Walking With Whitman, hosted by Writer-in-Residence George Wallace. (See links mentioned in this video below). 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. April’s featured readers are Ireland-based Poet Afric McGlinchey and Long Island Poet Richard Bronson. This series is funded by Poets & Writers Inc. with funds from NYS Council on the Arts with the Support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the NYS Legislature. Visit https://PW.org​ to learn more.

An award-winning poet, reviewer, and journalist, AFRIC MCGLINCHEY has worked as a freelance editor for twenty years, in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Ireland. Author of Ghost of the Fisher Cat (Salmon Poetry, 2016), and The lucky star of hidden things (2012), both of which have been translated into Italian and published by L’Arcolaio, she has won several prizes, including the Hennessy poetry award, two Arts bursaries, a Faber Academy Fellowship, and selection for an Italo-Irish Literature Exchange. A native of Ireland who grew up in Zimbabwe, Afric is a graduate of Rhodes University and the University of Cape Town. She has lived in Paris, London and Spain prior to her return to West Cork, Ireland. Elected as one of Ireland’s ‘Rising Poets ’by Poetry Ireland Review, Afric’s work was also selected for a Poetry Series on ‘Dislocation’ at Bologna University in Italy. She was awarded an Arts Council of Ireland bursary to complete a hybrid flash memoir, forthcoming this year from Broken Sleep Books.

RICHARD BRONSON is on the Faculty of the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care & Bioethics at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University. He has received the Poem of the Year Award of the American College of Physicians and is the author of Search for Oz (2006), Silent Music (2009), Passage: Poems New & Selected (2014), and Wearing Masks (2015). He is on the Board of Trustees of Long Island Poetry Collective (LIPC) and facilitates poetry workshops with a group of LIPC members.

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 https://josiebello.com/

Walking With Whitman Poetry in Performance series featuring Larry Beckett and Ed Luhrs with music by Bryan Gallo. Now in its 11th season!

Event Video Link:  https://youtu.be/70HEoWW2fdw

Walt Whitman Birthplace Association (WWBA) is pleased to present the 11th season of 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. March’s featured readers are Portland, OR-based poet Larry Beckett and local poet Ed Luhrs.

Larry Beckett, born April 4, 1947, is an American poet, songwriter, and literary critic. While attending high school in Anaheim, he made friends with classmate Tim Buckley, which launched them into writing songs, including the modern standard, Song to the Siren. His poetry ranges from brief lyrics and songs to blank sonnets, collected in Songs and Sonnets, to 100-page narrative poems: Paul Bunyan, Wyatt Earp, and Amelia Earhart are in print. His book Beat Poetry is an anthology and study of the poetry of the fifties San Francisco renaissance. For 47 years, Beckett worked on the epic American Cycle, a series of long poems, including: U. S. Rivers: Highway 1, Old California, Paul Bunyan, John Henry, Chief Joseph, Wyatt Earp, P. T. Barnum, Amelia Earhart, Blue Ridge, U. S. Rivers: Route 66. American Cycle will be published in April 2021 by Running Wild Press in Los Angeles.

Ed Luhrs started his craft years ago and remains an active participant at events on Long Island and in New York City. His interests, reflected in his writing and performance, include theatrical monologue, humor, dialect, folklore, ancient history, as well as orchestral, jazz, and traditional folk music.

Bryan Gallo is a Long Island based singer-songwriter who is inspired by the pressures and consequences of living life romantically. Intrigued by both the sounds of alternative country-rock and wistful pop music, he embarked on a career as a performing singer-songwriter and began to pen songs that would be deeply personal but still readily accessible. Steeped in reflective heartache, the lexicon of Gallo’s lyrics stands as a testament to his raw talent as a musician while weaving a flush and relatable narrative. In 2014, he self released The Party Guest, a debut full length album of all original material produced by Pete Mancini which featured the Roots-Rock band Butchers Blind who served as the album’s session musicians. At the tail end of 2015, Gallo recorded and released an EP of Christmas themed original songs and standards titled Santa Songs, that was self produced with production and engineering assistance from Mick Hargreaves. Bryan is currently at work on new recordings which he hopes to release to the public in 2021. For all further information, including performance dates, recordings, social media links, and more, please visit Bryan’s official website at bryangallo.com

Book Release: Professor Kenneth M. Price, PhD presents Whitman in Washington: Becoming the National Poet in the Federal City. 

Event Video Link: https://youtu.be/25sIKKqOqZg

WWBA is delighted to welcome Professor & Co-Director of Walt Whitman Archive Kenneth M. Price, PhD, for a live Zoom discussion about his newly released book Whitman in Washington: Becoming the National Poet in the Federal City. Explore Whitman’s writing while he worked as a government clerk and journalist, sat by the bedside of thousands of wounded soldiers, and observed the tumultuous effects of the Civil War while he lived in the nation’s capital.

Library of Congress curator Barbara Bair presents: “’For you whoever you are’: Transcribing Whitman Manuscripts Online By Democratic Crowdsourcing.”

Event Video Link:  https://youtu.be/MXDJk9rWRjU

Barbara Bair discusses getting up close and personal to Whitman’s creative process by participating in the Library of Congress By the People Walt Whitman online crowdsourcing project. Learn how to try your hand at transcribing Whitman’s words from his drafts and musings, or review transcriptions of Whitman’s handwritten and printed works from the Library’s digitized collections. Share ideas for teachers to use the online site in a virtual classroom, or for personal browsing, engagement, and enjoyment. The Whitman campaign includes three projects so far.

Find it here: https://crowd.loc.gov/campaigns/walt-whitman

Barbara Bair is a curator or Literature, Culture and Arts in the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress, and a specialist for digital humanities projects. A member of the organizing committee for the 2019 Washington, D.C., Whitman 200 Festival, Barbara was lead curator for the “Whitman Bicentennial” exhibit and “Walt Whitman Open House” public display featuring Whitman materials from throughout the Library’s collections. Along with a poetry program at the Folger Library, the Open House served as the finale for the citywide celebration of Whitman’s birth.

Walking With Whitman featuring Edgar Carlson.

Event Video Link:  https://youtu.be/SbGUEEOpO5E

WWBA is delighted to present Walking With Whitman: A Virtual Poetry Reading with Poet Edgar Carlson and Community Mic. Poets. This is the 10th season of 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.

Edgar Carlson is a landscape-gardener, poet, taxi driver and grandfather. A resident of Farmingdale, he studied creative writing at Adelphi University’s Graduate Fine Arts program, and has served on the Nassau County Poet Laureate committee. Edgar has been writing poetry since Lyndon Johnson was president.

Linda Sussman is a Long Island, NY-based singer-songwriter whose music blurs the lines of contemporary folk and blues. With vocals reminiscent of Joan Baez infused with shades of Joni Mitchell and a strong fingerpicking guitar style with a touch of slide, Linda delivers her songs straight from the heart — honoring the human spirit, celebrating triumphs, rallying for justice, and some just for fun. (lindasussman.com)

Britney Russell (Bexpressivesoul) is a 23-year-old International Poet that sprang from the fruitful soil of Jamaica. She can be found on any social media platform as Bexpressivesoul.

Samantha Kolber’s poems have appeared in Oddball Magazine, Mom Egg Review, Tiny Seed Journal, Rise Up Review, Hunger Mountain, and other journals and anthologies.

Emily-Sue Sloane (emilysuesloane.com) lives in Huntington Station, NY. Her poem, “Something’s Not Right” won the CAW Anthology Winter 2020 poetry award. Writing helps her to appreciate life, especially in a pandemic.

Eric Hafker holds a B.A. in English and M.A. in Creative Writing from Queens College, CUNY, and was the recipient of its 1990 James R. Kreuzer Poetry Prize. He also studied at the Goethe Institute in Murnau, Germany.

Kim Ward is a multimedia artist and the founder of The Vermont Playwrights Circle. Her short plays have been performed around Vermont and her poetic play, Angel in the Fire was accepted into the Last Frontier Theater Conference in 1998.

Kyle Singh is an Astronomy researcher at Columbia University and resides in Hicksville, NY. He has been published in several outlets and most recently had his poetry featured in Down in the Dirt Magazine.

Spoken word and CD launch with Mary C. M. Phillips and friends.

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

WWBA is delighted to present Spoken Word Reading with Mary C. M. Phillips. She recently launched her new CD Music of the Forest: Spoken Word Poetry. Special guests include two special guests: musician, Paul Ammendola (Red Words) and poet, Linda Trott Dickman (Road Trip and Robes).

Music of the Forest is a metaphysical romance. An escape. A journey from subway-to-forest floor via seventeen offerings of poetry and music. Listening to poetry is a bit like stepping into a forest. We enter an environment in which our hearts may be stirred by a smattering of enlightened words – as if we’ve found a place in which we feel we belong. Poetry is the language of love, the sword of the psalms, the blade that cuts through the noise so that LIGHT can enter in…and somehow be understood.

Mary C. M. Phillips is a caffeinated wife, mother, writer and musician. Her work has appeared in numerous bestselling inspirational anthologies. Her poetry has been published in Bards Annual 2019, Bards Annual 2020 (Bards Initiative), 2020 Beat Gen, The Mondo, Nassau County Voices in Verse, and CHAOS Poetry Vortex (Local Gems Press). As a musician she has recorded and/or toured with artists such as Matthew Sweet, Don Dixon, Marti Jones, writer and comedian, Rob Bartlett, and satirist, Barry Mitchell. Mary blogs at CaffeineEpiphanies.com

Linda Trott Dickman has been writing poetry since her first sleep-away camp experience when she was ten years old.  She is a recently retired school librarian.  Linda is the author of Robes: The Art of Being Covered,  The Air That I Breathe and Road Trip. Linda’s poetry has been published on-line and in several anthologies.  She is the former Bard’s Laureate 2017-2019 for the Bard’s Initiative and has served on its board. She is the current coordinator of poetry for the Northport Arts Coalition (Northport, NY.) Linda has been teaching poetry to children for over 35 years and has co-lead a poetry workshop for adults at Samantha’s Li’l Bit O’ Heaven coffee house in East Northport, NY  libearyn @ gmail .com

Singer, songwriter, musician, Paul Ammendola grew up in a family of musicians.  He plays piano, drums and sings. He is the lead singer the band Red Words, a contemporary Christian Rock band. Paul’s insightful songs inspire with a mixture of grit and grace.  Mark Phillips is playing guitar with Mary CM Phillips tonight and he is also a member of the Red Words band. http://www.redwordsband.com/

Virtual poetry and music open mic: Diverse voices from Vermont, Canada, the UK, and New York.

Event Video Link:  https://youtu.be/RWo8qgOwiQw